Thanks Sleeper for sending this in!
At least for now, Half.com will stay whole.
eBay is backing off earlier plans to roll its popular fixed-price marketplace into eBay and rename it eBay Express Buys. While eBay will combine user registration and feedback on both sites over the next few weeks, and plans to move Half.com's back-end systems to eBay, Half.com will remain an independent site.
"After carefully considering ways to offer more options to users of both sites, we have decided to align the two communities more closely together while maintaining the uniqueness of each," eBay said in a note on its site.
The decision to maintain the separate sites came in response to feedback from members, eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove said.
"One of things that we were hearing was the suggestion that we slow it down a bit," Pursglove said.
eBay bought Half.com in 2000 in a move to diversify its site from auction-based trading to fixed prices. eBay has since expanded the selection on Half.com from its original media products--books, CDs and videos--to computers, sporting goods and other items.
News source: CNET
