EBay’s Founder Bets on ‘Participatory Media’
Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay Inc., is getting interested in the media world. A generation ago, he might have acquired a newspaper, taken a stake in a cable operator or made some other splashy investment — befitting a man with a net worth topping $10 billion.
But Mr. Omidyar doesn’t have much use for that time-honored route. In fact, no one in Silicon Valley does. People who grew rich in the Internet age believe that the best media opportunities involve new ways to attract millions of users at low cost, with only light guidance from a small team at headquarters. Their reasoning deserves a close look.
In recent interviews, Mr. Omidyar and his new investment chief, Matt Bannick, explained why they want to build “participatory media” companies, in which vast numbers of ordinary citizens call the shots. To them, that’s the future of media, even if it won’t always be profitable.
Both men say their perspective is shaped hugely by their time at eBay. (Mr. Bannick, a former McKinsey & Co. consultant, was eBay employee No. 140; he ran eBay’s international and PayPal units and various other operations for eight years.)
Not only was eBay a great business success, Mr. Omidyar says, “it also created all these social benefits by connecting people with shared interests. That led us to think: ‘How can we find other opportunities to do the same thing?’ ”
After a slow start, Mr. Omidyar’s main investment vehicle, Omidyar Network, has put money into a wide array of Web-based communities.
It has backed Digg Inc., which lets ordinary users play editor and highlight the news stories they find most interesting.
It helped fund Linden Lab, creators of the wildly popular Second Life simulated world.
Another Omidyar Network-funded venture, Federated Media Publishing Inc., sells ads for bloggers, making thousands of them more economically viable.
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Photo by WSJ.
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