There’s not much news in it, but The Wall Street Journal published an interview with EBay CEO John Donahoe this weekend saying he’s “cautiously optimistic” about consumers and the economy.

            (Update: As it turns out, the two best things to come out of the article are two follow-ups online. See below.)

            The Donahoe tidbits of most interest to our audience, both of them restatements of things EBay (and we) have said before:

            — EBay expects its auction business, fixed-price and classifieds businesses to merge eventually, because people will just search for whatever they want.

            “Our perspective is that our own search will be able to come together over the next three to five years and bring a more seamless experience” to shopping regardless of e-commerce format, he told the Journal.

            The other non-surprising news?

            — The company may scrap its Kijiji brand in the United States. Why? Because of the likelihood that its classifieds and e-commerce formats may merge eventually. We reported that more than three months ago, although this is the first comment we can find by Donahoe specifically about the topic. Back in early March, EBay began testing EBay Classifieds as its new brand for Kijiji in Pittsburgh and San Antonio, Texas.

            “We here at Kijiji thought it made a lot of sense to start using the EBay brand name. After all, we are part of the EBay family and we are a classifieds site … so ‘EBay Classifieds’ just seemed like a good idea,” the company told users.

            So far, it seems, Pittsburgh and San Antonio remain the only two cities where the change has taken place.

            EBay operates a variety of classified brand names, including Kijiji, which is especially strong in Canada. Gumtree (U.K. and Australia, among others); Marktplaats.nl (the Netherlands); EBay.es (which incorporates “EBay Anuncios” and classified categories;) Loquo.com (Spain) and others are all Kijiji / EBay brands. (And, of course, the biggest online classified site of all, Craigslist, is part-owned by EBay. But that’s another story.)

            At GigaOm, Kevin Kelleher followed the Donahoe story with an analysis hypothesizing that the CEO may be turning the company around. His two charts are pretty telling — especially the first one, which shows the steady rise in EBay’s stock price the past few months.

            Here’s a smidge of Kelleher says: “[EBay's] changes … don’t address what may be the biggest challenge to eBay’s future: Craigslist. Yes, eBay owns a significant stake in Craigslist. But Craigslist’s for-sale listings, which are free to post, still compete with eBay’s fee-based listings. During the last recession, people looking to raise quick cash by selling their stuff turned to eBay. This time, they turn to Craigslist. If Craigslist wanted to kneecap eBay, it could find a way to make its for-sale listings nationwide, not just locally, and facilitate shipping arrangements. There’s no way eBay’s fee-dependent revenues would be able to compete with free. That would make the challenges John Donahoe faces today look small.”

            On SeekingAlpha, ChannelAdvisor CEO Scot Wingo posts a stunningly self-absorbed post — clearly, he thinks Donahoe is closely following his advice to EBay (something we kinda doubt) — but still makes some good points about the directions EBay should be heading. Again, worth a read.

            The WSJ article is here; subscription required.