Metaweb was founded in 2005. Investors include Benchmark Capital, Goldman Sachs (GS), and eBay (EBAY) founder Pierre Omidyar.

No purchase price was disclosed, but investors will need to see a decent-sized check in order to get a return: The company has raised at least $57 million in its five-year tenure.

(Thanks, Atul!)

The trial begins bright and early tomorrow morning in Delaware between online auction giant eBay and Web classified kingpin craigslist.

Since BoomTown is in a “Paper Chase” mood, I expect everyone to bone up on the legal issues of the Silicon Valley faceoff by reading the pretrial briefs below.

If not, as John Houseman playing Professor Charles Kingfield, said so memorably: “Here is a dime. Take it, call your mother, and tell her there is serious doubt about you ever becoming a lawyer.”

To review, here are the particulars of the case:

Fact: eBay holds a minority ownership position in craigslist (which was its first mistake, really).

Currently, the San Jose, Calif.-based eBay (EBAY) owns less than 25 percent, although it had acquired about 28 percent in a deal in 2004.

That dilution is what’s at stake here, with eBay filing a lawsuit last year against the privately held craigslist for making that happen, via a “coercive plan,” by issuing more stock and thereby causing eBay to lose its board seat.

Of course, craiglist has put forth its own lawsuit in San Francisco, alleging that eBay stole confidential information to create a competing classified service called Kijiji, and other misdeeds.

First up tomorrow will be former eBay CEO Meg Whitman–who is running for the Republican nomination for California governor and who takes the stand to talk about the original deal with craiglist.

She will be followed by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and others.

So, here are the prebriefs from both companies to consider:

Pretrial brief for craigslist:

craigslist pre-brief –

Pretrial brief for eBay:

eBay_PTB_redacted –

Auction giant eBay is headed to court again Monday, and for once, it has nothing to do with the litigious Skype co-founders.

Instead, it’s a battle in Delaware with craigslist, the San Francisco online classified powerhouse that eBay holds a minority ownership position in.

That stake is actually precisely what’s at stake. Currently, the San Jose, Calif.-based eBay (EBAY) has a less than 25 percent one, although it had acquired about 28 percent in a deal in 2004.

The company waged a lawsuit last year against the privately held craigslist for diluting its ownership position by issuing more stock and thereby causing eBay to lose its board seat.

That happened, alleges eBay, through a “coercive plan” by craigslist founder Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster.

“We have acted in good faith as a minority shareholder,” said eBay spokesman Alan Marks. “We are simply asking the court to restore our original interest in the company.”

I sent a late email to craiglist’s rep and will post the reply if I get one.

Whitman–who is running for the Republican nomination for California governor–takes the stand on opening day Monday to talk about the original deal with craiglist.

She will be followed by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

Of course, craiglist has its own suit in San Francisco, alleging that eBay stole confidential information to create a competing classified service called Kijiji–a dopey name that BoomTown hereby rules someone should be arrested for thinking up–and other misdeeds.

But, so as to be consistent in its awkward legal messes, there is a Skype link: Current Skype President Josh Silverman had been the craigslist board member for eBay and played a key role in developing Kijiji.

Under Whitman’s leadership, ebay also bought Skype, in 2005, and sold a big stake recently.

It was a very controversial sale, which in turn, led to a series of ugly lawsuits from the Skype co-founders, which were just settled last month.

It will be interesting to see what Whitman, who has recently declared that the disastrous Skype acquisition was a good one, says about the craigslist debacle.

Perhaps she’ll say that eBay should have limited its investing during her watch to antiques and other fine collectibles?

Former-eBay-exec-turned-Omidyar-partner Matt Halprin will become the ninth member of the Wikimedia Board of Trustees as part of the deal.

Former-eBay-exec-turned-Omidyar-partner Matt Halprin will become the ninth member of the Wikimedia Board of Trustees as part of the deal.

There’s not much info on the Ginx.com Web site; the blog ReadWriteWeb.com theorizes that Ginx is “a Twitter management service that recommends news items and other users you should meet, based on your interests.” He notes that Ginx is being used as a URL shortener on Twitter by some people, including Omidyar himself.

You can find hints of what’s happening here by searching for Pierre and Ginx.com on Google. For instance, here’s an example where Omidyar points people to how a Google (GOOG) search for “chimp” triggers a link to a site called BushorChimp.com.

Read the rest of this post

Today, a panoply of prominent tech and Internet leaders is taking a very public stand against a controversial initiative before California voters, which would eliminate the current legal right of same-sex couples to marry.

Forming a group and taking out a full-page ad in the San Jose Mercury News tomorrow, the execs hope to convince voters to reject Proposition 8, which is titled “Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry.”

Silicon Valley has had a long history of supporting gay rights. And recently, Google (GOOG) Co-Founder Sergey Brin has made a strong statement opposing Proposition 8, while Apple (AAPL) gave $100,000 to help defeat it.

The honorary co-chairs of “Silicon Valley Leaders Say NO on Proposition 8″ include: Brin; Bill Campbell, Chairman, Intuit; David Filo, Founder, Yahoo; Chuck Geschke, Founder and Chairman, Adobe Systems; John Morgridge, Former CEO and Chairman, Cisco Systems; Pierre Omidyar, Founder and Chairman, eBay; Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook; Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google; and Jerry Yang, Founder, Yahoo.

In a statement in a press release set to go out this morning, Yang said: “Silicon Valley has always been an example for the rest of the country of how diversity and openness help to drive innovation and value creation. This divisive measure is the antithesis of those values that make Silicon Valley so unique.”

An ad the group–which also includes star venture capitalist Mike Moritz of Sequoia Capital, as well as Palm Founders Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins, and many others–is putting out tomorrow in the Mercury News reads:

Silicon Valley Leaders Urge You to Stand for Equality.
Vote No on Proposition 8.

As Silicon Valley leaders, we are committed to equality and fairness. We are opposed to Proposition 8 because it would change our state constitution to take away rights from one group of people. It would set our state, and our country, back in the fight for fundamental fairness and equal rights.

Please join us by reaching out to friends and neighbors and asking them to stand for fairness: Vote No on Proposition 8 on November 4th.”

(The ad and a longer list of tech leaders opposing Proposition 8 is below.)

If passed by a majority of voters, the California Constitution would be amended to include a new section stating “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

Earlier this year, the California Supreme Court held that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry under the state’s constitution.

Former California State Controller and former exec at eBay Steve Westly noted that his own interracial marriage was once illegal, which is one of the reasons he was opposing Propostition 8.

“It really is the civil rights issue of the day … people stood up and fought for people like me and now it is time to stand up for others,” said Westly, who was an early supporter of gay marriage and is said to be eyeing a run for governor of the state. “While this is a polarizing issue, it is mind-boggling to me not to support the right of any two adults who love each other to marry.”

One thing is certain–the issue is indeed polarizing. Currently, the vote on Proposition 8 is very close, and a huge amount of money–more than $60 million–has been spent by both sides in the battle, which is considered one of the most contentious and high-profile in the nation.

Here is the ad (click on the image to make it larger):

LEADERS (partial list):
Deborah Barber, Principal, Jackson Hole Group
John Battelle, Chairman and CEO, Federated Media
Larry Birenbaum, Former Senior Vice President, Cisco Systems
Lorna Borenstein, President, Move
Larry Brilliant, Executive Director, Google.org
Owen Byrd, President, Byrd Development
John Chisholm, Chairman and CEO, CustomerSat
Barry Cinnamon, CEO, Akeena Solar
Tod Cohen, Director of Government Affairs, eBay
LaDoris Cordell, Administrator, Stanford University
Sue Decker, President, Yahoo!
Jack Dorsey, Chairman, Twitter
David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development & Chief Legal Officer, Google
Donna Dubinsky, CEO, Numenta
Alan Eustace, SVP, Engineering and Research, Google
Naomi Fine, President & CEO, Pro-Tec Data
Rachel Glaser COO/CFO, Reunion.com
Carl Guardino, President and CEO, Silicon Valley Leadership Group
Andre Haddad, CEO, Shopping.com
Jeff Hawkins, co-Founder Palm, Handspring, and Numenta
David Karnstedt, Investor
Scott Kaspick, Managing Director, Kaspick & Co.
Steve Kirsch, Serial Entrepreneur
John Koza, CEO, Third Millennium
Ross LaJeunesse, Head of State Policy Western US, Google
Gary Lauder, Managing Partner, Lauder Partners Venture Capital
Laura Lauder, General Partner, Lauder Partners Venture Capital
Len Lehman, Investor
John Luongo, Former CEO, Vantive Corporation
Roger McNamee, Managing Director & co-Founder, Elevation Partners
Ken McNeely, President, AT&T California
Michael Moritz, Partner, Sequoia Capital
Susan Packard Orr, CEO, Telosa Software
Randy Pond, Executive Vice President, Cisco Systems
Amy Rao, Founder & CEO, Integrated Archive Systems
Jana Rich, Managing Director, Russell Reynolds
Miriam Rivera, Former Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Google
Dan Rosensweig, Investor
Dan Rubin, Partner, Alloy Ventures
Hilary Schneider, Executive Vice President US Region, Yahoo
Len Shustek, Chairman, Computer History Museum
Jeff Skoll, Former President, eBay Inc.
Stephanie Tilenius, SVP, eBay North America
Joy Weiss, President and CEO, Dust Networks
Steve Westly, former California State Controller & former SVP eBay
Evan Williams, CEO, Twitter

[UPDATED on 11/05/08] In the interest of full disclosure, I am obviously not a supporter of Proposition 8. And, after I wrote this piece and hours before it passed last night, I got married in California under its recent same-sex marriage law, which the initiative has now overturned. It is still legally unclear what that will mean for people like me who married before Proposition 8 was passed, as it is not retroactive; as of now, the marriages remain valid. In any case, please see this disclosure related to me here.

Writing about however many millions of dollars go to however many frivolous widget companies is about as interesting as watching Robert Scoble’s blog video lectures. (Sorry, Bob!)

So it is nice to see a good (and good-for-you) charity site like DonorsChoose get some money and, hopefully, attention.

The site, which lets teachers upload proposals for resources and projects–from books to playgrounds–they need funding for and matches them with donors, has to be limited in geography. But today, it will open its services to every public school in the U.S. to allow teachers nationwide to get their wish lists fulfilled online.

With the national expansion, the nonprofit hopes be on track to becoming 100% self-sustaining, according to its founder, a former Bronx schoolteacher named Charles Best.

That’s due to $11 million in possible funding from a panoply of big Web players. EBay Founder Pierre Omidyar has promised to pony up $6 million, with Yahoo’s David Filo, longtime VC Vinod Khosla and Netflix’s Reed Hastings adding in the rest. (Khosla was an early supporter, allowing the site to expand to the San Francisco area from its New York base.)

The catch for the funding? Omidyar will release the bulk of his commitment only if DonorsChoose completes the round by Nov. 30.

It seems like a pretty good investment to me, using the Internet to clarify and amplify the donating process. Sort of like eBay meets Match.com meets Amazon. So far, the site has given away $14.5 million to projects.

Best says DonorsChoose authenticates every project proposal before posting it. Then it purchases the resources when a project is funded and sends the goods off to teachers, with some donors also adding in more money to pay for fulfillment costs.

That will now be a lot cheaper and more efficient due to a donation by Ariba of fulfillment software and services to DonorsChoose that the site values at over $2 million. That follows a donation by Filo, said Best, of five Yahoo engineers who were lent to DonorsChoose full-time for five months to rewrite its code base.

But Best is more articulate than I can be, so here is a video of him talking about his site: