Word: new
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...took in $1,000 the first month, more than it cost to run. Omidyar really knew he was onto something when he put up a listing for a broken $30 laser pointer that he was about to throw out. He fully disclosed that it didn't work--even with new batteries--and started it at $1. Inexplicably, a bidding war ensued, and someone ended up taking it off his hands for $14. Meanwhile, the site's revenues kept doubling: they were $2,500 the second month, then $5,000, then $10,000. Omidyar eventually had another insight. "I said...
...eBay's only full-time employee, Omidyar soon found himself thrust into a new and unwanted role: grievance officer. Buyers and sellers with complaints about each other were e-mailing him personally and asking him to step in. Omidyar urged them to work things out amicably between themselves. But if eBayers really had to gripe, he decided, they should do it publicly on the site. "I wanted to reinforce the notion that if you're going to bring a complaint about someone, do it out in the open," says Omidyar. "You can't come running to Daddy...
...Omidyar had lined up a venture-capital firm (Benchmark Capital, whose initial $6.5 million investment is now worth some $4 billion). eBay hired a marketing consultant to come up with the company's catchy, multicolored logo and confronted (and later defeated) threats from two new auction sites backed by well-funded big companies: Onsale and Auction Universe...
eBay had a first choice for its new CEO: Meg Whitman, who had honed her consumer-marketing and managerial skills at Hasbro (Mr. Potato Head was one of her toy lines) and worked as a marketing executive at Disney. At first it didn't look as if she was going to come. She had strong ties to the East Coast--kids in school and a husband who was a top brain surgeon at Massachusetts General--and eBay seemed like a lark. But looking at the numbers and getting a sense of the passion people felt for eBay, she was hooked...
...being auctioned on eBay. Sure there's kitsch (Elvis snow globes, anyone?), and a scary number of Beanie Babies. But there's also luxe (usually a few Rolls-Royces are going at any given moment). Poke around and you'll come across the impressively old (dinosaur teeth!), the bizarrely new (who really needs to bid on last month's TV Guide?) and the just plain weird (anyone for a metal BEWARE OF ATTACK RATS sign?). And you will find thriving subcultures that collect things you didn't know anyone bothered to collect. Really, people: antique waffle irons...