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US Launches Criminal Probe in eBay-Craigslist Trade Secrets Case
angry tapir writes with an article in Tech World about the longstanding spat between eBay and Craigslist expanding from a civil case into criminal case. From the article: "The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into whether eBay executives broke the law and stole trade secrets while sitting on the board of Craigslist.org. The investigation is centered on the activities of eBay executives who managed the Craigslist relationship between 2004 and 2007, a period when eBay morphed from a US$30 million Craigslist investor, with a seat on its board of directors, into a direct competitor in the lucrative online classified advertising market."
Craigslist is extremely special. Very few people do simplicity anymore, and very few people do it right. Craigslist is a great example of what the rest of the web should be.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Craigslist has a board?
Their website is ugly as sin and a mess. They aren't the only the site on the web that does just one thing.
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/17-09/ff_craigslist
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Pretty sure you would get arrested for posting Craigslist type services on Ebay. Never seen those services offered on Ebay!
Craigslist is a great example of what the rest of the web should be.
Why impose a false dichotomy of simple versus complex? Craigslist is an extreme. The rest of the web should not be extremely simple as some people prefer complex controls. Some solutions, by definition, are inherently complex. Glancing at my tabs, Yahoo Fantasy Hockey and Google Docs would not be at all usable if they were implemented in a Craigslist sort of way. They could truly be reduced to their basic elements, not use GWT or AJAX or whatever and just get by on the marriage of function and function. But they don't.
...
Craigslist succeeded because it was providing a simple solution to a simple problem. Add bidding or payment to your system and I think you'll find that complexity is a necessity. Do I wish more sites implemented a more simplistic approach? Yes, of course. But to suggest that it is a shining example of what the rest of the web should be is design and UI nonsense.
Look at Facebook, extremely clean and simple compared to MySpace but so was Friendster. Facebook grows more and more complex everyday yet a Craigslist-style social networking site isn't going to unseat it because Facebook usually picks its complexity wisely (or has so far). I enjoy a little complexity, hell, I'm posting on Slashdot not Reddit
My work here is dung.
Methods for metric analysis, which is the core of Craigslists' valuation. They do a really good job at understanding who is coming to their site. This would be of interest to anyone looking to build an online community.
I had been waiting for this to come down. Something told me the board of CL had mangy ethics and I could see how this was a conflict of interest.
Their website is ugly as sin and a mess. They aren't the only the site on the web that does just one thing.
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/17-09/ff_craigslist
No irony there... Other than the slow loading, ugly site, with pop-over adds to close before I could read it. Give me craigslist over wired any day.
I thought no business cared about the individuals any more. At least that is the feeling I get when I listen to the 25th recording of how valuable a customer I am to them... Could also by why I am on craigslist so much.
So thats why the most popular sites on the internet-- Google, Craigslist, Wikipedia-- are or have been moving towards clean, simpler designs?
I think in your mind they're the most useful. But Wikipedia lies behind Facebook, Yahoo and a number of other complex UIs. Craigslist is number 37 on that list. You also don't define what "clean, simpler" means in terms of UI. It's part magic and part science so until you can tell me what makes wikipedia cleaner and simpler than, say, a bulletin board system I can ask why we're not all recording articles and editing them in some sort of encyclopedic bulletin board system.
My work here is dung.
Ugly?
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
God! eBay is a nightmare to use, is covered with graphics to slow it down and has one of the worst user-interfaces I've ever had to deal with. But worst of all, they force all seller-buyer interaction THROUGH ebay.com -- you can't email each other, you can't pay with any method except paypal, etc., etc.
Craiglist, on the other hand, is easy to use, clean interface, pretty much text-only, fast, and forces the buyer & seller to deal with each other OUTSIDE of Craiglist, so transactions happen much more cleanly, 99% of Craigslist sales are local, done via emails and phone calls, and it's all cash.
I only *wish* eBay had "stolen" from Craigslist. Maybe then eBay would be a use-able website instead of the incredible mess it is, filled with Romanian scammers and identity thieves.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Personally, I'd like to see eBay's grip on the online auction market go away. I say if they did steal trade secrets, break eBay down so that another potential online auctioneer could conceivably get into the market.
Yes, I know, there are currently no competitors out there. But I am also positive that, give the opportunity, Google or Apple or even Yahoo! could make an investment into an online auctioneer OR develop an in-house alternative. Hell, it could be the one thing that saves Yahoo! - or at least reinvigorates it.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
EBay was oddly pretty open about this when they acquired a stake.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Relevant rant: eBay Patents 10-Click Checkout
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The difference is that Craigslist was not (and is not) a publicly traded company, Intel was. Ebay got the shares in Craigslist by buying them from a disgruntled (former?) employee of Craigslist. The number of shares entitled Ebay to a seat on Craigslist's Board. Craigslist has since changed its rules concerning selling shares to prevent something similar from happening. At the time, there was evidence that Ebay was trying to buy Craigslist. When that plan was thwarted/abandoned Ebay started to build a competing classified ads section.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
puttin' strings into databases, retrieving them,
and html formatting them!
Damn it feels good to be a gangsta
I couldn't agree more. What if a government held the same world view? That would be awesome.
- Dan.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Craigslist is extremely special. Very few people do simplicity anymore, and very few people do it right. Craigslist is a great example of what the rest of the web should be.
Although I agree with you in principle, I think craigslist could be more aesthetically pleasing without sacrificing simplicity. I find I've gotten used to the ugliness of the site and have just tuned out the bad aspects; also, I frequently use text-only interfaces, so such an experience becomes normal. It's wise to keep in mind that our judgment is colored by our experience, and try to view interfaces through the eyes of others. We shouldn't forget young users, those who have never used a command line interface, or those that grew up on software from the late 90s and 2000s just because we've been in the game longer. For them, it's simple *and* ugly, and there's no reason it has to be both ways. The site has gotten a tiny bit more pleasing to the eye over the past few years, but I think they can do better. Wikipedia, as an example, does a great job of simple and pleasing to the eye.
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
There are people on Slashdot who don't use ad blockers?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Every website layout and design I came up with from 1998-2001 was the same as Craigslist. Its not 'special,' its just USEFUL.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I suppose I mis-stated myself. They have nothing special in the trade-secret sense; ostensibly nothing that can't be derived from looking at their website.
SIG: HUP
Although I agree with you in principle, I think craigslist could be more aesthetically pleasing without sacrificing simplicity. I find I've gotten used to the ugliness of the site and have just tuned out the bad aspects
Really now, is Craigslist any uglier than, for instance, Slashdot? In what world is plain text ugly? God forbid you people ever read a book.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
eBay's online auction site is not a competitor to Craig's List, so your comment is pointless whinging.
eBay's classified ads business -- *is* a competitor to Craig's List and has pretty much decimated newspaper classifieds (and Craig's List) in many areas outside of the US. At the moment they are hosting over 4,000,000 ads in Canada, 1,000,000 in the UK and God knows how many more around the world.
And, incidentally, it's quite well designed. Or at least the version I use is (it varies from region to region).
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
regardless of how special you think Craigslist is, what does it have that could possibly be a trade secret?
some are called subscribers.
I'm not one, but for some reason, I've never felt the need to block Slashdot ads.
I even have a little box appear that offers me the option to opt out of ads because of my supposed 'contribution' but I've never felt the urge to tick it.
half the time I wonder if it's a trap, some times I think it'll take me to the subscription sign up page, but mostly I feel like the occasional ad (which may be relevant, may not) that catches my eye is not such a 'annoyance' or detriment for what I get in exchange being here.
tanstaafl
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
While I loathe eBay and use Craigslist as my primary buy/sell stuff site, CL has really been pissing me off lately. They attack and shut down aggregator sites, yet provide no easy way to search several local CL sites. If CL had an advanced search to simply type in a mile radius from your location to search, then there wouldn't be a need for aggregators. They refuse to implement this, yet still shut down aggregators.
I use Craigslist frequently for hard to find items, like parts to restore classic cars, uncommon engines and engine parts, rare transmissions, buying classic cars, looking for older inboard boats, and other things of this nature where the items I'm seeking are not common. I need an aggregator as I'm willing to drive anywhere from 200-1000 miles depending on the rarity and value of waht I'm looking for, as well as how long I've been looking. I'm not going to drive 1000 miles for an air conditioner, a refridgerator, a grill, wrenches, power tools, or other stuff like that which is relatively common and can easily be found locally if I opt to buy used. The bottom line though, is an aggregator is required to make Craigslist useful... That and my employer appreciates that by using an aggregator I spend less time searching CL at work.
As for eBay, I have a carburator I want to sell and figured eBay might be quicker to sel lthan Craigslist. I checked their fees and it would cost me $29 to sell. That's absurd! I would have to raise the cost by $29, plus add a disclaimer that if paying with PayPal please add 3% to the total price to account for PayPay (owned by eBay) fees. These costs would have to be added to price I want, pushing my price somewhat above the average market price for that carburetor, which means it might not sell at all and I'd be out the $2 insertion fee. So I quickly decided to not sell it on eBay and instead listed it on Craigslist as well as a couple automotive forums that I frequent.
Really now, is Craigslist any uglier than, for instance, Slashdot? In what world is plain text ugly? God forbid you people ever read a book.
I didn't call plain text ugly. There is more than that involved; take any Wikipedia article, turn off the images in your browser and try to think about the layout in general...a lot of work goes into MediaWiki to make that all happen. Craigslist stays stagnant in that regard, preferring the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" maxim. Although that isn't the worst philosophy to apply to design, we wouldn't have any browsers at all, or any Web, with that mindset. And so what if slashdot is cluttered and ugly? Stay on topic. Don't be a prick and try to paint me as some idiot who doesn't read books. You don't know who you're talking to.
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
I tried reading a book once, but apparently it's batteries were dead and I couldn't figure out where the hell to plug it in..
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Why is the Justice Dept spending taxpayer's money getting into the middle of what is basically a private dispute between the two companies?
take any Wikipedia article, turn off the images in your browser and try to think about the layout in general...a lot of work goes into MediaWiki to make that all happen
OK. I see content in the middle, separated into sections with a larger header. Navigation on the side, top and bottom. Looks a lot like Craigslist actually, except that Craigslist only has navigation on the top and bottom of its listing pages. I wouldn't call either of them ugly actually. What exactly should I have accomplished with this exercise?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
... is ugly as sin ...
yes, i agree, Sin is ugly. The whole concept of sin, is just plain ugly. It sounds like a word that would get made up to further the power of some religious cult. And that makes it very ugly.
Of course, the things that are called "Sin" is rarely ugly. It just feels that way because you got people telling you non stop that "Sin" is bad, and if it feels good, then it's probably "Sin".
But that isn't because Sin is bad, it's because those people don't understand that that Sin is natural and healthy, so they call it ugly.
Be seeing you...