Ebay's Story of Success

The popular online auctioneer eBay Inc. is planning to close its Half.com Web site at the end of 2004, by which time it will have merged all the items for sale on that site into the appropriate categories on the eBay site, a spokesman said on Thursday. Half.com, which eBay bought in the summer of 2000, for $241 million in stock, features books, music, and videos for sale. Some eBay executives and analysts had expected the eBay and Half.com combination to compete with online retailer Amazon.com Inc.


Josh Kopelman, 32...