Karen Webster

PayPal’s Thompson to Take Reins at Yahoo
January 26, 2012

Talk about starting 2012 off with a bang! It can now be confirmed that Scott Thompson, President of PayPal since 2008, will become the CEO of Yahoo. The announcement is a real shocker for many reasons, but mostly because he will be leaving PayPal at...

Verizon May Say No: Where Does This Leave Google Wallet?
December 06, 2011

Couldn’t resist the opportunity to weigh in, briefly, on the story that had the Web in an uproar yesterday. Seems as though Verizon may be giving Google the proverbial lump of coal a little early this year by saying ixnay to its Wallet. (Read Verizon’s...

And Visions of Smartphones Dance in their Heads (and in the Stores)…
November 27, 2011

The holiday season is upon us. I know, wasn’t it just July? That aside, ’tis the season of parties, gift buying and giving, holiday songs and TV and movie classics that put the meaning of the holiday season in the proper context. And the holiday...

Op-Ed: Holy Commerce Batman, It’s the X.commerce Platform
October 16, 2011

Last week eBay and PayPal made news at its X.commerce Innovate Developer Conference in San Jose. It was a few days of back-to-back press releases, commentary and cyberbuzz as everyone tried to digest the announcements that came fast and furiously. Here is the rundown of...

2012: The Year of the Mobile Payment?
October 12, 2011

Mobile. Everywhere. Opportunity. Everywhere. This was the theme of the GigaOm Mobilize 2011 conference held one week ago in San Francisco. Over two days during 50 sessions, participants debated the impact of the mash-up of cloud computing and the mobile Web for driving new opportunities...

Handicapping Google in its Mobile Race with PayPal and Others
September 26, 2011

PART 1: • Handicapping PayPal in its Mobile Race with Google and Others PART 3: • Handicapping PayPal and Google in the Mobile Transaction Platform Race Yesterday, I gave my thoughts on what PayPal had going for it in its race to win or at...

Handicapping PayPal in its Mobile Race
September 26, 2011

PART 2: • Handicapping Google in its Mobile Race with PayPal and Others PART 3: • Handicapping PayPal and Google in the Mobile Transaction Platform Race Ah, September! It’s the beginning of fall: back to school, football, sweaters here in Boston, and now apparently, the...

Main St. vs. Wall St. – Which Does Online Innovation Hurt Most? (Answer May Surprise...
September 21, 2011

San Diego was the host to WesPay’s annual payments forum this year, appropriately themed “Payments in Transition.” The ballroom at the Westin Hotel was packed, as members from the nation’s oldest and largest regional payments association gathered to soak up the latest and greatest on...

Commentary
Groupon IPO Delay: Is a Strategic About-Face Next?
September 06, 2011

OK, having  just written a little analysis on the deal space, I was feeling pretty prescient about the Groupon IPO delay story that popped up literally hours after my story was published on PYMNTS.com. No, it had nothing to do with Andrew Mason reading my...