• Ebay
  • What principles did we learn from eBay?
    • User driven content
    • They’ve made it really easy to buy and sell
      • PayPal
  • What makes eBay successful
    • A global audience
    • Empowers the average person to buy and sell
    • They’ve created an environment where you feel like you can safely buy and sell across the globe
      • Buyer confidence in a realm of anonymity
    • The one place where you can find almost anything
    • People can research and shop at the same time
    • You don’t just buy, you WIN
  • What is eBay?
    • A facilitator
    • An aggregator site
      • A sandbox for internet commerce

• Kiva
  • What can we learn from Kiva?
    • Up to the minute transaction info is vital
  • Why loan and not give?
    • Creates accountability
    • Removes some of the temptation of the gift
    • Creates self sustainability
    • Self-perpetuating
    • Helps them build their own economy
    • Gives a sense of dignity
  • Decentralization of transaction
  • What are the needs that it taps into for 3rd world entrepreneurs?
    • The need for dignity
  • What are the needs that it taps into for donors?
    • Gives meaning to their money
  • What is meant by “lending is connecting”?
    • You know you’ve benefited the lives and the community
    • Kiva creates and avenue of relation
  • Explore the power of connectional applications.
    • Fulfills the fundamental need to connect in meaningful ways
      • The degree to which you can successfully make that connection is how successful the site will be
  • Other sites to look at
    • Microplace
    • Domini.com
    • Lohas.com
  • What kind of modeling are we seing
    • Is it a new way of making doing good more accessible

Pierre Omidayar is, as some of the previous class blogs have stated, the founder of eBay and is an internet entrepreneur.  He possesses some entrepreneurial characteristics that can be applied to our lives as students and future entrepreneurs.  He says in one interview, “I was just pursuing what I enjoyed doing. I mean, I was pursuing my passion.” This is really neat to think about we too can just pursue our passions and discover something as new and exciting as eBay.  As long as we have ambition to work hard and follow our dreams we will achieve them.  There are five values that Pierre sees as essential:

Many sites give evidence that Pierre is a great philanthropist. I wonder if he is a Christian. These values that he possesses can be tied into Christian morals or they can just part of ‘being a good person.’ If Pierre is a Christian, he does not seem to be very open about expressing his faith. At least it seems he truly does care about the users of eBay and that they treat one another with respect. These are good principles to follow and values to hold.

Nine years ago, I was astonished and confused to hear that friends of ours had purchased both a boat and a car online on some “new” website called Ebay. Little did I know, Ebay had already been up and running for at least three and a half years.

Nowadays, you can buy just about anything and everything on ebay -from rare art, sellings for up to millions of dollars, to your wedding dress or something as small as a pencil. For sellers this is a goldmine. Virtually anything you can find in your house can be documented and sold on ebay to the highest bidder. It’s like having your own garage sale with half of pittsburgh’s residents coming to browse.

Recently, we went around my house just looking for things we didn’t want or use – taking pictures of things to post on ebay. They have made millions off of the ever popular concept that “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” I’m surprised no one thought of it sooner.

I have an ebay account, but I have never used it. I have never bought nor sold on ebay; so why do I have an account? I have this feeling that there will be something I need someday and I will only be able to find it on ebay. I have even gone as far as setting up my paypal account to charge my credit card accounts or checking accounts.

So why have I not used ebay? For me the site is not simple enough. I want to see a PS3 come up if I search for a PS3 and not hundreds of things related to a PS3 but no PS3. The whole process has baffled me. I want to use it; I think it would be fun to by and sell. Until the process for searching for goods becomes easier you won’t see me listing anything on Ebay.

I don’t understand why I find Ebay to be so complicated. I use their other product, Skype, all the time, video conferencing with my family where ever they are in the world. I love using skype and like Ebay, its free! (for the most part) The reason I love using skype, is that it is easy to use.

A simplification of their site, taking after the facebook example, might help them to bring in more buyers and sellers (clients from here forth) to boost their numbers. They recently changed their pricing structure (Foxnews.com article) to help bring in more clients and in doing so irked many of their sellers. Simplification may not be as easy as it sounds, I know there is so much information generated on that site, every minute even every second, that it might be impossible to completly organize.

I  also have an issue with not being able to know the seller, to see the product I am buying. Sure I can go down to the store try it out and then buy it from Ebay. Right now I’m just not comfortable with this sort of buying and selling for something important. I want to try Ebay, I want to use Ebay, but for now it will have to wait until I feel more comfortable with the technology and not being able to know the seller.

When we talked about facebook, we talked about Mark Zukerberg, so i thought is only fitting to say something about Meg Whitman. While she didn’t found eBay, she is responsible for grwoing it into what it is today.

Here are excerpts from an article I found detailing Whitman’s transformation of eBay:

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Facebook, itunes, wikipedia, flickr, basically any web 2.0 service what do they all have in common.  CONVENIENCE!  Sure we might say that we need most of these services now after we have become so dependent on them for the past couple of years, but honestly do we need any of them. I would argue that we do not.  As hard as it is to believe, the world was still turning 5 years ago before a majority of these companies became big. 

Ebay is no exception.  Of all the web 2.0 companies, ebay might be the greatest beneficiary of the convenience factor.  But it is more than just the convenience factor, it is what i like to call ”the absurd factor”.  And by no meas do i mean this in a degrading way.  I think some of the smartest people have been able to realize the power of ebay and take advantage the “absurd factor”.  By absurd factor I mean the ability for a vender to realize  a certain niche in the market and take advantage of that niche. 

Lets be honest, most of us are obsessed with something.  Whether it is a sports team or a car brand, most of us will do anything to own something associated with that obsession.  Ebay allows for the obsessive consumer to find everything and anything on that particular subject.  Ebay venders have truly taken advantage of the adage “one mans junk is another mans treasure”.  As we have all probably learned, anything can be found on ebay.  And just as anything can be found on ebay, in a global market, you can usually find someone to bid on it.  After doing some research and looking at some of the other blogs, it is comical to see what certain items are purchased for.  How can a dixie cup that elvis presley drank water out of one time be sold for $455.  Or a 10 year old grilled cheese said to bear the image of the virgin mary sell for $28,000.  To me this seems absurd.  But after thinking about it for a little, how absurd is it really?  Im sure there are things that i would be willing to spend money on that someone might also laugh at or say is absurd.  It is all relative.  But that is the beauty of ebay.  As one product might seem ”absurd” to one person, the other might have found their treasure.  One thing is for certain, no matter how absurd something might seem, there is always someone out there who will value it.  This unity of the global market has been a large reason ebay has been so successful.