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Showing posts with label facts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label facts. Show all posts

Sunday, August 8, 2010

10 Entertaining eBay Facts You Might Not Know

As the world’s largest marketplace, eBay has hundreds of millions of listings live at any given moment. Since its founding in 1995, the company has grown from just one curious computer programmer to over 15,000 employees. Over the past 15 years, eBay has become one of the largest companies in America, consistently ranking in the Fortune 500, and is one of the most recognized brands around the world.
Throughout the years, the world has gawked at some of the oddest items listed on eBay, including, among others, old gum, entire towns, and even spouses. The fact that anyone can list almost anything (yes, there are some restrictions), makes this site one of the most interesting places to find rare or outlandish items.
We took a deeper look at the history behind eBay and pulled together some of the most entertaining facts about the company that we could find. Here are 10 that you might not know.
Fill us in on any fun facts that you may have in the comments below.

1. eBay was Originally Called AuctionWeb








This screenshot is the earliest example of the AuctionWeb homepage, circa March 1997, but the basic design did not change from May 1996 to September 1997. Click the image to see the full-sized screenshot.
The site we now know as eBay was launched during Labor Day weekend in 1995 as “AuctionWeb,” by entrepreneur Pierre Omidyar in his living room in San Jose, California.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

10 Fascinating Facebook Facts


Facebook’s astronomic rise, staggeringly large user-base, and world’s youngest self-made billionaire CEO make it one of the most fascinating companies around today.
While everyone knows the basics about the service’s Harvard dorm room origins, we’ve delved a little deeper to find out more interesting snippets of info.
Here are 10 facts you might not know about Facebook (Facebook), so read on and let us know your favorites in the comments box below.

1. Al Pacino’s Face Was on the Original Facebook Homepage



Prior to a major homepage redesign back in 2007, Facebook’s front page used to feature a man’s face partly obscured behind a cloud of binary code.
Dubbed the “Facebook guy,” it was not known who the mystery man was — until recently. David Kirkpatrick has revealed in his book The Facebook Effect that the image is a manipulated photo of Al Pacino created by a friend and classmate of Mark Zuckerberg.