Bron: eBay Strategies Blog
Toch leuk om te horen dat een van je collega's staat op de lijst van '50 people that matter' van CNN Money.
Greg Isaacs, Director of Developer Relations
Why He Matters: You won't find his name on eBay's senior management roster, but Isaacs is critical to the growth prospects of the $4.6 billion company, which is increasingly threatened by competition from the likes of Amazon, Craigslist, Google, Swaptree, and countless other online discounters and marketplaces. Isaacs's job is to make eBay as indispensable to the Web at large as, say, Google Maps. But to do that, he first had to persuade eBay's brass to open up its auction database so outside software developers could build business-to-business tools and consumer-friendly widgets around it. He won that battle late last year, and several startups have already sprung up with new services built around eBay auction data. As a result, the number of eBay listings funneled through third-party applications is up 11 percent from last quarter. So-called network effects made eBay the dominant player in online auctions. Now, thanks to Isaacs's efforts to expand the reach of the company's network, eBay hopes to stay that way.
Ook in de lijst staan de oprichters van Skype:
Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström
Co-founders, Skype
Why They Matter: Friis and Zennström have a talent for disruption. The Scandinavian software coders made their first splash in 2000 when they unleashed Kazaa, a peer-to-peer file-sharing program that quickly supplanted Napster as the music industry's worst nightmare. In 2003 the duo targeted the long-distance phone business by launching Skype, a free VOIP client. In the next year, global long-distance revenue declined by 33 percent. Since then, Skype has been downloaded about 300 million times. eBay rewarded the two with a $2.6 billion buyout last year, but apparently they have no plans to slow down: Their next move is rumored to be a company that will enable peer-to-peer television. If experience is any guide, broadcast and cable TV execs should be afraid. Very afraid.
Klik hier voor de hele lijst.
