Without Craigslist or eBay I doubt eWillys would exist. Therefore, I try to keep up with news about those two companies.   Also, after being a co-founder of an early online bartering system we called BarterFarm back in 2000 (see logo to the right), I have followed eBay, Craigslist, and other online classified-based companies over the past decade.     So, I found this article today in the Guardian very interesting.  I thought maybe a few readers would be interested in this too.

I knew that eBay had managed to purchase a sizeable chunk of Craigslist back in 2004, but I didn’t know the following.

1) eBay is fighting to get a board of directors position on the Craigslist board, because they own 28% of the company.

2) To keep this from happening, Craigslist has been attempting to dilute ownership so that eBay will own less than 25% of the company, which keeps eBay from being able to demand a board seat.

3) I knew that there are only a handful of employees at Craigslist (maybe 20?), but the revenues last year for Craigslist totaled about $100m.  That’s much, much higher than I expected!  Given the size of their employee base, I suspect they are either contracting out a lot of services or raking in a lot of cash.

4) eBay launched Kijiji, a competing classified website which I have seen around, but never took very seriously.

I’m not saying one venture is better than the other, but eBay would eat their own children, while Craigslist is a community focused, egalitarian venture (hence the lack of ads, the lack of a national or international company sponsored search engine, etc).  One is public, while the other is private.  One is entrenched in the center of San Jose and Silicon Valley, while the other is situated in the heart of San Francisco.  eBay only obtained ownership by purchasing private stock from an early founder or investor (I can’t remember which); this didn’t make the other owners very happy.  Therefore, this relationship is destined for a rocky relationship of some kind.

I found this example of a Dashboard at the Jeep 4×4 Center website.  I thought the details were really nicely exploded.  I’d like to build something like this for various jeeps.  It would certainly help me remember what is supposed to be where on various flatties.  Anyone run across diagrams like this for flatties?

UPDATE: **SOLD** Was $1200.

I suppose the story goes like this, “One day, I parked it in the field and couldn’t start it, so I left it there …”?

“Perfect project vehicle or parts car. Has not run but 4 cyl. motor still turns.”

Updates will occur infrequently tonight in-between Nazi Zombie sessions tonight (Karson’s visiting 🙂 )

This could be a good deal for someone.

“aluminum half cab , doors, m38 windshield frame 250 obo call Aaron @ 810 650 2136 ”

http://porthuron.craigslist.org/pts/1468031244.html

My Broadband is acting slow tonight, so more updates will need to wait til tomorrow.

– Dave

This pic of kids on a jeep was too precious to resist …

I ran across this story of Thomas Tugend on CNN.  It included a video with a great pic of him in a jeep (seen above sitting in the jeep).  The story also reminded me of some family history of my own.  My Great Grandfather was born in Nassau, Germany, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1859.  He loved both Germany and the U.S.  One of his 5 daughters moved to Germany and married a German Military Officer in 1892, who would fight the Allies in WWI (don’t know if he survived — she would die in the WWII 1944 bombing of Hanover).  I’d like to know what was going through my Great Grandfather’s mind as WWI broke (but then, I’m the family history buff).

However, Thomas Tugend is still alive and provides this interesting interview on his experience.

UPDATE: Jim gave me some good advice on going with some ‘flat glass’ shops rather that windshield specific shops.  I’ve asked for some quotes and will provide updates on my quest.  Thanks Jim!

I need to have a windshield cut and I don’t have the old windshield glass to use as a template.  I’ve gotten one quote for about $200 to have the glass templated, cut and installed (which seems a bit high to me).  I think if I had the template, I could get the price lowered. Anyone have such a template?

Then I got to thinking, wouldn’t it be useful to have a series of windshield glass templates for a variety of jeeps in PDF form that could be downloaded and printed (probably have to printed at a Kinkos).  If anyone knows of any existing templates online, please let me know.