The
Perfect Store: Inside eBay by Adam Cohen
In the short but wild history of the Internet, few companies have developed
such an ideal approach to utilizing the uniqueness of the medium for business
as eBay--hence the title of Adam Cohen's colorful and insightful corporate
biography The Perfect Store. Cohen, chief technology writer for Time magazine
before joining The New York Times' editorial board, is the only journalist
to receive complete cooperation from the company for such a project, and
the combination of access and experience leads to a well-researched and
well-written tale capturing the essence of this online auction-house phenomenon.
In the process, Cohen reveals how the pioneering site first developed into
a vibrant virtual community, then a cultural icon and a model for Web-based
commerce that reported revenue of $749 million in 2001. From its beginnings
as a hobby site on a Silicon Valley PC, to its maturation as a real company
under the burgeoning fiscal pressures of cyberspace, to its present status
as one of the few original e-business practitioners to survive the dot.com
implosion, eBay has always been part of the crowd while managing to stand
out from it. Cohen helps us understand why by taking us inside the heads
of major players like Pierre Omidyar, the cofounder who imbued his site
with a Libertarian philosophy responsible for its heart and soul, and Meg
Whitman, the seasoned manager who brought business savvy and a Harvard
MBA to its roller-coaster world. What helps make the book so readable and
informative, though, are Cohen's accompanying observations of the many
other people and events that also helped eBay develop its trademark direction
and characteristic personality: the company that formulated its distinctive
logo, the Kansas City clothing-iron collectors whose pastime was transformed
by the upstart Web site, the quirky listings that generated controversy
(and publicity) like the one in 1999 for a "fully functional kidney," even
detractors who decry its big-business underpinnings. Fans of the site,
along with students of the online world in general, will find Cohen's account
both instructive and enjoyable. --Howard Rothman - Amazon.com Hardcover: 320 pages
Little Brown & Company; ISBN: 0316150487; 1st edition
(June 2002)
