dispatches from the new world of work

Cool Friend: Jackson

Our new Cool Friend is Eric Jackson, the author of The PayPal Wars: Battles with eBay, the Media, the Mafia, and the Rest of the Planet. Tom said that when he read the book he had to stay up all night.

My pick for best quote from the interview, because, first, the transition to charging for things that used to be free is a hurdle many websites must face, and, second, because communication is a tool to fix a great many problems:

When we had to change our website and our business radically, especially when we had to start charging fees for what had been a free service, the ability to get that message out there and be straight with customers was key for us. I shudder to think what would have happened to PayPal if we hadn't had that communication strategy.

You can read the complete interview here. Jackson has since left PayPal, and you can see what he's up to now at his website worldaheadpublishing.com.

Cathy Mosca posted this on 12/07/05.

Comments

I dontÂ´t know Mr. JacksonÂ´s book. Perhaps it is worth a recommendation. Perhaps he is a cool friend. But I really do hope, that linking to worldaheadpublishing.com is definitely not a political statement of TPC.

Greetings from "good old Europe"

Stefan Stockinger

Posted by Stefan Stockinger at December 8, 2005 2:40 AM

I wonder if there is anyone capable of seeing these days the good stuff, especially in places where there actually is. By the looks of it family issues were worse than I suspected and at global levels... Please, take it easy, Christmas will pass too.

Greetings from another neighbour of the "good and not perfect Europe"!

Posted by Omara at December 8, 2005 11:44 AM

Yikes! That is a wacky link. Two party politics has the nation in a death grip gasping for air. Public discourse is dead, and divisive propaganda rules the day.

Posted by Michael at December 9, 2005 6:47 PM

Michael: Amen, brother!

Posted by Nancy R. at December 10, 2005 10:31 AM