andPOP - Pop Culture With Substance

Even in death, INXS frontman Michael Hutchence is being exploited – by his own sister.

Tina Hutchence joined eBay with the username of lilytigerlily, a reference to Michael’s daughter, reports TopNews.in.

Hutchence attempted to sell her brother’s handwritten lyrics to the INXS song ‘Wild Life.’ However, when she was questioned about their authenticity, she backed out on the sale.

She exposed her identity when she again tried to sell memorabilia under that username, stating in the description that she got the item “While I was researching my book Just a Man on my brother Michael Hutchence.”

Forget the latest exploits of Britney, Jessica or Paris ? the hottest rumour on the Internet right now is the possibility of Microsoft buying eBay.

The New York Post was the first media outlet to report the possible news, but the move would likely cause anti-trust issues in the States and was quickly rebutted.

The Post said that Microsoft set its sights on eBay after it lost a bid to merge with AOL, which ended up merging with Google instead. So Microsoft turned its attention to eBay and the Yahoo search engine.

Reportedly, Microsoft founder and CEO Bill Gates is more excited at taking over eBay rather than Yahoo because of its technological capacities.

Although eBay and Microsoft are seen as two very different companies, they share the same nemesis – Google. For Microsoft, Google’s threat is its search capacities. eBay sees a threat in Google due to its online classifieds and the company’s Google Wallet payment system, which is still in development and would be a competitor to Google’s online payment system, PayPal.

Both Microsoft and eBay would not comment on the rumours.

Google is taking over the Internet, one company at a time.

Google Inc. is reportedly preparing an online-payment system that would compete with PayPal, the largest internet payment system and the top choice of the eBay auction site, according to the New York Times.

The Times reported that an online retailer has been approached by Google to help them with this new venture.

Some people have already named the new system “Google Wallet”, according to Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor, who told The New York Times that several of his clients referred to this as the name of the payment service.

Google’s flagship search engine and its Froogle shopping service attract Internet customers but the company only gets revenue from selling ads that appear next to search results.

This service would allow Google to compete with eBay as well as with the popular free site Craigslist.

A payment system would help Google bring individuals and small businesses who are not authorized to accept credit cards online into its marketplace, says the Times.

As word spread of Google’s plans, eBay Inc. shares fell Monday as analysts believe Google’s plans to expand into electronic payments would overwhelm the online auction web site’s PayPal business, reported Business Week Online.

Shares of eBay Inc. fell 61 cents to $37.44 on Monday afternoon trading of the Nasdaq.

PayPal is one of eBay’s most profitable sources of revenue, accounting for $233.1 million of eBay’s total first-quarter revenue of $1.03 billion, says Business Week Online.

eBay is gearing up to launch a 6 month digital music test where record companies can list their artists’ music and let eBay users purchase the tunes. Independent labels and artists will also be able to sell their music, providing them with another outlet for selling.

eBay is currently finishing up its Digital Software download test, but won’t comment on its success or whether it will continue to provide a service.

eBay will compete with Download.com and garageband.com