eBay: more than just a marketplace?

Written on April 29, 2008 – 9:47 am
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur

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.

I hope you like that post!

The Next Web Blog covers start-up news from all over the world (not just the Valley), exciting new technologies and inspiring entrepreneurs. If you're new here, you may want to read our 'About' page and subscribe to our RSS feed.

Do you have a start-up that we should write about? Contact us! Thanks for visiting and hope you come back again!

ebay, marketplace, rolf skyberg, skype, twitter

About the author: Serial entrepreneur and founder of several companies. Current activities include TwitterCounter.com and The Next Web Conference & Blog.

"Keep fees at eBay", with that catchphrase Wigix challenges eBay for an open fight. This new socially-driven marketplace wants to compete with the online trade giant by offering transparency and a Web 2.0 flavor. They...

What a bargain! Get a $50 Amazon gift card for $52

Reddit user mattyrules submitted the below picture to the social bookmarking site with the title: "Are eBayers really this stupid?". As you can see, people are bidding more money for a gift card than it's...

eBay secretly acquires visual media company Vuvox

eBay has acquired Vuvox, a visual media company that lets you create and blend your personal media – video, photos and music into rich personal expressions, for an undisclosed amount of money. What struck me...

4 comments/trackbacks to “eBay: more than just a marketplace?”

May 13, 2008: Nimbuzz: mobile VoIP for (almost) everybody
[...] mother company eBay take the advice of their ‘Disruptive Innovator’ Rolf Skyberg - make Skype the third pillar in the eBay empire -, then an acquisition could be in sight. Don’t you also just love to speculate about the [...]

By dennis goedegebuure on Apr 29, 2008

Did you had dinner with Rolf when he was in The Netherlands? I have not spoken with him since!

Cheers dennis

[Reply]
By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on Apr 29, 2008

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…

[Reply]
By Deborah Block-Schwenk on Apr 29, 2008

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.

[Reply]

The Next Web