eBay’s (NASDAQ:EBAY) fan club is celebrating not just solid holiday quarter earnings announced last week but the emergence of the online auction house and retailer as a viable rival to the all-powerful Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN). While it survived the dot-com collapse to become part of our cultural landscape eBay ran into tougher waters a few years later as Amazon ramped up its own merchant marketplace and consumers found all kinds of rivals springing up promising that they too could deliver great online deals. With Amazon nipping at its heels among consumers who favor doing their shopping on a single site ...