eBay Aims To Be Internet's Dominant Commerce PlatformeBay Aims To Be Internet's Dominant Commerce Platform

eBay CEO John Donahoe, speaking at Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco Monday said he thinks his company has the same opportunity to dominate the commerce platform the way that Facebook has dominated in social and Google has dominated in online advertising, but he also said that the commerce opportunity isn't a zero-sum game.

Donahoe brushed off questions about competitors like Google (with Wallet) and Amazon, saying "we don't compete with the people who sell on our platform." eBay would rather enable commerce for all retailers, helping them enter an era of commerce that growingly begins and ends online, and an era that clearly also involves mobile devices.

Consumers that use mobile applications, Donahoe said, are four times more engaged than those who don't. Those consumers are interacting with those devices while in line buying coffee; in fact eBay customers buy 2600 cars per week on their phones. They "shop while they wait," said Donahoe.

In response to the threat that Facebook -- today an eBay partner -- could decide to go it alone someday, Donahoe said that the two companies are working very closely on discovering the emerging social shopping intersection. He also said he didn't expect that intersection would come completely to light for another two years, and that the social shopping experience is at the whim of a variety of factors, like gender differences.