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Facebook’ s great value lies in its structured usable data, which is the most comprehensive personal data set ever acquired about a generation. Furthermore FB is opening access to it in a gradual careful way, so it could become the basis for a large …

http://www.rain...BayVsCraigslist

I totally agree. I love craigslist, always have, but there’s a lot more that can be done there. That’s why we at Noocleus Media released rummage pad. While we only deal with sale listings (garage, rummage, merchant, etc) and nothing else, we welcome alternatives to mega sites like craigslist. We think a lot more can be done and hopefully others can offer more competitive services. Our site is extremely small since we just launched a couple of days ago and probably before we should have, but we think there’s a lot that can be offered in the classifieds space.

Craiglist is an enormously useful service. I’ve found places to live, meet great people, and helped grow small side businesses with it. Nearly everyone I know has had at least one positive experience with it.

Craiglist however has never really had serious competition. Now they do – not only from eBay, but also from spammers and bots. Competition is good for improving quality and service, but it’s rarely good for the market leader. I think I first read on Techcrunch the idea that modern websites are like TV shows, and that even successful websites only have a lifespan of 5-7 years. If that’s the case, then the battle for free local classifieds is about to heat up. This is great news for people who enjoy innovation.

Craigslist is not known for innovation. Nor does it necessarily need to be – after all if it’s ain’t broke, don’t fix it. It’s simplicity is a large part of it’s success. However the Internet thrives on innovation, and those who stand still are eventually surpassed. Craigslist knows this, which is why they recently announced that they are hiring in their blog. But why so late to respond? When you have a lock on a market, there is no incentive to change. eBay is a great example of what happens when a successful website lacks serious competition. Competition is going to be beneficial for users. imo, eBay/Kijiji is a terrible alternative, but others will emerge as the better service…

I think about this stuff a lot – which is why I’ve just released my own free local classifieds service called Lookcube.com – There’s enormous potential in local websites – a chance for people to meet, join, and organize, small business and freelancers to grow, and goods to be exchanged – all outside of the corporate sphere – if I can help make that happen, my effort will be a success.

eBay only owns a minority interest, which is worth much less than a controlling interest ON A PER SHARE BASIS, especially in a private company. A minority interest is worth less because it has no control over its investment:
For instance, Craig and Jim are both shareholders and managers. Because of this dual role, they could decide they are never going to pay out dividends (to themselves as shareholders), but then pay themselves $10 million salaries in (as managers). If they pay out dividends they have to give eBay its proportional share of the payments. If they give themselves exorbitant salaries, eBay (or whoever it might sell to) gets nothing because it is only a shareholder, not a shareholder/manager. In this scenario, eBay can’t do anything but sue them.

You see why it would be tough for eBay to sell its stake? Sure, Craig and Jim would be happy to buy back the shares – they can give a lowball offer and if eBay doesn’t like it, there is no alternative. Or they could give a fair offer and then make up their out of pocket costs by paying out dividends as soon as they own the stock.

A minority owner in a private company is often locked into its investment. eBay was obviously fine with that when it bought, and I’m sure it wasn’t looking for dividends, it was looking at strategically owning a stake in an important complementary business. So you can see why it would be more concerned at having its ownership interest diluted unless it signed the ROFR (locking it in even more).

As far as eBay having a conflict of interest or something? Any “violation” would just be a violation of the contract they signed (shareholder agmt) – there is no duty on a shareholder not to compete with the company it owns, that would be ridiculous. If a shareholder wants to compete and possibly reduce the value of its own investment, that’s just a business decision.

“Sadly, we have an uncomfortably conflicted shareholder in our midst, one that is obsessed with dominating online classifieds for the purpose of maximizing its own profits.”

I commented on craigslist blog (but i’m sure they won’t post it).. doesn’t craigslist dominate the onlince classified market to maximize their own profits?

craig and jim have ALWAYS projected onto other’s what they do themselves. they only talk about altruism and hide the business aspect of their business as much as possible.

this is typical (going back to at least ‘99).

i hope ebay exposes them for what they really are. and yeah i’m sure people will hate on me.. but if you haven’t actually dealt with them then you don’t know the real story.

perception is not reality, and ebay is learning this now..

good luck ebay

ps. i have nothing to do with ebay. i have dealt with and followed cl since the early days.

i root for little guys