EBay Inc's (NASDAQ: EBAY) announcement of another quarter of weak core listings, particularly in the United States and Germany, is leading to a new launch of the auction leader's webpage in the fall.

However, despite the need to reorganize its weak core product and get listings growing again, eBay continues to grow revenue, earnings and, especially, free cash flow. Better conversion rates and higher average selling prices (ASPs) are offsetting the weakness in listings.

This ability for eBay to grow these important metrics during a product transition demonstrates how powerful its platform is. Generating advertising revenue is another source of big revenue generation that is very much in its early stages of growth.

Paypal continues to be an outstanding business and a big contributor to cash generation. Skype, however, is beginning to roll over as activations are below target. While demonstrating strong initial growth, new initiatives need to be put in place to get this business model where it needs to be.

Meg Whitman, eBay's CEO, said the company is a social commerce business targeting people's innate desire to connect. It appears eBay has to improve its platform, but in the interim, it continues to grow ASPs and conversions. Not too many companies have had the ability to do that over time.

Paper is King! Long live the wood products! Ah yes, that is the single most dependable mantra upon which my home state of Wisconsin is built. First there was the early fur trade that brought eager French entrepreneurs into the region. Then, there were profitable but short-lived mining opportunities that helped bring in the railroads. As land was cleared and transportation options increased, we became farmers and dairy providers extraordinaire. But perhaps most important of all have been our trees. Remember Chicago, we built you not once but a second time also after you burned the first efforts to the ground!

So what has this got to do with investing? Well, if you don't even feel a connection, perhaps you'd like to read further. There's a lot of activity swirling around the wood products sector and it's not all bad. For instance, did you know that recent polls have concluded that the decline in newspaper readership has stalled? Yes it's true, but the pollsters would like you to interpret that as meaning that internet (blog) readership is therefore in decline. I'm sure it makes no difference that the polls I viewed were conducted by agencies who mostly serve the televised news services (chuckle, chuckle, snort, snort). Perhaps one day they'll get wise and realize that newspapers are the apples, blogs are the oranges and televised newscasts are more like tasteless avocados, which are of little use until made into guacamole. For further input on the subject of newspaper journalism and it's future, please read the excellent article by Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine. Newspapers aren't suffering as badly as some would have you believe. I'll write more on this later.

This past week we received news that Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) is planning to cease Life Magazine publication. Then shortly after that we got word that we'd see the demise of Child Magazine. On both counts I'll plead, I'll believe it when I see it, or when I don't see it as the case may be. I'd give you even money on the possibility that both declarations of publication cessation are threats made towards advertising space clients as much as they're announcements to an affected readership. If I'm wrong, then you had better buy shares in the PC notebook manufacturers because they'll be selling a whole lot of them as our magazines drop out of existence one by one. Just remember that I don't think anyone ever got mugged on a subway for a magazine, and you may need to take you laptop along on your next visit to the doctor's or dentist's waiting room.

Coca-Cola Co.'s (NYSE:KO) plans to disclose the caffeine levels in all of its products is a boon to consumers like myself who want to make sure that they aren't missing out.

I am not sure that life as we know can exist without caffeine. I know mine couldn't. My wife and I have a five-month-old son Jacob and as you can imagine sleep is a luxury. I doubt my posts would even be remotely coherent without my daily dose of coffee and my afternoon Coke Zero.

Caffeine may become the new front in the cola wars.

Pepsico Inc. (NYSE:PEP) plans to introduce a new a new version of Diet Pepsi with more caffeine called Diet Pepsi Max and I can't wait to try it out even though I am out of the target demographic of consumers 25-34.

I can't imagine how Coke will respond.

"Extreme Diet Coke?" "Diet Coke Hardcore?"

The possibilities are endless and I will sample them all.

It is without a doubt that Limited Brands (NYSE:LTD) is having an outstanding year. Year to date operating income has approximately doubled over last year and same store sales were showing a 7% increase just prior to November. I'm expecting that year end figures will be right on track with the previous three quarters.

What brought Limited Brands to my attention was their announcement of a new initiative to support the movement to protect endangered forests. It's only right that corporate America shows the government they can do the right thing without it being legislated against them. I live in a region of "working" forests. I have seen responsible forestry practices in action. I've watched as Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin implemented far-reaching and effective sustainable forestry practices. We love our trees, we work them and we protect them. Just last summer there was selected harvesting of mature trees right across the road from my home. I don't know how many thousands of dollars in revenue and income was generated by the project but I'll tell you what, if you stand at the end of my driveway, you can't even tell they were in there.

This announcement by Limited Brands should please environmentalists and the forest products industry alike. Limited Brands has pledged to maintain a high level of post-consumer material in their publications and has vowed to work with their suppliers to find workable options for acquiring the virgin material which quality paper production requires. Based on my experience in the field I think they and their suppliers shall find no shortage of viable options. I think this situation should serve to highlight the movement by corporate America towards environmental sustainability. The more we approve the right moves by our manufacturers, the more they will choose to make those right moves. My thanks to Limited Brands for exhibiting this high level of eco-responsibility.

Oh, and please keep the Victoria's Secret catalogs coming, my wife loves them.

As our site certainly reflects, everything new Google product launch seems to be associated with its ability to "kill" the competition. Putting a "G" in front of anything seems to strike fear in the hearts of investors in competitors, from eBay to Microsoft to AOL. But does Google actually succeed in slaying the knights of Yahoo! with its quiver of wildly-aimed product arrows? An analysis by BusinessWeek suggests, not so much.

Google Talk, for instance, was widely acclaimed as a fearsome challenger to MSN Messenger, AIM, and Yahoo! Messenger. But today, a little less than a year after its launch, the messaging program ranks #10 according to comScore Media Metrix. Social networking site Orkut, hugely popular at launch, is now at less than 1% share in that space (and much though I drooled for an invite, I visited the site once in the past year, although I've frequented many other social networking spots). Google Finance, Google Spreadsheets, and Google blog search have definitely not yet made their home in the "win" column.

The Google new product development process is described by Marissa Mayer as "try a bunch of ideas, refine them, and see what survives." And those that "survive" don't just live, but thrive; Google Maps is now #2 only to Mapquest, and Google News is (in my opinion) the best news search tool available, anywhere.

The big question BusinessWeek asks (and one that no one else is asking right now): does Google even know how to develop a product? The magazine says many of its new services lack "stickiness" and aren't really those that "people want to use." For a company whose product announcements are widely feared and its investors, them's fighting words. Will Google prove to be a conquistador or a schoolyard bully, great at making threats, but quivering inside for fear some competitor might actually stand its ground?

I'm up late watching Charlie Rose's taped interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt. In raving about Google's 20% rule -- that engineers can spend 20% of their time on projects of their own choosing -- Schmidt says that all of their new products come from that 20% "free time." Charlie asks an obvious question, one that's been bugging me for months: "why not make it 50%?"

Schmidt doesn't answer the question, really (he is a CEO after all), basically saying that, although it's a great idea, and they should do it, anarchy would prevail.

Why would anarchy prevail if 50% of a creative worker's time was spent doing creative, independently-chosen work? I think it's a fantastic idea and one that many companies should employ. If workers are selected for their extreme intelligence and ability to innovate, why not have them create the products they wish existed? We'd all be better for it.