What do eBay, Google and Facebook have in common?
As far as I’m concerned the three biggest success stories on the Web in the last decade have been eBay, Google and Facebook. (You might be able to make an argument for MySpace but I guess I’d take $15 billion in the bush over $600 million in the hand :)). I shared with Otis at lunch today my feeling that these three companies have one very important thing in common. And I feel it’s that one thing that caused them to move from the realm of very successful to mega-successful. In fact, in retrospect it’s the thing that these companies did that MySpace, Yahoo, and other contenders to the throne didn’t do.
Wanna take a guess?
First person with the an answer that’s reasonably close to what I think wins a soon-to-be-created eduFire t-shirt. Anyone with an answer better than mine gets one too. 
10 Comments
- 1. AdamD said:
All three embraced their lack of control and let the users decide how things would be.
From the get-go, eBay understood that the crowd was right. The crowd sets the prices, the crowd is in control of the whole site.
Google did the same when they chose to rely on the crowd to determine the rankings via links (PageRank) and anchor text.
Facebook saw huge growth when they opened up their platform and let the crowd define what FB is.
Alright–that’s mine. But I really want to hear yours!
- 2. Peter said:
Google and eBay created a system that lets people make and spend money, and positioned themselves nicely in between taking a cut. If you help people make money you’re doing good. Actually, Facebook is trying to do that right now, but it’s far from clear whether they’ll succeed.
- 3. Amber said:
For me, the commonality is simple:
All three are highly addictive.
- 4. guynameddave said:
First things first, friends get t-shirts not matter what, right?
I’d add to the above theories that all three are radically unselfish. That is, none of them mind if you go elsewhere. In fact, they encourage you and even push you to develop an identity not only on their sites, but on your own and beyond.
- 5. Ranjit Mathoda said:
They helped you connect to things you can trust. Google: websites you trust. Ebay: buyers/sellers you should trust. Facebook: connect better to the people you already trust.
- 6. Michael Steuer said:
open up to 3rd parties and affiliates! I want an EduFire t-shirt!
by the way - I would take the $600MM any day :p
- 7. jon said:
Great comments all! All of you offered some interesting theories. The one that’s closest to mine (although not necessarily best of course) is Peter’s. eBay and Google made it easy (or easier) for people to earn a living online. Hundreds of thousands of people make a living (part time or full time) selling goods through eBay. I don’t know the number of people who make a living from AdSense but my guess is that it’s similarly high.
Facebook hasn’t entirely succeeded yet but I think it’s a pretty fair bet that no small part of their recent $15 billion valuation is due to what’s happened with the Facebook Apps which was driven by a ton of people thinking they might be able to make a living through Facebook.
MySpace, Yahoo and others never really gave people a chance to make a living on their platforms (although that’s changing).
Economic empowerment is huge (HUGE!). When you can give people the ability to earn a living doing what they’re most passionate about (e.g., selling Beanie Babies or blogging about sports cars) you have a tremendous opportunity in front of you.
This is pretty much what I think about 24/7.
Thanks again for all the comments. And please feel free to keep ‘em coming!!!
- 8. Jivan Amara said:
I agree strongly with AdamD’s opinion. These companies do everything they can to help, or get out of the way when you want to do something. They listen closely to what users want, instead of trying to tell users what they should want.
- 9. Jivan Amara said:
…I still agree that economic empowerment is huge, and certainly a worthwhile result
. - 10. Jeff said:
good string here, jon. i’d add a simple note that the best software/computing businesses are almost always ‘platform’ businesses that enable larger ecosystems. take microsoft for example: by building out Windows they enabled hundreds of software and hardware businesses to flourish. as much value as msft has created for its shareholders it has actually created much more for the other companies in its orbit.
so how does edufire create a platform for education that actually gives away the majority of the value created by the system (payment to teachers; learnings to students)? that’s the m/billion dollar question.
