Ebay vs Craigslist: the Follow up

Browsing the Internet, I came across a cool article that talks about who to believe; Ebay or Craigslist. It is extremely hard to figure what is really going on just because this is a superior management ownership issues that perhaps involves secret information that could not be revealed in a week. No one denies that Ebay was seeking ownership of Craigslist; mostly because they bought stake of 28% on 2004. In the following paragraphs, I'm going to elaborate more on Ebay's point of view as well as Craigslist's point of view.

Starting with Ebay point of view, the former CEO Whitman stated that the move was mainly made because Ebay wanted to increase their share of the pie. According to Whitman, concerns about the relationship between both companies rose when Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar became frustrated with Craiglist. Her argument was that really no one ever dislikes Omidyar; when he's not happy with someone, this could also mean that who ever gets under his skin is probably doing something annoying.

Ending with Craigslists's point of view, Newmark and Buckmaster stated that Ebay betrayed them and that especially Whitman broke promises that she had given earlier to Craigslist when she started playing with their confidential data allegedly related to their hit website Craigslist.org. The concern in Craigslist rose when Ebay began creating their own classified website, oddly enough named Kijiji. Whether the right is on Ebay or Craigslist, it would not really change a thing because the launching of Kijiji changed the perspective of Classified websites. The real question is, how is this trial going to affect the ownership of Craigslist.

Ebay vs Craigslist

Top management at it's peak is what can be resembled out of the Ebay vs Craigslist trial. Many might assume that it is just a case. Well, they might be right only if Ebay was not one of the largest online corporations that generated 8.5 billion of revenues in the year of 2008, and only if Craigslist was not the top US online classified site. According to the article, Ebay sued Craigslist for lowering its ownership stakes by around 4 percentages making Ebay owners of 24.85 percent of Craiglist. It did not take Craigslist much to respond; a month later, Craigslist sued Ebay for trying to take over Craiglist ownership so they can use Craigslist "secret success recipe" and launch its own classified site. In the following paragraphs, A closer look at the trial and comments of trial participants will be highlighted.

Whitman , who was the chief executive officer, took the stand on Monday saying that Ebay only reason for buying Craigslist stakes was to eventually gain full ownership of Craigslist. By doing so, Ebay can keep competitors in the house. It was revealed also by Whitman that Ebay had paid 32 million dollars or its stake in Cragslist, but then realized early on that gaining complete ownership over Craigslist would not be possible. The main rationale for Ebay case was that Craigslist's co founder and chief executive officer developed a coercive plan to lower its stake. On the other hand, Craigslist main rationale was that Ebay never mentioned that it was going to launch Kijiji, which was operating in the US by 2008.

Ebay explanation about not mentioning the launch of Kijiji was that Ebay had not closed the deal with Craigslist at the time and therefore retained from giving out this kind of sensitive information. Furthermore, Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar said that he did mention to Craigslist that Ebay plans to strongly enter the classified online market. What's interesting about this is the difference between these two corporations; Ebay is a huge corporations with hundreds of employees whereas Craigslist is a small privately owned company with maybe 25 employees or so. This makes one think how creativity and hard work can change lives. The trial would most likely go for a week and all we can do is wait!