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Ebay will be Ebay 2.0

February 9th, 2006 | Web 2.0

I’m confused about the all of the hype around EdgeIO today. Sure it’s an awesome idea, but if it catches on then what’s stopping eBay or Craigslist from:

  1. Buying or building a blog search engine.
  2. Crawling for the “listing” tag and adding the entries to their listings.
  3. Profit.

If I was an eBay exec I would already have a team of people building this into the platform, just in case it catches on.

I like the idea of EdgeIO, and I haven’t had a demo, so I’m not sure what they offer that eBay doesn’t, but I can’t help but feel like they’re going to be another classic example of a company with a great idea that gets killed by the second-movers in the market.

  • Julian Martinez
    My bet is that if nano-pubishing picks up, classifieds publishers will also start including them on their listings.

    At least that is what we are working on, a hybrid between Craigslist and Oodle.

    Julian Martinez
    wwww.Habitamos.com
  • Hi Kurt,

    I am one of the founders of edgeio. Thank you for writing about our company.

    These are definitely risks of the business, although we hope that we can find a way to stay innovative and nimble enough to make a living. :-) I would love to give you an over the phone demo if you have the time next week. Just send me an email and we will find a convenient time.

    Mike
  • Dave McClure
    nothing is stopping them from doing so, however both eBay and Craigslist charge listing fees (or at least Craigslist does so for some categories in certain cities)... whether or not either would choose to give up the front-end listing fees is a big question -- are they ready to cannibalize all of their up-front listing fee revenue in exchange for only back-end transaction fees?

    also, i wouldn't bet money on big, established companies moving quickly. they take time to make moves, and they're focused on current revenue much more than potential future opportunities.

    (full disclosure: i used to work at PayPal, part of eBay -- lots of smart folks still over there, but decisions don't typically get made all that fast)

    - dave mcclure
    www.simplyhired.com
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