eBay: more than just a marketplace?
Written on April 29, 2008 – 9:47 am
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten,
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Boris with Rolf Skyberg in San Francisco
Rolf Skyberg is a ‘Disruptive Innovator’ at eBay.com. Last week I asked him about his opinion on what the future of eBay looks like, what he thought about the rumors that eBay might sell Skype and about his vision for the future of eBay in general.
Rolf pointed me to a blog post he wrote earlier this month titled “is your brand keeping you back?“. Although the post isn’t about eBay specifically it does give us an idea of what Rolf is thinking about at eBay. He told me he would hate to see Skype go and thinks that eBay could easily become more than the marketplace it is right now. If you see eBay simply and only as a marketplace then it is hard to see the added value of eBay. But if you see eBay as a service that provides rich interaction between people then things suddenly look very different.
eBay = exchange of goods
PayPal = exchange of money
Skype = exchange of conversations
PayPal is not JUST the money exchange engine that enables easy transactions for eBay but yet another product that enables interaction between people. eBay’s businesses aren’t just about the *exchange*, but specifically to enable and empower people to do things together. It enables the type of interaction that would be impossible to accomplish alone.
Skype would just be a third pillar for the eBay empire. If you look at eBay this way you could suddenly see them acquiring Twitter.com to enable the exchange of short messags and it making perfect sense.
Read the post at Rolf’s blog and exchange ‘McDonals’ with ‘eBay’ for an entertaining inside look into the future of eBay.
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The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
4 Responses to “eBay: more than just a marketplace?”
By dennis goedegebuure on Apr 29, 2008 | Reply
Did you had dinner with Rolf when he was in The Netherlands? I have not spoken with him since!
Cheers dennis
By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on Apr 29, 2008 | Reply
Yes Dennis, Rolf and Cyn had dinner at my house a few weeks ago and we met up again in San Francisco last week. Thanks again for the introduction…
By Deborah Block-Schwenk on Apr 29, 2008 | Reply
Rolf is trying to expand the concept of eBay as an exchange platform (a two-sided market or catalyst) to include the other services they provide through Skype and PayPal. While eBay and PayPal are both easily seen as markets that require two customer groups (buyers/sellers on eBay, payers/payment system companies on PayPal), Skype is a bit more of stretch. Callers and callees are not two distinct groups. But as a philosophy, including Skype as an exchanger of conversations could work to meld the various products. We’ll see.