Steve Woda's blog

Core Capital Leads $10 Million Financing for Covega Corporation

Core Capital Partners, one of buySAFE's venture capital investors, is pretty active this quarter.  It was announced last week that Core is leading a $10 million round of financing in Covega Corporation.

Core Capital Leads $4.4 Million Series B Investment in Inlet Technologies

One of buySAFE's investors  is Core Capital.  Core Capital is a $370 million fund located in Washington, DC.  Core has been a fairly active investor in 2006, and this week, it was announced that Core led a $4.4 million Series B investment in Inlet Technologies.

Thought of the Week - 08/26/06

For those of you that know me, you know that I appreciate inspirational quotes, poems and stories.  Life is a complicated journey, and personally, I believe one of the keys to success in life and business is learning from others and their experiences.

As Otto von Bismarck once remarked...

Fall 2006 PESA (Professional eBay Sellers Alliance) Summit in San Francisco, CA

The Professional eBay Sellers Alliance (PESA) has announced that its Fall 2006 Summit will take place in San Francisco, California on 9/20/06 - 9/22/06.  I have attended three or four PESA Summits, and they are always fabulous events.  The attendees list includes many of eBay's largest merchants, and since most of them run fairly large multi-channel operations, these sellers also represent some of the most successful small and medium e-commerce retailers in the world.  Many of the largest e-commerce service providers will also be in attendance including eBay, Google, Overstock.com Auctions, Amazon.com, PayPal, buySAFE, ChannelAdvisor, and Infopia.  Therefore, the Summit is a great business development event as well.

If you haven't registered for the event, you should do so quickly.  The event is limited to the first 300 registrants.  You can register at PESA's website.

Top 10 Tips to Avoid Phishing Scams and Identity Theft

Earlier this week, I posted on the subject of eBay and PayPal phishing email scams.  It is impossible to completely protect yourself from the bad actors, but I wanted to share with you my recommendations on how to protect yourself from these types of scams.  The following are my top 10 tips on how to avoid phishing scams and identity theft:

1) Never click on the hyperlinks in emails
The text you see as an email hyperlink may be cloaked or hidden.  The cloaked hyperlink could take you to a website that you weren't planning to visit.  If you aren't completely sure of the source of the email, you should simply retype the URL directly into your browser.  This is one of the best ways to avoid fake hyperlinks and the threats associated with phishing emails.

Grotech Portfolio Company, MEDecision, Files for its IPO

One of buySAFE's investors is Grotech Capital located in Timonium, Maryland.  It looks like Grotech might well have exit with one of its investments, MEDecision.

buySAFE Hits the 3 Million Bonded Product Listings Milestone

There is big buySAFE news this week.  buySAFE passed the 3 million bonded product listings milestone.  The announcement was made on the buySAFE blog earlier this week.

This is exciting because it means that there are more than 3 million items for sale at buySAFE Shopping and bonded by buySAFE.  The Bonded Items can be found on eBay, Overstock.com Auctions, and TIAS.  In a few weeks, you will begin to see Bonded Items direct from merchants' website stores.  Obviously, the more Bonded Items avaiable for sale, the better the experience for shoppers looking to buy safely.  Therefore, this exciting news for everyone.

Congratulations to the entire buySAFE team!  Nice work.

How To Avoid PayPal Fraudsters

Ted Richardson at Fraud, Phishing and Financial Misdeeds had a great post last week on "The Art of Defeating a PayPal Scammer - Part II"  It is a good read, and Ted's tips are right on.

PayPal provides users a number of educational resources including "How to Spot a Spoof".  Also, eBay's Senior Vice President of Trust & Safety, Rob Chestnut, has written an eCommerce Safety Guide that I have found interesting as well.  You can listen to Rob Chestnut in this BusinessWeek interview, "Fighting Fraud on eBay".

In spite of all the work Rob Chestnut has done over the last few years to combat eBay frauds, emails that appear to come from eBay and PayPal continue to one of the biggest risks to online surfers in 2006.  I personally receive a half dozen fake eBay or PayPal emails a week, and I am not alone.

According to The Arbor Networks Security Blog, eBay and PayPal were the #2 and #3 targets of phishing attacks in the first quarter of 2006.  I have seen other stats that are less severe, but obviously, eBay and PayPal phishing emails are a major risk to consumers.

Obviously, the point here is to be careful when surfing online and reading your email.  I will provide you with my specific tips for avoiding phishing scams later this week.

The Virginia Joint Commission on Technology & Science (JCOTS) Cybercrimes Advisory Committee

I was recently appointed to the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Joint Commission on Technology & Science Cybercrimes Advisory Committee. The general purpose of the advisory committee is to study and advise on key cybercrime issues under consideration by JCOTS and by the Virginia legislature.

The focus for this year’s advisory committee is computer trespass and cell phone spam.
Specifically, we will be studying HB 254 (2006) and HB 1354 (2006) during the 2006 legislative interim.  We will work to determine what changes need to be made, if any, to further refine these bills.

HB 254 ammends the Commonwealth's existing computer tresspass statute by adding three provisions prohibiting certain forms of spyware. In addition to the three provisions, there was a proposed amendment exempting certain software providers from the three spyware provisions.

HB 1354 attempts to prohibit unsolicited text messages (spam) sent to wireless devices in the Commonwealth. However, both the CAN-SPAM Act and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) regulate certain types of messages sent to wireless devices. This advisory committee will need to determine what types of messages the state may regulate and if there is a sufficient need for regulation at this time.

During our first meeting in late July, the Cybercrimes Committee also discussed ideas on how to combat eCommerce fraud, pharming, phishing and MySpace.com safety problems.

I was very impressed by both the legislators and the citizen advisors. There are a lot of smart folks in Virginia thinking, proactively, about how to make the Internet a safer place for all of us, and I will keep you up to date on our work over the course of the year.

The Cybercrimes Advisory Committee consists of the following members:

Virginia Legislators:

• Senator Ken Stolle
• Delegate Cosgrove

Citizen Members:

• Michael A. Aisenberg, VeriSign
• Patricia Boggs, Cyveillance
• Charles Curren, AOL
• Steve DelBianco, Association for Competitive Technology
• Anne Gavin, Microsoft
• Thomas W.J.C. McCrystal, Creative Perspectives
• Russell E. McGuire, Virginia Office of the Attorney General
• Adam Ruttenberg, Cooley Godward
• Gerry Stegmaier, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
• Steven L. Woda, buySAFE

Related articles on the Internet:
AuctionBytes
AuctionWire

Nice mention of buySAFE on "Fraud, Phishing and Financial Misdeeds"

Here is a nice blog post about buySAFE.  "Fraud, Phishing and Financial Misdeeds" is a blog dedicated to educating folks about online frauds and the methods for protecting yourself online.  I read it every week, and if you are interested in what the bad guys are doing these days, this is the blog for you.

Help me fight cancer!

The Light The Night Walk is The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's nationwide walk to raise awareness and funds to cure leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families.

My wife and I are participating in the Walk in honor of my father-in-law, who lost a valiant struggle with acute leukemia. Douglas P. Lawless was diagnosed with lymphoma almost 16 years ago. At that time, he was told to get his affairs in order and prepare for the worst. However, he was a fighter and under the treatment advice of an expert, he remained healthy and vibrant for another 15 years. During that time, he was able to see his kids get married, hold and watch his three grandchildren grow and, most importantly, spend time and take many trips with his wonderful wife. Mr. Lawless also played a role in helping to get buySAFE funded and launched.

In early 2005, we learned that Mr. Lawless had complications from the chemotherapy required to treat his lymphoma. Last summer, he underwent a stem cell transplant in Boston in an effort to combat these complications. The stem cell transplant was not successful. In the fall, we learned that the complications had morphed into Acute Myeloid Leukemia. There was nothing else the doctors could do and we returned home in October. Mr. Lawless passed away on March 4, 2006. He was 59.

Doug Lawless was a great father and husband, and there isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t miss him and think about him. It was his wish to increase funding for research so that others would not have to endure what he did. To honor his wishes, I am participating in The Light The Night Walk to raise awareness and funds to cure leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma.

Please join our Walk team or make a donation to support my participation in the Light The Night Walk.  Details are below. Thank you in advance for your generous support.  I sincerely appreciate it.

Join my Light The Night team
Anyone who wants to join my team for the Walk can do so online via this registration form.

Make a personal contribution
If you would simply like to make a donation in support of our Walk, or if you would like to more about why we are walking, you can visit my personal Light The Night homepage.

Walk Information
When:  Saturday October 14th, 2006
Where: Freedom Plaza, Washington, D.C.
Who: Anyone who wants to fight cancer is invited to join.  There is no particular level of fitness required.  The walk is approximately 2.5 miles.
How: The organizers encourage every walker to beat the national average amount ($100) by setting their individual goal to at least $150.  Minimum goals/ donations to walk are $25.  My personal goal is  $1,000.
Why: The need for cures is critical: Every five minutes, someone in this country is diagnosed with blood cancer. Every ten minutes, someone dies. Leukemia is the leading cause of cancer death among children and young adults under the age 20.
Fundraising Rewards: All participants raising $100 or more will receive an illuminated balloon and a T-shirt to wear during the Walk.  Walkers raising $300, $500, $1,000, $2,500 or more can receive other exciting gifts.  Visit www.lightthenight.org for more gift information.

The "Steve Woda LinkedIn Profile" is up and running

I spent a few minutes today working on my "Steve Woda LinkedIn Profile".  I love LinkedIn, and I like the idea of having an online profile that folks can refer to if they want to get the basics on who you are.  I have to be honest though, there are too many of these things out there, and it will be nice when one company has become the defacto standard.

This ties into my favorite subject, portable trust and reputation.  The Wall Street Journal discussed portable reputation on 8/2/06, and they mentioned a few of the companies in this space including Trufina and Opinity.  This subject is going to get bigger and bigger this next year, and I expect buySAFE will be leading the charge with its portable trust signal, the buySAFE Seal.

Important Portable Trust & Reputation blogs:
buySAFE blog
Trufina blog
Opinity blog
Rapleaf blog

Congratulations to buySAFE's first intern, Mike Burke

Mike Burke was our first intern at buySAFE and ultimately, he joined our marketing team in 2004.  Mike was a valuable player on our team as he helped launch buySAFE Shopping - buySAFE's all bonded, comparison shopping engine.  Just before Mike left, he did this Squidoo lens on buySAFE.

This year, Mike decided to go Rwanda with his girlfriend to work at a orphanage.  Personally, I was disappointed to lose Mike, but I also thought this was a terrific opportunity for adventure that he could not possibly pass it up.  If you are interested, you can read about Mike's trip at Rwandan Journey.

I wanted to pass along my congratulations to Mike for successfully climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.  Nice job!

 

e-Fluentials are critical to your marketing success

Check out this terrific post on WOMMA's blog by Andrew Nibley, Chairman and CEO of Marsteller on the subject of how to leverage "e-Fluentials" to market and promote your products.

Andrew is exactly right.  My buySAFE experience has proven to me how important positive e-fluentials are for your business, and this is especially true when launching a new business in a new industry.  e-Fluentials are the folks that will educate the rest of the market on your product.  Just as important is the need to reach out and manage the concerns of negative e-fluentials.  It is obviously common that you won't agree with these folks, but their perspectives provide valuable learning experiences nevertheless.  I also believe these folks, if ultimately converted, will often become your strongest evangelists in the future.  At buySAFE, this has been critical.

Again, check out Andrew's insights here.

Building Buyer Trust to Increase Sales on eBay

If you are interested in maximizing your customer conversions on eBay, you should check out the eBay Workshop I did earlier this week on "Building Buyer Trust to Increase Sales".  Obviously, I talk a bit about buySAFE, but there are a number of other things that I recommend as well.  Give it a read when you get a few extra minutes.  Many of the concepts I shared can be leveraged on your eCommerce site as well.

If you are an online merchant and you aren't focusing on maximizing buyer trust, you are leaving a lot of money on the table.  I refer to these lost dollars as the Trust Discount, and I detail the concept in my buySAFE white paper, "Turning the Risk Discount into a Trust Premium".

One last thought on the eBay Workshop, I want to thank Julie Milleson, buySAFE's employee #3 and up-and-coming marketing guru, for all of her help.  She actually did most of the work to make the eBay Workshop successful.  Thank you Julie.

Related Posts:
"Tune in to buySAFE's eBay Workshop tomorrow" - buySAFE blog