SCOBLE -- Robert Scoble offers some useful facts about eBay.
- $70b to $80b runs through the eBay platform every quarter.
- Every hour eBay registers 3000 to 4000 new users.
- eBay expects $3.5b in 2004 revenues.
- Every day about a terabyte of data courses through eBay's data centers.
- Most of eBay's machines run Windows but the back end is running on Sun servers.
- Last year 10,000 customers showed up for the first "eBay Live" conference. This year's event is expected to see even more people.
- Nearly 5000 people work for eBay. Another 1000 will be added in 2004.
- eBay's founder, Pierre Omidyar, started eBay because he wanted a way to sell and buy Pez dispensers and there wasn't a good way to do that on the Internet before. By the way, Pierre is a blogger.
- eBay has a high degree of customer lockin. How? Well, for one, many of their customers are getting rich (he says he knows a few power sellers who have already retired). Second, the more you buy and sell on eBay, the better your ratings, and those aren't transferable to other auction systems.
- Jeffrey McManus runs eBay's vibrant developer programme.
Robert Scoble -- "eBay executive gives inside scoop"
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