Soft Guidance at eBay

"Since most actions were initiated late in Q3, we expect to have more visibility after the fourth quarter, but we are cautiously optimistic and remain confident that these changes will help rebalance our marketplace," she said.

While the jury is out on its online marketplace, eBay's PayPal and Skype business lines continued to show signs of impressive growth. PayPal, which now accounts for 24% of total eBay revenue, grew its total payment volume by 37% year-over-year to $9.1 billion.

Skype added nearly 23 million users during the quarter, brining its total to 136 million users in more than 200 countries. "There are few, if any, businesses that can claim such mass global appeal in such a short period of time," Whitman said.

However, Whitman said that monetizing Skype's growing user base was not a priority for the company. Instead, eBay would emphasize acquiring new users for the service and hopes to speed up the growth of its marketplace business as a result of increased communication between buyers and sellers due to the free communication service. "We are not focused on revenue per user in 2007, because the business is too young to do that," Whitman said.

Despite pockets of strength, investors are likely to remain skeptical of the company until it can demonstrate that it has rejuvenated growth in its bread-and-butter marketplace business. eBay's decision to pass up squeezing more money out of each Skype user in the hopes that it can increase the odds of sparking the marketplace business speaks to the importance of this objective.