Where is eBay (EBAY) going these days? Sure, the online auctioneer has the same brand power it's had for years, but the transition to bulk discounter from garage-sale auction house hasn't really occurred like CEO John Donahoe wanted it to.

Instead, we see eBay's marketplace still filled with one-off auctions for all kinds of goods (and junk trading hands) along with thousands of Chinese-based bulk sellers selling everything for a few dollars each.

Today is eBay's Analyst Day, and we're watching the webcast to glean any important bits of info for you. Stay tuned for more throughout the afternoon.

Why did eBay take a stake in craigslist, the everyman's online classifieds? It made sense to me immediately, although I don't think I could put it in dollars and cents: for me and my friends, craigslist is IT (and, it turns out, we didn't find this particular IT on eBay). I got my job, my friends, my gossip, my double stroller, and someone to pick up my beat-up dryer on craigslist. It's how we all connected locally - and it's not nearly so efficient to buy or sell a large but relatively low-value item (hello appliances & baby goods) on eBay.

Meg answers an analyst question about craigslist by saying this: "We say - increasing returns on a city-by-city basis with craigslist. It's the theory that the buyers go where the sellers are, and the sellers go where the buyers are; we see it as, where classifieds get to a critical mass." Translated to say: newspaper classifieds are so over but it wasn't eBay which demolished them: it was craigslist. My question is, how do you monetize that? I suppose time will tell. I'd hate to see craigslist start charging for listing garage sale announcements and, yep, those beat-up old washers and dryers. Meg says that eBay will allow craigslist to remain autonomous (and, one would hope, still free but for job listings). We shall see.

[Disclaimer: I own a few shares of eBay, and next time I have cash to invest, I think I'm buying some more.]

Today is eBay's Analyst Day, and we're watching the webcast to glean any important bits of info for you. Stay tuned for more throughout the afternoon.

Skypecasts and Skype Me! are the names of the game: the answer to "how will eBay integrate Skype with PayPal and auctions?"

Everyone wants to hear more from our favorite CEO, Meg Whitman, and she has taken back the stage after lunch. She discusses the integration between Skype and eBay, raves about Skypecasts, and tells the gathered analysts: eBay transactions that allow potential buyers to "Skype Me" sell for twice the sales price of the transactions, that don't. Her keynote address is that "eBay provides your online reputation, PayPal provides your wallet, and Skype provides your online presence." She makes the argument that you will soon be able to take all of these aspects of your "self" with you wherever you go; "the internet will no longer be just a destination, but the fully integrated and ever present part of your lives."

[Tim Beyers from Motley Fool agrees with Meg: in his opinion, Skypecasts are a fantastic justification for Skype's $2.6 billion purchase price.]

Today is eBay's Analyst Day, and we're watching the webcast to glean any important bits of info for you. Stay tuned for more throughout the afternoon.

According to Skype President Rajiv Dutta, over 7% of worldwide long distance minutes are over Skype. That's truly incredible. Skype is such a young company, too, and far more penetrated in Northern Europe than anywhere else (it was founded in Great Britain). The possibility for growth seems fairly huge. Will it justify the $2.6 billion acquisition cost? More on that, later, as we talk integration. What it will do is give some hope to the people who wonder at the eye-popping richness of a 50x P/E ratio.

I want to just focus on the numbers but Skype is about "conversations," as the execs are telling us, so I'll describe the entirely adorable presentation introduction, in which a middle-aged man somewhere in England talks to his mom over Skype. She's still in her bathrobe. Oh. My. God. I fall over from the cuteness and spend several minutes under my desk.

[Disclaimer: I own a few shares of eBay, and I am responsible for some tiny fraction of those long distance minutes talked on Skype.]

Today is eBay's Analyst Day, and we're watching the webcast to glean any important bits of info for you. Stay tuned for more throughout the afternoon.

"I'll pay you back next time." How many times have you heard that? PayPal wants to change all that by allowing person-to-person payments via your mobile phone. If you are a PayPal executive and you're buying a case of wine in Napa Valley, no need to tote a bunch of cash -- just let your friend pick up the case on his credit card and you can PayPal him back a couple of bills in the parking lot (before putting the half-case in the trunk of your Mercedes sedan, of course). I'm psyched, because next time I go to the Goodwill outlet, and my friend Larissa and I go diving for funky thrift items to re-sell on eBay, we can combine our loot (it's less per pound the more you buy) and I can pay her back instantaneously. Or how 'bout this: garage sales! It's brilliant. If I could use my PayPal account at garage sales, I'd buy so much more.

This is working now, and a new feature that was just released: text-to-pay. There's a demonstration of how it works; the presenter buys a Walk The Line DVD from his phone with his PayPal account (a UPS deliveryman brings it immediately -- yeah, you're cute, eBay). It's great, but you could already buy that DVD with your cell phone (yeah, you had to call the 800 number and tell them your credit card number, etc. - but still. Not changing the world). You can't use your credit card at a garage sale. Your buddy doesn't have a credit card acceptor when you split the check. That's where PayPal makes a difference, in my opinion.

[Disclaimer: I own a few shares of eBay, and I've been known to sell things on eBay, purchased at the Goodwill outlet, for a profit.]

Today is eBay's Analyst Day, and we're watching the webcast to glean any important bits of info for you. Stay tuned for more throughout the afternoon.

eBay is really three brands now: eBay, Skype and PayPal. The PayPal team is on now, and after an introduction by a hugely pregnant woman whose presentation was excellent (but I was in such admiration of her belly that I had a hard time focusing), we got some numbers. This one was interesting to me: $3 billion has been withdrawn using PayPal debit cards.

I have a PayPal debit card, and I can't tell you how nice it was to be able to use funds from eBay sales instantaneously (to buy coffee at Starbucks, naturally). This figure really illustrates how widely the PayPal service has penetrated the interperson payment marketplace.

[Disclaimer: I own a few shares of eBay, and have been known to buy groceries, lattes and glasses of yummy red wine with my PayPal debit card.]