eBay to dump StumbleUpon, expand classifieds
September 19, 2008
TechCrunch are reporting that eBay are to sell StumbleUpon, the website discovery service they bought in May 2007 for $75million. According to TechCrunch’s source, eBay have hired Deutsche Bank to find a buyer for the site.
Whether they’ll make their money back remains to be seen. Page views per visitor rose from an average 7 in 2007, to 19 in 2008, and registered SU users increased from 5m in April to 6m now: that last statistic is, of course, as meaningless as “registered eBay users”. Actual visitors to the site fell by around 70% from 4.4m in July 2007 to 1.3m in July 2008: its fans may be devoted, but its hard to see StumbleUpon as a hot property.
Frankly, the eBay/SU marriage never made a whole bunch of sense. Even StumbleUpon’s blog struggled to find anything that made sense to say about it. “We’re both driven by our community of users, and we are both dedicated to connecting people” seems a deeply woolly excuse to spend $75million, and I’d be tempted to see Meg’s shopaholic tendency behind the purchase.
No more. eBay are rationalising their relationships. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that eBay will be extending their classified ads business:
Jacob Aqraou, general manager of eBay’s global classified business, said he expects the company will take over a “fair” number of companies in the next six months or so. In an interview, Mr. Aqraou said lackluster economic growth and the deepening credit crunch have depressed prices for private companies to such a degree that it now makes more sense to buy established classifieds properties than build new services from scratch. He said eBay’s strategy was to target classified-ad sites that have leading positions in geographies and industry segments in which eBay doesn’t currently compete.
Classified ads are said to be eBay’s fastest growing unit. By using established sites to “fill in the gaps” in their current offerings – Aqraou mentions Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, where eBay’s hold is currently very weak – they can expand at minimal cost and with little risk.
eBayers can also expect to see closer ties between these classified sites and the main eBay marketplace: Auctionbytes reports that eBay sent emails to New York-based users last week, advertising their own free local classifieds site, Kijiji.
Craigslist’s turn to sue eBay
May 14, 2008
Following the lawsuit filed by eBay against Craigslist for diluting their 28.4% share of the company to below 25%, Craigslist have now sued eBay.
The lawsuit demands that eBay now return all of the outstanding shares to Craigslist as well as a call for punitive damages and profits from the online advertising revenue.
eBay are positioned in the lawsuit as unwelcome minority investors who have abused their position, not only to pressure Craigslist to acquiese to a full acquisition by eBay, but also as planting spies in the form of their nominated director on Craigslist board.
The lawsuit names Josh Silverman, who was responsible for launching Craigslist competitor Kijiji, and his replacement eBay nominee Thomas Jeon, apparently responsible for Kijiji world wide competition policy. Craigslist contend the eBay used its position to gather competitive and proprietary information to divert traffic from Craigslist to eBay companies. This is inspite of the fact that in eBay’s lawsuit they complain that a replacement to the board for Silverman was never accepted.
Craigslist also complain that eBay used adverts on Google using the Craigslist name to direct traffic to Kijiji and eBay.
The question has to be asked if Craigslist were so unhappy with eBay as a shareholder why they have waited so long to sue them. Issuing a complaint and alleging eBay spied on Craigslist in an anticomptitive manner is something that should have occured back in the summer of 2007 if it was a concern.
Having taken steps which appear to have diluted eBays stake in the company and been sued, to then sue eBay alleging they’ve abused their shareholding smacks of tit for tat.
eBay sues Craigslist which it part owns
April 23, 2008
eBay are reportedly suing Craigslist, the online classified listings site which it owns almost a third of. eBay acquired the share in Craigslist in 2004, but have never taken an active role in managing the company, although they have developed competing sites such as Kijiji and Gumtree.
eBay assert that Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster have taken actions which would dilute their 28.4% stake.
One has to ponder just how welcome eBay’s stakeholding in Craigslist has been. Is it time to sell out and concentrate on eBay’s own classified directories leaving Craigslist to sink or swim on its own?
