I was fascinated to discover the auction hybrid site swoopo.com (previously known
as telebid.com). It's a strange combination of eBay, woot, and slot
machine. Here's how it works:
- You purchase bids in pre-packaged blocks of at least 30. Each bid
costs you 75 cents, with no volume discount.
- Each bid raises the purchase price by 15 cents and increases the
auction time by 15 seconds.
- Once the auction ends, you pay the final price.
I just watched an 8GB Apple iPod Touch sell on swoopo for
$187.65. The final price means a total of 1,251 bids were placed for
this item, costing bidders a grand total of $938.25.
Via reddit, Coding Horror:
Profitable Until Deemed Illegal
So, let me get this straight. Swoopo charges people 75¢ per bid on an
auction, and each bid only increases the bid amount by 15¢ …
Amazing.
I guess D
avid Hannum was right, and I'm in the wrong business.
You have my permission to link freely to any entry here. Go
ahead, I won't bite. I promise.
The dates are the permanent links to that day's entries (or
entry, if there is only one entry). The titles are the permanent
links to that entry only. The format for the links are
simple: Start with the base link for this site: https://boston.conman.org/, then add the date you are
interested in, say 2000/08/01,
so that would make the final URL:
https://boston.conman.org/2000/08/01
You can also specify the entire month by leaving off the day
portion. You can even select an arbitrary portion of time.
You may also note subtle shading of the links and that's
intentional: the “closer” the link is (relative to the
page) the “brighter” it appears. It's an experiment in
using color shading to denote the distance a link is from here. If
you don't notice it, don't worry; it's not all that
important.
It is assumed that every brand name, slogan, corporate name,
symbol, design element, et cetera mentioned in these pages is a
protected and/or trademarked entity, the sole property of its
owner(s), and acknowledgement of this status is implied.
