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Contrary to popular belief, recessions aren’t all about doom and gloom. Recessions, in fact, are like coins, except that both sides can be ‘up’ simultaneously. For instance, international tourism suffers in a recession, but alternative forms of entertainment such as movie-going and local tourism have been known to grow during recessions.

The human mind isn’t wired to hold the opposing viewpoints that recessions can be good and bad simultaneously, so we will tend to neglect the fact that recessions are, in fact, excellent times to fire up your entrepreneurial spirit and break out of the slump.

The startup bug has already hit Manhattan, where a growing group of laid-off finance professionals have been assigned to startups as advisers. These nascent startups or expanding firms are part of a scheme jointly launched by the New York City Economic Development Corporation and the Levin Institute of the State University of New York. Did I mention that these finance experts are working for free?

An article in the New Yorker magazine makes the case that companies of all sizes should take the opportunity afforded in a recession to grab market share. One important line describes the difference between risk and uncertainty. Economist Frank Knight said “Risk describes the situation where you have a sense of the range of possibilities and likelihood of possible outcomes. Uncertainty describes a situation where its not even clear what might happen, let alone how likely the possible outcomes are.” However, research has shown that spending on acquisition, advertising and R&D yields significant returns to companies.

There is, however, always a risk of losing your way. Dabbling in startups isn’t a carte-blanche license to do business as one pleases. Sequoia Capital, benefactor of firms like Google, Yahoo and Youtube, has been shaking up its portfolio companies by showing them a slideshow entitled “R.I.P. Good Times”. This galvanized its companies to control costs, focus on sales and retool its marketing pitch to clients.

The take-home lesson for startups is that recessions are a period of flux, where markets can change and those motivated enough to take advantage with a disciplined, focused approach, while others freeze in the face of uncertainty will ultimately come out on top.

This may be somewhat old news that has been sitting on my backburner but it rates a mention.

EBay’s revenues fell 7% to $2.04 billion in 2008. This meant that the company’s earnings yielded 41 cents per share, lower than 2007 but beating Wall Street’s estimates of 39 cents per share.

The global slowdown has eBay execs worrying their pants off. Not only is the company spending more on marketing while laying off workers, it also sold off bookmarking site Stumbleupon back to its founders which it bought in 2007 for $75 million. Now eBay has also decided to divest its ownership stake in Skype by listing the company in 2010.

Dealbook states that eBay has been involved in 69 deals over the years worth a total of $12.6 billion. Of those 69, eBay was buyer in 57 of them. Some, such as its acquisition of Paypal for $1.4 billion made excellent sense, while it now seems apparent that others did not.

Dealbook’s graph shows that eBay’s shopping spree at the time of the 2001 recession served it in good stead, yielding progressively higher share prices until this effect tapered off in 2005. After that, successive increases in acquisitions didn’t do its share price any good.

Despite all this doom and gloom, eBay recently acquired a controlling stake in South Korea’s largest auction site GMarket for $1.2 billion. GMarket is an aggressive company in its own right as well, but who can resist the overtures of the internet’s retail behemoth. GMarket is serving Singapore and has been endorsed by Yahoo to become the spiritual successor of the now-defunct Yahoo Auctions.

It now looks  as thought eBay is regaining its focus and buying only what it needs, rather than what it wants. That’s excellent advice for any shopper.