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NEW YORK - Forget Facebook, MySpace or any other online hangout that boasts tens or hundreds of millions of people.

For Teresa Munoz, Athlinks (population: 34,000) is the place to be. She uses the community devoted to competitive running, swimming and biking events to find training partners and get advice, including information about her first Ironman triathlon.

Munoz, 45, of Hacienda Heights, Calif., said she tried finding like-minded people on MySpace, but found only those “looking for people to date, not really there for the sport. I didn’t get as much out of that.”

MySpace, Facebook and, to a smaller degree, Bebo may be getting most of the attention, but social-networking sites geared toward hobbies, sports and other specific interests — alongside those targeting certain age groups, ethnicities or diseases — are finding growing success as supplements to the larger online hangouts or even as replacements.

Katie Ellis, 23, an Athlinks user from Phoenix, said she likes the fact that the site automatically generates rivals, alongside friends, based on races in which they have unknowingly competed together. A competitor at heart, Ellis said she often peeks at their race times and notes how often she had beaten them.

Why not MySpace or Facebook? Ellis said that after seeing her older brother use both, she’s concluded “I think it’s a waste of time.”

Like MySpace and Facebook, the free sites are largely generating revenue through advertising. As the larger sites struggle to capitalize on their diverse membership, the specialty sites believe they can offer advertisers a smaller, but passionate audience for which they’d be willing to pay more — as much as 10 times more, Athlinks estimates.

The popularity of such niches goes to show that big isn’t always better.

Though the larger sites let users create groups on any topic or interest, finding the right groups and identifying the most dedicated members can be daunting.

“What happens is a medium reaches a point where the users of it start to think it’s interesting but it’s too big, there are too many people, it’s too difficult to find what I’m interested in,” said Steve Jones, a University of Illinois at Chicago professor who tracks Internet culture.

It happened with television. It happened with magazines. It’s now happening with the Internet and social-networking sites.

ActiveBoating.com has fewer than 200 members congregating around recreational boating, but the site’s vice president, Randy Young, said he’d rather have the most passionate 200 than a million with only passing interest.

The 1 million users on Goodreads can find one another based on specific books they have read, are reading or want to read — the “compare books” feature returns the percentage of matches between two users’ virtual bookshelves. On News Corp.’s MySpace and Facebook, search is limited to specific keywords or titles.

“I find the people who loved the same novels I did and send them friend invitations,” said Laura Stamps, 51, an author and Goodreads user in Columbia, S.C. “That may be one reason why my (nearly 500 friends) are so chatty. We love the same books.”

Ravelry has become so popular among knitters and crochet lovers that users must wait months before getting off the waiting list for membership.

Those who make it on can share patterns they have created along with ideas on what they can make with the specific types of yarn they own.

“This is invaluable research for someone who is about to invest many dollars and hours of their life in a knitting project,” said Mary-Helen Ward, 56. “It certainly cuts down the chances of expensive disappointment.”

Ward said Ravelry offers depth and breadth on knitting like no other social network. After all, where else could the eLearning project manager at the University of Sydney find “Ivory Tower Fiber Freaks,” a forum devoted to academics who knit?

She said she tried a few craft-related groups on Facebook but found participants “all really young, immature and not very knitting-literate.”

For the startups behind these sites, there’s value in focus.

None are expecting the same types of multimillion dollar deals — News Corp. bought MySpace $580 million, while Microsoft Corp. spent $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook and Time Warner Inc.’s AOL plans to pay $850 million for Bebo.

But they say they are holding their own — not all are profitable or breaking even yet, but they are getting there. Troy Busot, founder of Athlinks, said profits from unrelated businesses are subsidizing the site for now, and any ad revenue is going into improvements.

“We’re really just in a perpetual growth mode,” he said. “As long as we can afford it, we will continue to grow the features.”

SkiSpace.com, meanwhile, just formally opened Dec. 1, with the backing of Olympic skier Bode Miller, and it is still working on marketing opportunities, such as specialized offerings for ski resorts.

Facebook and MySpace are indirectly acknowledging their smaller rivals by letting them — and anyone else — build “widgets” that integrate with the larger sites. That way, Facebook or MySpace users can keep tabs on their other networks without logging off.

In a statement, MySpace added that its users have created thousands of groups around shared interests and hobbies, such that users can “live their entire life online.”

Jones, the Internet professor, said the large sites do need to be mindful of their smaller rivals if users end up splitting their time — along with advertising opportunities.

Randy Jang, 54, of Whistler, British Columbia, said SkiSpace offers a sense of intimacy and comfort, even though technically it’s as open to the rest of the world as the larger sites. He said there’s a sense that as a targeted site, only skiers — and specifically ski racers — are likely to look.

Montreal skier Brittany Godin, 22, has long used MySpace and Facebook to stay in touch with friends. Since SkiSpace opened, she has been logging as many as 10 times a day to check in with fellow skiers.

“Right from the get-go everybody has at least one thing in common,” she said. “They share the same passion, … which I thought was pretty cool.”

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On the Net:

Athlinks: http://www.athlinks.com

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com

SkiSpace: http://skispace.com

Ravelry: http://ravelry.com

Spring is well under way, and you know what that means: Time to put down that joystick, get off the couch, go outside and enjoy some fresh air and sunshine.

Or not.

One of my best gaming buddies says that if God wanted us to be outside, he wouldn’t have invented air conditioning. And when video-game consoles can simulate just about every outdoor sport imaginable, what’s the point of leaving your living room?

Of course, you don’t get any exercise from virtual sports, and most hardcore gamers could probably use a little sun. But video games are definitely less expensive than the gear you need to golf or fish. And you can play a round of video golf in a lot less time than 18 holes on a real course would take.

_”Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds” (Sony, for the PlayStation 3, $59.99): The “Hot Shots” series has long offered the zippiest golf games on the market, providing a lighthearted alternative to more realistic simulations like EA Sports’ “Tiger Woods” games. “Out of Bounds” doesn’t mess around with the formula much, delivering the same bright graphics and lively, anime-style characters that fans have come to expect.

The most significant improvement is the advanced swing control. As in the past, you used timed button presses to determine power and accuracy — but instead of watching a flat meter, you have to watch your golfer’s movements. It does make you feel like you’re more in control of the character, even if it’s not as intuitive as the analog “swing stick” that “Tiger” uses.

The other major addition is online play. You can now compete in tournaments with up to 49 other hackers; everyone plays simultaneously, so you don’t have to twiddle your thumbs while the competition’s on the fairway. It’s fast-paced, challenging and addictive. My only complaint is a small selection of courses, which I hope Sony will rectify with some downloadable offerings. Three stars out of four.

_”Sega Superstars Tennis” (Sega, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, $49.99; PlayStation 2, $39.99; Nintendo DS, $29.99): Similarly, Sega’s new tennis game is pitched as a lightweight alternative to its more demanding “Virtua Tennis” series. The colorful courts recreate scenery from various Sega franchises, while the player roster ranges from Sega celebrities (Sonic the Hedgehog, AiAi from “Super Monkey Ball”) to cult favorites (like Ulala from “Space Channel 5″).

Oddly, even though “Superstars” was developed by the “Virtua” team, its controls feel less precise. Part of the problem is that lobs and drop shots require two buttons (on the Xbox, at least), which is ridiculous, given all the unused buttons on the controller. The Wii controls are a little better, although they’re not as satisfying as the more lifelike swings in the “Wii Sports” tennis game.

Since the special shots are generally ineffective, most points boil down to long baseline rallies. Each character has a “superstar” shot that makes the ball do unpredictable tricks, but the computer opponents usually have no problem returning them. “Superstars” is loaded with minigames, some fun, some pointless, but the variety doesn’t make up for the sluggishness of the main game. Two stars.

_”Sega Bass Fishing” (Sega, for the Nintendo Wii, $29.99): I admit that I find few activities less entertaining than fishing. But I doubt that even the most enthusiastic angler will find much to enjoy in this clumsy, lethargic attempt to bring the sport to the Wii.

First you heave your line into the water, then wait for a fish to bite. Then you reel it in by rotating the nunchaku and occasionally tugging on the remote. Most of your initial attempts will end up with a broken line, but even with practice the whole process is frustrating and repetitious. Which may be the point.

With drab, washed-out graphics and not much variety, there’s little reward for mastering the tough learning curve. Even if you appreciate the Zen of fishing, you’re likely to find this excursion boring. One-half a star.

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On the Net:

_”Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds”: http://www.us.playstation.com/HotShotsGolf/

_”Sega Superstars Tennis”: http://www.sega.com/gamesite/segasuperstarstennis/

_”Sega Bass Fishing”: http://www.sega.com/games/game_temp.php?gamesegab assfishing

Comcast and Pando Networks have agreed to help forge a bill of rights for peer-to-peer file distribution on broadband networks. The companies want to include other industry experts to clarify which choices and controls consumers should have when using P2P.

“Working together, Comcast and Pando can help lead the discussion about what consumers should expect,” said Comcast CTO Tony Werner. “Doing so is in the best interest of everyone involved — ISPs, P2P companies and consumers.”

Reaching Consensus

Comcast and Pando hope to foster an industry-wide consensus on the processes and practices that Internet service providers should use. In particular, executives from both companies say they believe PC users should have the right to control their computer resources when using P2P applications.

“By having this framework in place, we will help P2P companies, ISPs and content owners find common ground to support consumers who want to use P2P applications to deliver legal content,” Werner said.

To quantify their recommendations, the two companies will jointly conduct tests of Pando's Network Aware P2P technology that will measure performance, speed, bandwidth consumption, distance and geography, and their collective impact on ISPs. In addition, Pando said it plans to conduct further tests on the cable, DSL, fiber and wireless networks of other service providers.

“We need more data and analysis of how P2P applications deliver content over a variety of different networks,” said Pando CEO Robert Levitan. “By sharing the test methodology and results, all P2P companies and ISPs can learn how to more efficiently deliver legal content.”

Earlier this month, Pando released trial results indicating that its new P4P protocol is capable of operating at higher speeds than conventional P2P, which in turn promises to optimize network costs for ISPs on Comcast's fiber-optic network, noted Martin Lafferty, head of the Distributed Computing Industry Association.

“The fact that P4P demonstrated enormous benefits worldwide for cable as well as telco-based ISPs, and for small as well as large network operators, augurs extremely well for profitable mutually beneficial collaboration,” Lafferty said.

Protocol Agnostic

Comcast and P2P application developer BitTorrent likewise agreed last month to participate in a collaborative effort to resolve concerns over growing traffic congestion. Comcast expects to migrate to a capacity management technique that is “protocol agnostic” before the end of this year.

The newly announced tests with Pando are expected to provide Comcast with additional data for its management. “This means that we will have to rapidly reconfigure our network management systems, but the outcome will be a traffic-management technique that is more appropriate for today's emerging Internet trends,” Werner said. “We will refine, adjust and publish the technique based upon feedback and initial trial results.”

Comcast also said it intends to aggressively deploy wideband Internet services based on the DOCSIS 3.0 standard to as much as 20 percent of its customer households by the end of this year.

“Additionally, we plan to more than double the upstream capacity of our residential Internet service in several key markets by year end 2008,” said Comcast Executive Vice President John Schanz. “We also plan to take advantage of multi-carrier technology to further increase upstream capacity for all of our broadband customers in advance of the full DOCSIS 3.0 rollout.”

SAN FRANCISCO - When Comcast Corp. Internet subscriber Robb Topolski was prevented from sharing digital files of Tin Pin Alley-era music with other barbershop quartet enthusiasts, the computer engineer launched a personal investigation.

Topolski, 44, soon found that Comcast was blocking such uploads now and then in an effort to keep its broadband pipes unclogged. He said he understood the need of the company to keep Internet traffic flowing freely, but was dismayed that the blocking was done without notice and seemingly at the expense of select Comcast customers who swap files of music, videos and other bandwidth-sucking data.

The Hillsboro, Ore. resident posted his findings last summer on a Web site for “broadband enthusiasts” that touched off a protest that by January grew into a large-scale Federal Communications Commission investigation.

On Thursday, Topolski will be one of the first witnesses called to testify before the FCC at a scheduled daylong hearing into the network management practices of Comcast and its competitors

The hearing is being held at Stanford University and is the second such session the FCC will hold this year. The investigation and public hearings are the agency’s most serious examination of “Net neutrality,” the principle that all Internet traffic be treated equal. Equal treatment of traffic is a long-standing practice on the Internet, and some consumers groups think it should be enforced by regulation because network owners, such as Comcast, have begun asserting more control over the Internet.

“Comcast ultimately has shortchanged some portion of its customers and continues to do so today,” said Topolski, who resigned from Intel Corp. last year to battle colon cancer.

Topolski is just one of 17 witnesses scheduled to testify before the five FCC commissioners. But Comcast has declined an FCC request to send an executive to testify as it did at the agency’s first hearing on Feb. 25 at Harvard University.

“This obviously isn’t just a Comcast issue,” said company spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice, who said a company executive testified at the initial hearing in Boston in February because it was more focused on the company’s behavior than the one scheduled at Stanford.

Comcast also came under fire after the Harvard hearing for hiring “seat warmers” to help pack the auditorium. Event organizers accused the shills of applauding loudly for pro-industry sentiments and hogging seats that prevented company critics from attending. Comcast endured another round of withering cries of censorship afterward.

Fitzmaurice said the seat warmers were necessary to ensure that the company’s views were fairly represented and it was common lobbying industry practice in Washington. She said the company would not be hiring seat warmers for the Stanford hearing.

Comcast acknowledged that it sometimes delays file-sharing traffic for subscribers as a way to keep Web traffic flowing for everyone. After the Harvard hearing, the company said it plans to change the way it manages its network and points to recent partnership announcements with BitTorrent Inc. — a company founded by the inventor of a more efficient successor to file-sharing services such as Napster and KaZaa — and with file-sharing software developer Pando Networks.

After the Pando collaboration was announced on Tuesday, the FCC invited Comcast Chief Technical Officer Tony Werner to testify Thursday.

“We look forward to more fully understanding the goals, scope and time frame of this industry effort,” FCC spokesman Robert Kenny said.

Comcast officials said Werner wouldn’t testify because he doesn’t have enough time to prepare and that he recently suffered a death in the family.

The FCC investigation got started after consumer groups and a provider of online video filed complaints alleging Comcast hampered traffic between users without notice, violating the Internet’s tradition of equal treatment of traffic. Two of the groups also asked the FCC to fine Comcast.

“We want to make sure the Internet stays as it is,” said Ben Scott of Free Press, one of the groups that has asked the FCC to fine Comcast.

Scott plans to urge the FCC during testimony Thursday to enforce a statement it created in 2005 that says consumers are entitled to access all lawful Internet content. But Comcast and others argues that the statement is not a regulation and is unenforceable.

“Should we give more control to the network owners, who can then decide which Web sites load quickly?” Scott asked. “Can they become the gatekeepers for Internet content?”

IBM beat analyst expectations for the first quarter and the company pointed to its global reach in helping to drive growth despite a challenging market.

First quarter revenue was US$24.5 billion, up 11 percent compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expected quarterly revenue of $23.7 billion, based on a consensus collected by Thomson Financial.

Diluted earnings per share were $1.65, up 36 percent from $1.21 in the first quarter last year. That compares to Thomson's consensus expectation of $1.45.

In the Americas, IBM reported first quarter revenue of $9.9 billion up 8 percent from the same period in 2007. Revenue from Europe, Middle East and Africa reached $8.8 billion, an increase of 16 percent over the corresponding quarter last year. Asia Pacific revenue also grew significantly, up 14 percent to $5.1 billion.

There were a couple of sore spots, including OEM (original equipment manufacturer) revenue, which was down 16 percent to $696 million.

IBM also saw revenue decline in its Systems and Technology segment. Revenue for the group was down 7 percent compared to last year, but that decrease drops to 2 percent when excluding the impact of the divestiture of its printing division in June of last year.

In the fourth quarter, IBM saw System z revenue fall by 15 percent but at the time said that it expected increases after the introduction of the z10 enterprise class server early this year. That happened, with a revenue increase of 10 percent from System z server products compared to the first quarter last year, IBM said.

Revenue from the software segment was up 14 percent, reaching $4.8 billion. Middleware products, including WebSphere, Information Management, Tivoli, Lotus and Rational produced $3.8 billion, up 16 percent.

Global Business Services products $4.9 billion, up 17 percent compared to the first quarter in 2007.

(More to follow.)

WASHINGTON - A small Pennsylvania company’s patent lawsuits could hamstring the government’s $1.5 billion effort to make the transition to digital television easier on consumers’ wallets.

Rembrandt Inc. owns a patent on technology that it says is part of the digital television broadcasting standard used by the TV networks. Rembrandt is suing 14 companies, including Walt Disney Co.’s ABC, General Electric Co.’s NBCUniversal, CBS Corp. and News Corp.’s Fox Broadcasting for patent infringement and wants millions of dollars in royalties.

The American Antitrust Institute, a nonprofit advocacy group, asked federal regulators last month to bar Rembrandt from enforcing its patent. Otherwise, Rembrandt’s suits could add “tens of millions” of dollars to the cost of digital TV, most of which will likely be passed on to consumers, the nonprofit said.

“This is a massive tax that Rembrandt is trying to place on the transition to digital TV,” said David Balto, an antitrust attorney who co-wrote a petition the AAI submitted March 26 to the Federal Trade Commission.

The AAI argues that Rembrandt is violating antitrust and fair competition laws by abusing the monopoly provided by its patent.

In recent years, the FTC has required companies to license their patents and set maximum royalties in several cases that involve technology standards.

Industry groups set technical standards in areas such as computer networking and memory chip technologies. The standards let different companies make compatible products.

Television broadcasters will switch to digital-only signals on Feb. 17, 2009, after which analog TVs without cable, satellite or converter boxes won’t work. Through a $1.5 billion coupon program, the government is offering $40 vouchers to help pay for the boxes.

Rembrandt has also sued five cable operators, including Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc., and is in litigation with Harris Corp., one of the companies that makes digital transmitters used by the networks to broadcast digital signals. The company has also targeted television-maker Sharp Electronics with a suit.

The royalties Rembrandt is demanding could be passed onto consumers as higher prices for TVs and for cable service, Balto said.

“We don’t believe that we’re infringing the patents that Rembrandt purchased from others,” Jenni Moyer, a spokeswoman for Comcast, said. The patents are “invalid and unenforceable,” she added.

Representatives of Fox Broadcasting and ABC declined to comment.

Rembrandt didn’t return a phone call or e-mail seeking comment.

The company says on its Web site, however, that it “identifies and acquires patents that hold great market potential” and “pursues and secures revenue from these innovations as established by the U.S. Constitution.”

Rembrandt acquired the patent in question in 2004 from Paradyne Corp., a spinoff from AT&T Inc., which developed the technology and obtained the patent in the 1990s.

To its critics, Rembrandt is a “patent troll,” a term for companies that purchase patents from inventors and then seek to enforce them in court.

“They make money from litigation, not innovation,” Balto said. Balto and Richard Wolfram, an antitrust attorney based in New York who also helped prepare the AAI’s petition, have previously worked for some of the companies sued by Rembrandt.

Rembrandt filed the suits in 2005 and late 2006. The company said in a 2007 letter the networks would license its patent for a fee equal to 0.5 percent of all revenues the companies derive from digital broadcasting, the AAI said.

It’s unclear exactly how the royalty would be calculated, but the four broadcast networks will earn approximately $18 billion from advertising revenue this year, according to Mark Fratrik, vice president of BIA Financial Network, a media consulting firm. If that amount was used, the royalties sought by Rembrandt would be $90 million.

At the core of the AAI’s complaint is that Rembrandt reneged on a commitment AT&T made when it owned the patent. AT&T was a member of an industry group that agreed on a digital television standard in 1995. The FCC then mandated that standard for all digital broadcasters the following year, meaning that the networks can’t use other technologies.

AT&T pledged to license its patent to anyone who asked at a “reasonable and nondiscriminatory rate.” Rembrandt has said in court filings that it isn’t bound by that commitment.

By getting the patent after it became part of a technology standard and then demanding exorbitant fees, Rembrandt is illegally abusing its monopoly, the AAI said.

The FTC recently cracked down on similar practices, what lawyers call “patent ambushes.” In January, it blocked Negotiated Data Solutions LLC, based in Chicago, from seeking higher royalties on patents related to the ethernet computer networking technology.

In a similar case last year, the commission required Rambus Inc. to license certain memory chip technologies to other companies and set maximum royalty rates. That case is on appeal.

FTC spokeswoman Nancy Judy said the agency is reviewing AAI’s petition, but declined to elaborate. There is no set period for the FTC to respond.

Rembrandt’s lawsuits, meanwhile, were consolidated last June in a federal court in Delaware, and could take several years to resolve, Wolfram said.

EarthLink's bid to link U.S. cities to the Internet with Wi-Fi came closer to an end on Tuesday as both Corpus Christi, Texas, and Milpitas, California, agreed to take back networks owned by the struggling service provider.

EarthLink built networks in a handful of U.S. cities and proposed deals with several others, saying it could put up the networks without tax dollars and make money through advertising or subscriptions. As that business model started to look shaky around the middle of last year and EarthLink struggled with subscriber loss in its dial-up Internet service, new management decided to get out of the Wi-Fi business. In February of this year, the company said it would seek to sell off or give back its five standing networks.

The city councils of Corpus Christi and Milpitas each voted on Tuesday to take possession of their networks, which will leave just three in EarthLink's hands: Philadelphia, New Orleans and Anaheim, California. EarthLink is still in discussions with those three cities, according to Chris Marshall, vice president of corporate communications.

EarthLink's aggressive move into municipal Wi-Fi in 2006 helped build hope for the concept as a way to give residents, visitors and city workers Internet access across a city while getting low-income residents online at a reasonable cost. But paying for the infrastructure through advertising and monthly subscriptions proved difficult, though some cities are still pursuing networks with different approaches.

Neither Corpus Christi nor Milpitas will pay anything for the networks, though Corpus Christi will forfeit US$1.59 million in payments that EarthLink still owed. The assets will be transferred within 45 days in Corpus Christi and 30 days in Milpitas, Marshall said. EarthLink has consumer subscribers in both cities and will continue to serve them for 30 days, after which it will offer them special deals on its dial-up or broadband Internet services, he said. EarthLink will refund all payments for home equipment and prepaid service.

Corpus Christi built its own Wi-Fi network and sold it to EarthLink in March 2007 for about $5.3 million. EarthLink was chosen to build the Milpitas network in March 2006 and launched it in December of that year.

San Francisco - Microsoft will release a third service pack for SQL Server 2005 just before the next version of the server software comes out.

Service Pack 3 is expected to come out after the release to manufacturing of SQL Server 2008, which is scheduled to happen in the third quarter this year.

Microsoft didn't reveal much about what the service pack would include, except to say in a Tuesday blog post that it will contain all cumulative updates to the software plus some additional fixes to bugs that customers have reported on MS Connect, a Microsoft Web site for customer feedback.

The development of a third service pack does not change the Incremental Servicing Model that Microsoft introduced last year. The model, unveiled last July, introduced a regular update process to SQL Server 2005. Since then, every two months Microsoft issues a cumulative update for SQL Server 2005 that includes all critical fixes that had been released during that time as well as updates for less urgent issues.

Customers like the predictability of the model, so Microsoft will continue using it, said Francois Ajenstat, director of SQL Server marketing for Microsoft, in a separate blog post. However, users also say that there's a need for a third service pack, so Microsoft plans to release one, he said. The company is announcing its plans now so that customers can plan for deployment, he said.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) reported higher-than-expected quarterly earnings on Wednesday despite a weakening U.S. economy, helped by strong revenue from technology services and consulting, sending its shares higher.

First-quarter net income rose 26 percent to $2.32 billion, or $1.65 per share, from $1.84 billion, or $1.21 per share, a year earlier. Revenue grew 11 percent to $24.5 billion from $22 billion. Currency gains contributed seven percentage points to revenue growth.

Analysts, on average, expected profit of $1.45 per share and revenue of $23.7 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.

IBM, the world's largest technology-services company, said in February that strong fourth-quarter growth in services contracts lasting a year or less was paying off. IBM said those benefits gave it more confidence in its U.S. business, even as other technology companies were seeing weaker spending amid concern over the U.S. economy.

IBM shares, seen as a safe haven by many investors, have added almost 10 percent this year compared with the Dow Jones Industrial index's (.DJI) 6.8 percent decline and the Nasdaq Composite Index's (.IXIC) 14 percent drop through Tuesday. IBM trades at about 14 times expected 2008 earnings per share compared with about 13 for competitor Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N).

(Reporting by Philipp Gollner, editing by Phil Berlowitz)

SAN FRANCISCO - EBay Inc. says its first-quarter profit has jumped 22 percent after it benefited from the weak dollar. The online auction company also is raising its outlook for the rest of the year.

EBay’s net income was $460 million, or 34 cents per share, on revenue of $2.19 billion in the quarter that ended March 31. In the year-ago quarter, eBay earned $377 million, or 27 cents per share, on revenue of $1.77 billion.

Excluding one-time items, eBay’s net income was $562 million, or 42 cents per share, compared with $460 million, or 33 cents per share, in the first quarter last year. On that basis, analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected, on average, earnings of 39 cents per share on revenue of $2.08 billion.

EBay raised its outlook for 2008, saying it now expects revenues between $8.7 to $9 billion with earnings per share between $1.35 to $1.40. Excluding special items, it expects earnings per share between $1.70 to $1.75.