p2pnet - rss feed: eBay buys into craigslist
p2pnet.net News:- PayPal owner eBay is now a quarter owner of craigslist.
"The resulting relationship will allow eBay and craigslist to share expertise, resources, and creativity on behalf of online communities everywhere," say the two in a statement.
The release also declares, "Founded in 1995 by Craig Newmark, craigslist serves as a trustworthy, democratic, and efficient platform for fulfilling human needs, as guided by communities everywhere. craigslist includes classified listings for jobs, housing, goods and services, personals, events, and community, plus a wide variety of discussion forums."
On ‘trustworthy,’ in March PayPal admitted it misled people into believing it offers credit-card-style protection and told New York State attorney general Eliot Spitzer, it will in future "be more open with the exact level of protection it offers its 25 million customers".
"In the business world, you don’t invest in a company unless both sides are of similar belief and unless both sides felt they were going to get something out of it," eBay spokesman Hani Durzy is quoted as saying in an Associated Press report here.
Believe it.
"I figured it didn’t matter …"
On his blog here, Newmark says cryptically:
"Hey folks, here’s my personal take on the announcement regarding craigslist and eBay. But first, to make sense of this, a little history.
I made craigslist into a real company in ‘99, and made it a corporation (on paper, not attitude) to get the legal protections that you get that way. That’s the way it works in the US.
Looking into the future, I figured that maybe someday I’d go middle-aged crazy and/or megalomaniacal, and already, "I can resist anything but temptation" (Oscar Wilde) So, with the idea of establishing checks and balances, mostly on myself, I entrusted some equity in craigslist to a guy who was working with me at the time. (I won’t name him, out of respect for his privacy)
"I figured it didn’t matter, since everyone agreed that the equity had only symbolic value, not dollar value.
"Well, the guy later left the company, and decided to sell his equity, which i learned he had every legal right to do.
"He met with eBay, and eBay in turn approached us to see how we would feel about them getting involved with us.
"Although I never figured that part of craigslist might be owned by a public company, Meg Whitman and Pierre Omidyar showed that they were interested in us for all the right reasons."
What will happen to the craiglist database?
Watch this space ….
August 17th, 2004 at 4:26 pm
If I was Craig, I would find a way to extinguish Craigslist, Inc. while keeping the same service intact. Maybe start another “company” - let’s call it NewmarksList - and migrate customers over to that site by selling the Craigslist’s domain name and database to the new company. Then this new company could carry on exactly like before - but without eBay, which would only have ownership in the by-then worthless paper company.
This kind of paper shuffling is the same sort of thing that corporations do to screw over common people all the time. It’s time to see the little guy do it right back.
August 17th, 2004 at 9:14 pm
good idea but Craig sez these folks are ok at heart and if greed arises perhaps he will remember your idea.