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Now look at eBay (EBAY ). It began as trading site for nerds, the newly jobless, and bored homebound parents to sell subprime goods: collectibles and attic trash. But it quickly grew into a teeming metropolis of 30 million, with its own laws and norms, such as a feedback system in which buyers and sellers rate each other on each transaction. When that wasn't quite enough, eBay formed its own police force to patrol the listings for fraud and kick out offenders.

There's an educational system that offers classes around the country on how to sell on eBay. The company even has something akin to a bank: Its PayPal payment-processing unit allows buyers to make electronic payments to eBay sellers who can't afford a merchant credit-card account. "EBay is creating a second, virtual economy," says W. Brian Arthur, an economist at think tank Santa Fe Institute. "It's opening up a whole new medium of exchange."

It's also introducing a whole new mode of management in this Internet era. If......

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Approximate Word Count: 2016
Approximate Pages: 9 (250 words per double-spaced page)