MONETISATION://MySpace playing divide & conquer after all

While Google and MySpace are renegotiating their search/ads deal, eBay may be stuck in the middle. According to the Wall Street Journal (which doesn't necessarily mean it's true), Google would like keep eBay off of MySpace. Google and eBay compete not only for commerce leads, but for listings and payments as well.

Under a MySpace/eBay deal, the latter would add 'peer commerce' and payments to the former (and what about Skype?).

The interesting thing is in the negotiations part of the story. A MySpace/PayPal deal was on the cards long ago. It looks like it would allow MySpace to stay in control and demand a large cut of any revenue sharing deal by using a basic divide & conquer strategy after all.

ECOMMERCE://Amazon launches new brand

Amazon.com added a new store (in beta, though), this one devoted to shoes and handbags (there already is a shoes section on the main site).

What is striking about this one is the new brand name: Endless.com. This looks like a first and could be related to the brand values of suppliers, who may wish to not get behind the Amazon brand.

As usual, the site appears highly customer centric (great search, free overnight shipping, free return shipping, 110% price guarantee, 24 hr customer support). Free returns could be bad for margins especially when shoes are concerned (but as we know, Amazon is in the volume business). Still, wouldn't it be smarter to limit some of these excellent customer services to Amazon Prime subscribers?

On the side: it seems that Riya's Like.com (image search, for now devoted to jewelry, clothing, and ... shoes and handbags!) would be a nice add-on to the site.