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Now thats funny. According to the NY Times, eBay, who bought over 28% of Craiglist in 2004, have filed a law suit against the company claiming that ..”Craigslist’s two directors, the founder Craig Newmark and the chief executive, Jim Buckmaster, took actions that unfairly diluted eBay’s economic interest in the company.”

There is speculation that this is connected to Craiglist raising another funding round despite have wads of cash in the bank.

Don’t you just love families?

Tags: Craiglist, eBay

Zivity, a company creating a new category of subscription-based social networking for the 18 and over market, has raised $7 million in Series B financing from venture capital firms BlueRun Ventures and Founders Fund.

John Malloy, partner and a founder of BlueRun Ventures, and Luke Nosek, managing partner at Founders Fund, will join Zivity co-founders Scott Banister, Cyan Banister and Jeffrey Wescott on the companys board of directors.

BlueRun Ventures, which led the round of financing, has previously collaborated with Scott Banister at Slide, the personal media network best known for its embedded social networking applications, and PayPal, the online payment company now owned by eBay.

Zivity, much like Slide and PayPal before it, has a driven and talented team focused on challenging the status quo and creating a large new market opportunity, said Malloy of BlueRun. Zivity is introducing an innovative business model that reflects a major shift in the maturation of the Web. We look forward to helping build Zivity into a global media platform.

Zivity.com is a community-powered showcase promoting female beauty and expression through professional-quality photography. Subscribers to Zivity pay $10 per month and distribute 40 percent of their subscription fee to the participating models and photographers via Zivitys innovative dollar-backed voting system. Each vote cast delivers cash to the content creators.

[Read more]

Tags: BlueRun Ventures, eBay, European Founders Fund, Zivity

eBay has taken a step into the social networking arena by launching eBay Neighbourhoods. Perhaps in a bid to shed itself of its Web 1.0 reputation, the powers at eBay are hoping to capture the old magic of eBay, a lifestyle centred on doohickeys.

eBay describe Neighbourhoods as .. “places for people like you who want to connect via their shared passions for products and topics. You can jump right in, or just come by and watch - it’s up to you.”

Introducing a social networking element to complement the store is a move to attract and keep buyers. However the most sticky users of eBay are undoubtedly the sellers, who already have a reason to be there. Discussing specific product lines is unlikely to increase sales in any meaningful way for sellers and the buyers will only visit when they have a need to buy. Watch this space!

Incidently the most popular Neighbourhood at the time of writing is Coffee Lovers, with 378 members.

http://neighborhoods.ebay.com

Tags: eBay