 This week, as expected, Alibaba filed for its US IPO. Alibaba. Alibaba. Alibaba. Alibaba. Alibaba says open Sesame to Wall Street. Wait, pause. What is Alibaba? I'm Nathan Seidkert, and this is 90 Seconds on the Verge. Alibaba is a Chinese e-commerce company founded by Jack Ma, a former English teacher who's akin to Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos in China. Alibaba is made up of several sites, but the two biggest are Taobao and Tmall. Taobao is Alibaba's eBay, allowing small businesses to sell products online. But Taobao doesn't take a cut of the proceeds. Instead, it makes money through advertisements. Tmall is much closer to Amazon, where large companies like Samsung and Gap can create online stores for an Asian market. Last year, sales on Taobao and Tmall totaled over $248 billion. Alibaba's biggest challenge is going to be trust. The company's been criticized in the past for promoting counterfeit and defective goods, something it explicitly acknowledged in its IPO filing. But if Alibaba can earn that trust, it could prove to be a serious threat to Amazon, which thrives on undercutting its competitors. That isn't slowing Alibaba's growth internationally. The company already does business in Russia and Brazil and is working on an American marketplace it's calling ElevenMain. For Amazon, which thrives on undercutting its competitors, Alibaba could prove to be a serious threat. What happens when hordes of Chinese manufacturers can sell directly to its consumers? For more on Alibaba, check out The Verge. Coming up, I start my own international ice cream business. But I'm a little low on money, so it's going to have to be ground shipping.