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PayPal Goes Public
fluffhead234 writes: "Looks like IPO's for internet companies can still bring in something. PayPal, the online payment people, raised just over 70 million in their IPO: PPay Pal IPO"
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Maybe this is the start of another internet boom, it seems after the marketing lows of the internet where companies were failing constantly after 6 months in action the tides are turning. The companies that have entered into business on the internet, such as paypal with a sound business idea are now starting to get the rewards they deserve.
http://www.webhostingtalk.com
Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot.
I think it's interersting that paypal both created (and jumped on) a new marketplace: easy, convenient, secure online funds transfers _for_the_little_guy_. Thanks to Paypal, instead of paying 2-3% to Visa/MC (Amex is the worst: it used to be 7% surcharge) and getting a credit card scanner, anyone could accept credit cards. But then they blew it. Poor security, aweful customer service... I was an early adopter, and really liked the service when it came out. They saw a market, assessed the needs, and then... ignored them. Oh Paypal, what happened? You could have been so great... but now they're just one of a thousand.
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
A company that is supposed to to protect our private financle interests answering to the common stock holder ... So when it tanks does this mean they will dip into our credit cards/bank accounts to stay afloat and please the share holders?
All your accounts are ours!
TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
From what I understand, PayPal is facing hard times, and the negative publicity they've been getting lately is not helping matters. I'm not sure I would want to put my money into a company in this situation. Raising money to expand your company is one thing, but a company raising money to stay afloat is never a good financial investment. With the whole Enron fiasco happening, I think people will be a little gun shy in investing in this company.
As a buyer, Paypal is nice, because they accept Amex, where other services don't, and I prefer to use the green card. As an occasional seller, I don't use them anymore due to restrictions they claim have been imposed upon them, limiting the amount that maybe transferred from one person's account to anothers. Last I used it it was only good for $100/mo, now I can't receive cc payments unless I sign up for more service, which I haven't done, but expect the fee schedule to be less than welcome, from dealers I have talked to.
On another tack, I'm not too surprised the IPO was only for 70 million, investors aren't as likely to run willy-nilly (a highly technical term) to throw money at. I think Paypal does have a bright future, particularly since they've made it easy for me to buy and sell things to people overseas, and I have a contact here, if it goes wrong. I'd just like more insurance, when the seller withdraws all their funds and runs away without sending anything, rather than a confirmation.
"Yep, they ripped you off, bud. How else may we be of service?"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Nokia Ventures is in on paypal, as the article states. Nokia Ventures focuses portfolio priority on mobility and IP related businesses. BMC Software is a partner, along with Nokia and others, in Nokia Ventures. BMC deals with business solutions, that wonderful catch-all, but a look on their site will tell you these people are very supply-chain oriented.
This is of course jumping to many conclusions reeking more of wishful thinking than any sense of reality, but the potential for synergy here just tickles me silly...
I'm picturing an entire order-shipping-billing cycle, along with the obligatory online supply chain management system, all operated from PDA's and/or cell phones...
Any suit with a geek-streak such as me is no doubt drooling by now.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
"And this Google search on PayPal fraud reveals >20K hits.
& q =Fraud+PayPal&btnG=Google+Search&meta="
http://www.google.co.uk/searchhl=en&safe=active
Now don't get me wrong, Pay Pal may have some security issues, but that line above isn't really convincing... Try searching for "britney spears naked" and tell me how many hits you get. I'm pretty sure she's never been nekkid for the camera...
After I spend $940 more on paypal (even though it's coming of a credit-card) I will no longer be able to use paypal, according to them, until I provide them a bank routing number.
So, I buy something on Ebay, wanna pay with my CC, why the hell does this company need access to my bank account?
Things like that, even though I've never had any trouble with paypal, set off all sorts of little red flags in my head!
Don't you have to have a license to start a bank? What about issuing your own currency (Paypal dollar)?
When the banking system was first concieved banks issued their own bank notes until governments stepped in and created their own central bank with that sole responsibility.
So surely what paypal does is illegal?
You must not have taken Macroeconomics. Yes you are right a dollar is a dollar when it is in a bank, but when someone credits your "account" is it still worth a dollar. Remember Paypal is not a bank. An example, Right now I have $100 credit at Macy's, I would rather have the cash. I would be willing to sell someone that credit for a discount of say 20% So to me a Macy's dollar is worth 0.80 US$ Another illustration, I take $20,000 cash that was under my matress and deposit it in a bank, they credit my account. You want to buy a car but have no cash so you borrow $20,000 from the same bank and buy the car. The car dealer deposits the money in the same bank and they credit the car dealer's account. Now I still have a $20,000 dollar credit and the car dealer has a $20,000 credit. The bank just created $20,000! This example is why interest rates are so important and why banks are so heavily regulated and audited. Remember the savings and loan crisis, banks created 300 billion that just wasn't there.
Free cell phone tracking
What is "peer to peer" about c2it ? As far as I can tell, it is a system where a transaction moves money in accounts on a central computer. Isn't that what paypal is ?
Also, VISA, MasterCard, American Exprese, and the other associations you so breathlessly refer to aren't peer to peer either.
I think you are confusing the term "peer to peer" with the idea of allowing account holders who normally only deposit paychecks and then buy things to also receive other payments into the account. But letting each account be a "merchant account" is not peer to peer, it's just a shift in the way people are using money.
A peer to peer payment system would not require that you have an account with some corporation. It would associate a person with a GPG or PGP key, and whether or not to trust the IOU or payment would be up to the receiving party, using something like PGP's web of trust. In that case the account creation, decisions about trustworthyness, and all the other details of a payment system are pushed down to the user level -- each person can be his own bank, so to speak, and they are all equal in the eyes of the protocol and system (but not in the eyes of other users, perhaps). That's peer to peer.