Contrary to cliché, its not hard putting a value on reputation. Accumulate enough bad reviews on eBay or have your business flamed by enough blog writers, and you can literally count the dollars disappearing from your bank balance. Transactional trust has until now been the main focus of online reputation management systems, but is it the only game in town?

eBay have been on a shopping spree lately. On the list - Shopping.com for US$620m and two free classifieds sites (Gumtree and Loquo) bought for an undisclosed amount.

Game aficionados will no doubt be curious as to the result of the legal deathmatch between Vivendi Universal games, and Valve, developer of the insanely popular Half-Life 2 blockbuster. The settlement, which will see Valve's entire boxed inventory yanked off shelves and moved to online distribution should raise a few eyebrows and the blood pressure of retailers hungry for software sales.