With great results on the earnings release, a few minutes ago, I was excited to hear the whole glowing report by Meg Whitman & team. I tuned in early.

Evidently, it's not a good idea to tune in early. I kept refreshing my page only to miss the first 14 minutes. So I'll be following up and re-capping when the webcast is archived later tonight. In the meantime...

5:14 p.m. -- CEO Meg Whitman is excitedly talking about PayPal when I tune in, and quickly goes on to Skype, talking about the free SkypeOut North America promotion, saying that U.S. and Canada downloads tripled and "revenue has accelerated past pre-campaign levels" despite the free nature of the campaign.

5:18 p.m. -- "Never stand still, adjust with lightning speed to whatever comes our way," is the strategy, says Meg. She also points out the many doubters along the way -- "why does eBay need a bank?" and "what is eBay doing with Skype?" -- but says that doubters have now been quashed. She's a really excellent speaker, eBay's speechwriter should get a bonus.

5:22 p.m. -- Now time for CFO Bob Swan. I think all CFO's should be named "Bob." He begins to rattle off the financial results. User growth continues to be strong, with 10 million new users in the quarter. Auction listings showed a year-over-year growth of 35%, and 106 million new listings in the stores, total. That's 3.1 million new users in the U.S., and U.S. listings grew 15% (guess most of that growth is coming outside the U.S.).

5:25 p.m. -- U.K. is the most profitable international market. Bob mentions the purchase of the leading Swedish auction site this quarter. In Korea, new listings grew at 112% (wow), and the management team is innovating -- they launched a mobile platform and partnership with SK Mobile, the leading local wireless operator.

5:29 p.m. -- $339 million in PayPal revenue, with 9 million new accounts -- 114 million accounts total. $8.9 billion total purchases processed for the quarter. Merchant services now comprises 35% of total purchases processed.

5:30 p.m. -- The PayPal debit card, PayPal credit card, and PayPal buyer credit are all becoming "entrenched" and the virtual PayPal debit (the description of which, I missed)

5:31 p.m. -- What about Skype? Revenues of $44 million, a sequential increase of 26%. "New users continue to attract more new users," and the "network effects are powerful" plus users love the SMS messaging -- 30,000 messages sent per day. Revenue guidance for the year is on track, but still not a huge dollar amount.

5:32 p.m. -- Eww. Margins are down four percentages points, thanks to Skype and investments in operations. Sales and marketing and product development remain flat in terms of margins, while general and administrative is up two percentage points.

5:35 p.m. -- More cash on hand than at any time in the history of the company; eBay plans to initiate a share repurchase program, financed from working capital and to a total of $2.1 billion.

5:38 p.m. -- Bob is "putting the quarter in perspective," with 30% topline growth, and gross margins of 80% which "puts us in select company." I'll say. Operating cash flow of half a billion dollars -- he believes the current value of the company is not reflected in its share price. "We continue to monetize our unique and highly complementary assets."

5:40 p.m. -- Question time.

5:40 p.m. -- Mary Meeker with Morgan Stanley wonders if the company would still be buyers of its shares at $35 per share -- "but I won't ask that question" (giggles from Meg). She wonders if the planned listing price increase, plus the combination of Skype and Yahoo!, will give more revenue than eBay has projected. "We continue to believe we can deliver $200 million for the year," says Bob in regards to Skype's revenue; Meg says she expects everyone to be "pleased" with the revenues from listing fees; and Yahoo! is expected to be good. But no real answers.

5:45 p.m. -- Mark from Prudential wonders if the better advertising market, plus the partnership with Yahoo!, will allow eBay to monetize its pageviews better. Meg says yes, probably, she imagines the partnership will allow them to monetize pages they're not monetizing now.

He also asks about a slowdown in retail sales market-wide, and wonders if eBay has seen this, too? Meg says, no, but she's worried about eBay getting away from its most perfect balance (bad chi?), and she wants to work on that.

5:48 p.m. -- I'm trying to get a fix on Meg's vernacular, but we're talking a lot about the balance between "core" (i.e. auction listings put up by any old person) vs. "storefront" (i.e. the fixed price auctions under eBay's stores links). It's been wrong, and they're working hard on it, partly by increasing the cost of storefront listings, effective 30 days from now. She thinks it will be good.

5:52 p.m. -- Talking about eBay Motors. Motors has always been a huge win for eBay, and it's becoming even more so, with big moves in the U.K. and throughout Europe. In the U.S., says Meg, they're testing a new format in four markets that will help the company weather the softness in autos. She says the site ops center showed a remarkable decline in activity during the World Cup games in Germany and other European auction sites.

5:59 p.m. -- Jeffries & Co wants to know about Google Checkout. Would eBay consider lowering PayPal fees to become more competitive? And there is early indication of lukewarm success of eBay Express... will they do something to jumpstart?

"Let me give you some perspective here," says Meg. I think she wants to slap Jeffries & Co. PayPal allows you to have ultimate choice, she says ... cash, direct from bank account, or credit card. Merchants get control of the customer (no clicking off their web site to pay with PayPal). She's not reducing the fees, no way, and she seems a little eager to prove how much they're going to kick Google Checkout's butt.

Early survey results say that nine out of 10 users are positive toward eBay Express, and five out of 10 say they'll use eBay more b/c of it. So there.

6:02 p.m. -- Are they working to increase revenue per listing on storefronts? Will they change store inventory formats? The inventory stays on there (says Meg) 14x the time that core listings do. She thinks store operators just need better-priced, more quality inventory, and less of it.

6:08 p.m. -- Last question, Robert Pack, Bear Stearns. He wants to "get a feel on the demand side of the equation." The price increase will influence the supply side, moving items from "store to core," when will demand come through? Meg thinks that demand is still there, but fixed-price items have no outbid notices, no watching, they're just not fun. If the inventory is in front of the right people, with more auction format-listings, people will increase their demand. Build it, they'll come.

And that's the end!