Pierre Omidyar

Ginx is the name of the mysterious service.  A regulatory filing allowed Dan Primack to discover the existence of both it and its parent company, Peer News, and Primack writes, "According to the filing, Peer News has raised around $2 million."

As for the people involved, Pierre Omidyar is eBay’s founder, and Randy Ching’s spent years as an exec in the same organization.  A third fellow, Mike Mohr, is on Peer News’s board, and also acts as a senior advisor to the philanthropic investment firm Omidyar Network.

So there’s a rock-solid background.  In regards to Ginx’s daily operations, the service is tied to Twitter, and comes in both mobile and desktop flavors.  Little else is known, but after rumors started circulating, a short official statement at least announced, "Ginx is a Twitter client that aims to provide Twitter users with a rich experience for sharing and discussing links.  Ginx was created to enable people to become more actively engaged in the news and topics they care about."

Invite codes and alpha users are now getting lined up, so stay tuned for more info.

Shortly after Whitman left eBay in March of this year, she made the short list of possible McCain running mates. Perhaps she wasn’t “folksy” enough. McCain clearly hasn’t forgotten Whitman, mentioning her alongside Warren Buffett as possible Treasury Secretary to replace Henry “Fight Credit With Credit” Paulson. McCain also mentioned Whitman was CEO “of a company which started with 12 people.”

A real time reaction from Omidyar on Twitter shows Omidyar’s apparent objection. “Ahem. Started with 12 people?” he tweeted. A quick check of eBay’s own account of its beginning includes only Omidyar from his home computer in 1995. (Other accounts include a couple of others, though, including his PEZ dispenser collector of a girlfriend.) Whitman didn’t join eBay until 1998, after the company went public.

Omidyar’s clear dislike for McCain was evident in posts afterward, twice sarcastically referring to tax cuts McCain would allow him to keep instead of using that money to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Omidyar is worth about $10 billion, and clearly, like Buffett, feels he can spare a little.

One wonders if Whitman would also think so, also taking her place among the world’s richest. If so, it would be another way Whitman would find herself fairly alone among major Internet billionaires, who seem to lean Democrat. But when it comes to technology issues, Whitman has historically sided against Republicans. In the past, she’s been vocal about her support of Net Neutrality, and for consumer privacy protections, both issues McCain has erred on the side of deregulation and acquiescence to market forces.

Though he questions whether his endorsement matters and labels it "self-indulgent," Omidyar takes the opportunity to talk about being inspired by Obama’s vision for America:

"When he talks about America, it makes me proud to be an American. I want to believe, and I do believe that we live in the America he is talking about. I’m an immigrant, and even though I was raised here, I’ve always loved this country and its ideals with the fervor of a convert. He puts words to what I feel….

"We’ve got excellent candidates all around this year, but I truly think that only once in a generation will we see an exceptional leader like Barack Obama."

Internet businesses and their principals may have other, more practical (read: less inspiring) reasons to support Obama. Late last year, Obama pledged support of Net Neutrality, a measure intended to keep the barriers to entry for online businesses low. In his address at the Googleplex, Obama also laid out his "innovation agenda," which includes creating a more transparent, web-accessible government. 
 

EBay Explores Human Nature, Likes What It Sees

Omidyar, speaking alongside John Donohoe, president of eBay Marketplaces, and Bob Kagle of Benchmark Capital, at the opening "Coffee Talk" segment of the eBay Developers Conference in Boston, pulled out all of the Pollyanna stops.

I know what you’re thinking, but save the references to Kool-Aid, flowers, handholding and Kumbaya for the comments section. Omidyar’s message of hope and eBay was a nice change of pace from a world enamored with the descent of celebrity heiresses and bombshell drama.

Omidyar said the driving mantra behind eBay, back when it was still a startup in 1995, was "people are basically good," and the continuation of that idea with an emphasis on trust is what will keep eBay afloat in the future.

Like any good collective myth creator (we apply "collective myth" in the positive sense rather than the pejorative, if you pessimists think otherwise – hegemony has its own noble function), Omidyar focused on success stories.

Our sources at the conference readily relay Pierre’s tale of a woman pulling herself out of public assistance because of the opportunity a service like eBay’s offers, where the barriers to doing business are effectively laid flat.

His conclusion, then, is split into two lessons eBay has presented mankind:

Lesson 1: Business is a force for good (Again, hold your comments, he said "business" and not "corporatism," as might be your first objection).

Lesson 2: Given the right environment, people can discover power within themselves to make good things happen.

Mmmm. Excuse me a moment as I rub that into my skin and like it, hope beyond reason, and reconsider my thoughts on altruism and human nature, and ponder whether or not turning 30 has really jaded me forever. Maybe I just need more coffee.

Kagle interjects to back up Pierre, reiterating the idea that people can simultaneously "do good and be successful," an idea that inspired eBay from its roots, and that the people on eBay genuinely want to help others.

Barring a few bad apples, we can imagine, like fathers sharing their parenting skills via Nintendo boxes of rocks, and opportunists selling locks of Britney’s hair. To eBay’s credit, the team weeds these out with good-faith vigor – though people are basically good, at least born as a good, clean slate, they are often polluted over time, like good ideas, and good websites. Cleaning and showering are ongoing human crises.

Nonetheless, Pierre believes in this innate goodness – a nice rebuttal to Original Sin – and believes eBay is "just beginning to impact the world, if you believe in people and trust each other."

That’s a tall order for the Aristocracy, Pierre, but so was the idea that housewives, paupers, the physically afflicted – well, anybody – could run a proper online business with eBay. And that’s working out so far…

Bob interjects again, says, eBay "brings the world together, and over time…will impact communities, cities, and even countries. And that will change the world."

Pierre was selling the idea better, but that’s okay. "Third parties," says Pierre, "consumers, developers, are the ones that will lead."

Scoff all you want, he could be right – has been so far – and at the least, it’s a nice battle cry.