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About eBay: eBay was founded in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar as "AuctionWeb",
part of a larger personal site that included, among other
things, Omidyar's own tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Ebola
virus. Originally, the site belonged to Echo Bay Technology
Group, Omidyar's consulting firm. (The frequently repeated
story that eBay was founded to trade PEZ dispensers was
fabricated by a public relations manager in 1997 to interest
the media. This was revealed in Adam Cohen's 2002 book and
confirmed by eBay.) Omidyar had tried to register the domain
name "EchoBay.com" but found it already taken, so he shortened
it to his second choice, "eBay.com". eBay is headquartered in
San Jose, California. Meg Whitman has served as eBay's
president and CEO since March 1998. eBay boosters have claimed
that in terms of revenue growth, eBay is among the
fastest-growing companies of all time.
eBay Trivia!
The five most expensive items sold on eBay (as of 2002)
1. Grumman Gulfstream II jet ($4.9 million)
2. 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card ($1.65 million)
3. Diamond Lake Resort, western Kentucky ($1.2 million)
4. Shoeless Joe Jackson's "Black Betsy" baseball bat
($577,610)
5. Round of golf with Tiger Woods ($425,000)
Largest item
One of the largest items ever sold was a World War II
submarine sold by a small town in New England that decided it
did not need the historical relic anymore.
Largest failed auction
One of the largest items ever to be put up to auction and not
sold was a decommissioned aircraft carrier. The auction was
placed by an anonymous seller from Brazil on EBay Motors.
Unusual sale items
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In June 2005,
Karolyne Smith sold the right to permanently tattoo an ad on
her forehead to GoldenPalace.com for $10,000
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In May 2005, a
Volkswagen Golf that had previously been registered to Josef
Kardinal Ratzinger (who became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005)
was sold on eBay's German site for €188,938.88. The winning
bid was made by the GoldenPalace.com online casino, known
for their outragous eBay purchases.
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In January 2004, a
man put up a Windows file folder for sale, which was at
£10,000,000 when it was ended by eBay officials.
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A 16-year-old
offered to sell his virginity on the website.
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Someone once tried
to sell a half-eaten grilled-cheese sandwich.
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In 2004, a Seattle
man posted pictures of himself wearing his ex-wife's wedding
dress. While he initially admitted he was selling the dress
to earn some money for Mariners tickets, the bidding got
into the thousands of dollars.
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Countless numbers
of people have sold their soul on the auction site, getting
a large sum of money as payment for it (Often times people
just wrote their name followed by the appropriate
punctuation and the word soul, probably inspired by the
Simpsons episode "Bart Sells His Soul", in which Bart
Simpson sells his soul in this manner).
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A common joke item
is a "ghost in a bottle" which invariably includes a picture
of a bottle with said ghost in it. The ghost is usually
portrayed as some white steam and is sometimes photoshopped.
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There was at one
point an auction for the first ride on Kingda Ka, the
tallest roller coaster on Earth. The winning bid was
$1691.66, and the winner rode in the front seat.
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A Sydney man has
pocketed AUS$1,035 - after auctioning a piece of Nutri-Grain
resembling ET, in Dec 2004.
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A 50,000-year-old
mammoth. Weighing in at 250,000 kilos, Max was put up for
sale in 2004 by his Dutch owner due to lack of space and
sold for £61,000. A bargain considering he was one of the
five best and most complete mammoth skeletons in the world,
consisting of 90% of his original bone material.
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