Thurs - Ebay turns 10

Last weekend 10 years ago, a programmer named Pierre Omidyar took a chance on an odd little Web site called AuctionWeb. Most of silicon Valley spent the summer of 1995 farting around dreaming up ways to use a new fangled technology called the Internet. Pierre's idea of course was an auction site that let anyone list an item or place a bid. He posted the code to his personal home page with the whimsical domain name: www.ebay.com.

Well, that was then and this is now. Ebay, with 64m active users, is on track to sell more than $40bn this year! Yes, that's $40bn in gross revenues!!

Ebay is a spectacular success, and not only because Mr Omidyar is now worth $10bn. It may not be a perfect market, but it has revolutionized pricing. The "value" of many things today is what they sell for on Ebay.

But the real scoop has only just begun. Ebay has also given ordinary people an economic foothold online. Selling on Ebay is the primary or secondary income for an estimated 724,000 Americans. This probably means that trading on Ebay is the primary or secondary income for around 1m people worldwide. No wonder I keep seeing adds for books or online tips on how to make money on Ebay. And I assumed they were just another pyramid scheme. But no, this stuff really works.

So, instead of writing for you guys, I should become the millionth and one digital day/market stall trader. Where is that old Rolex of mine anyway. Or, maybe I should move to the beach and sell sand to the Arabs. Either way, it looks like a whole new revolution has just begun. Home working here we all come!