History loves to provide dates and facts and to attempt to break down the past into segments of time that can be easily understood and memorized.
Unfortunately for history book writers the real world isn’t like that ... long before Washington crossed the Delaware a long series of events and decisions had to come about to
1) Make that possible and
2) Make it necessary and prudent at that point in time.
The history of eBay is no different.
For those who are unclear eBay is an online auction site where listing and selling fees are collected from users under the guidance and oversight of straight regulation to provide both protection and ease of use to would-be buyers and sellers alike.
A modern example of auctioneering using the latest technologies and capabilities in as simple to utilize a manner as is possible its’ name has become synonymous with online auctions and sells.
It all started back in September of 1995 or depending on whom you speak to possibly even as early as May of 1994 but it could have been even earlier that the concept first came to Pierre Omidyar, who was living in San Jose and ran a consulting firm called “Echo Bay Technology” at the time.
Like most technically aware people he was familiar with the burgeoning internet phenomena, and had most likely known about and used it even back when it was little more then text message boards used to keep scientists in touch with one another via daily ‘data dumps’ to various Unix servers around the country.
With the recent advent of the World Wide Web’s “Internet” as mass public data system via the browser, however an old thought came to fruition.
Who knows for certain how it first came up, but I’m sure it was something like this: While cleaning a room out of unused materials, or after seeking all over town for a part to fix a very nice but now outdated piece of equipment the thought that “There are probably thousands of people out there who want/ have these in their garage and are just throwing them out because we don’t have a way to connect.”
In truth many message and swap boards were already in existence when Pierre came up with the concept of eBay – there even were other Auction sites already out there shaking up the digital world, but few of them were aimed at allowing the public to sell excess goods and services directly.
It was this that prompted Omidyar to start his own auction site, specializing in being a marketplace for individuals rather then overstocked items and small businesses.
Bringing online Jeff Skoll Pierre began what has now become one of the largest online auction sites in the history of the internet, and without doubt the most successful.
In today’s internet jargon ‘eBay’ is synonymous with auction ... but this was not always so- as with all things new a certain amount of trial and error and growth occurred before eBay hit its stride.
It really started as just an online garage sale, marketing items from their stock all lumped into categories under the somewhat boring name of “Echo Bay Technology”... when they tried to register this domain name however Omidyar discovered that it was already in use and was forced to use a derivative of the name which they decided to shorten to just ‘ebay.com’ for their website.
