How Ebay Started

When talking about online auction services, the eBay is the cream of the crop. eBay is one of the most popular websites in the Internet these days, and the most successful among hundreds of online auction sites.

It all started in Pierre Omidyars living room, where eBays first office was established. Omidyar, which has a French-Iranian descent, came to America and finished a computer science degree. He had wanted to become a programmer at Macintosh, but luck made him trod along a different road. In his effort to establish an online venue for person-to-person auction of collectible items, Omidyar built the site called AuctionWeb.


Auction Web started as a part of Omidyars larger personal site that talks about Ebola virus. AuctionWeb was just a simple prototype, with Omidyar as the sole proprietor. At that time, Omidyar was working for General Magic, a mobile communications company.

The number of people visiting Omidyars auction site grew more and more each day. He collected small fees on each sale, and he used the revenues to expand the enterprising site. He never imagined that his business will grow into a large-scale online auction website.

In 1996, Omidyar and his partner Jeffrey Skoll thought of renaming AuctionWeb. Their first choice of company name was Echo Bay Technology Group, but the domain echobay.com was already registered to someone else. So they though of cutting it short to ebay.com. eBay was already hosting 800,000 auctions in one day in the summer of 1998. By the end of the year, Omidyar already earned $ 3 billion worth of personal stake in the company.

With the help of Meg Whitman, a Harvard graduate with rich experience in brand-building and business management, eBay established a vast community of individuals and small-scale business from different parts of the world. eBay is not just about getting ones goods sold. The website seeks to foster trust among and between its users; this is the top corporate goal of eBay.

At present, eBay is named to be one of the fastest-growing Internet-based companies. It is reported to have 181 million users in 2006. And at its current rate of at least $1,500 worth of goods sold every second, surely there is still enough for more growth!

By: TheWebReviewer

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Matthew is the owner of TheWebReviewer: Home Based Business Scams, and NetWebVideo: Work from Home Lessons. Matt currently lives in Southern California and is married with two children and has been an online marketer since 2006.

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