Getting Great Scores on Craigslist

A woman scored a sueded couch for $200, and $260 retail value end tables for $37.50 on craigslist. She's one of the craigslist "early responders," who troll the site regularly, sometimes many times a day, looking for good deals.

This according to a piece in the "Home" section of today's Washington Post, which has a feature article titled "Click and Brag." As I espouse in my ebook about craigslist, "Making Money (and Getting a Life?) via Craigslist": only $8.95!" (http://www.aolmemorabilia.com/clslscrgs.html), the earlybirds definitely get the..er, worms on CL.

The Post piece also urges you to pick up quickly, have cash in hand, and to exchange phone #s with the seller to check  if the item is still free, if necessary, and to get directions.

How Google can Avoid YouTube Copyright Problems

There has been more in the news about media co.'s such as Viacom taking issue with unauthorized use of their videos on Google's YouTube. (See today's USA Today, "Google takes hits from YouTube's use of video clips, " 3B).

OK, I see how they have a problem with that. But what I don't get is why media co's aren't more enthusiastic about seeing YouTube as a new source of revenue. In my mind, Google just needs to figure out a way (this may be harder than it sounds, I know) to tag or have users designate who the copyright owner is for what video when it is uploaded. Or maybe the community does it, or YouTube employees do it, whatever.

Then, for whatever ads are run in, around, or before the video, YouTube/Google and the media owner (Viacom, GE/NBC, whoever) split the ad revenue 50-50, or  40-60,  or whatever they agree on as a split.

Viacom gets to make money off its  tv show clips such as Jon Stewart, the Colbert show, whatever (which, frankly, I don't think people were paying to download in droves before); Google makes money from providing a popular forum for the clips, and the public gets its fun daily fix of short-attention-span videos all on one convenient, homey place. What's not to like?

I don't think the public (if I may speak for the public) wants to see the Balkanization of their online videos, where they have to go to paramount.comedycentral.whatever.com and download three minutes of Jon Stewart, then hunt down Prince playing at the Super Bowl, blah blah blah yaddi yaddi yadda.

OK, so maybe setting up the administration of this would be a nightmare, but I think all the big brains at Google should be able to figure it out. And I hope the big media companies keep an open mind about this because it would be sad to see all this content get scattered will-nilly. (And hey...the copyright owners don't even have to do the tedious job of uploading their own content..someone does it for them!).

Thoughts? Think I'm way off or totally deluded? Feel free to post a comment here. :)

Item Titles..Thank Goodness They're Coming to Feedback 2.0

This is going to be a very quick post. I was doing my leaving feedback task this morning, and realized how much easier it would be if we could see the fool item titles along with the item numbers. It's so hard to remember what's what without it..well, who could expect you to remember item numbers anyway? It's like trying to identify your items by the buyers' Social Security numbers.

The good news is with Feedback 2.0, we will be able to see the item titles along with the item numbers! Yoo-hoo! So I know that I sometimes criticize the way eBay does things..well, let's hope it's just constructive criticism..but, it's also important to say when changes are for the good.

I'll be writing more about Feedback 2.0 soon, for AuctionBytes, but for now I wanted to pass my thanks to eBay for making this important change.

eBay Live 2007: Suze Orman and..lunch with Bill Cobb?

Anyone for Cobb salad? OK, that corny joke just came to me; I apologize. But the first rumblings of eBay Live! 2007 (Boston) are trickling in; eBay opened their registration on the website the other day (go to www.ebay.com/ebaylive), and I got my shiny new eBay "Sellsational" brochure in the mail the other day, complete with hip fighures jumping in the air, not unlike an iPod commercial.

So far in terms of details on events and speakers, I can tell you that financial guru Suze Orman will be one of the featured folks, "sharing her financial insights and motivating you to greater heights."

Also, in the last Town Hall with Bill Cobb, a member suggested they run a charity auction on eBay to give the highest bidders the chance to have lunch with him. He indicated they would look into it, and it sounds like something we may see. Stay tuned.

In terms of hotels, they seem to be filling up fast, and there aren't many that are close to the BCEC, the convention center where the event is being held (there is more than one convntion center in Boston, so make sure you get the right one).

Also, eBay is giving folks the chance to get the "VIP treatment" by adding a "Priority Pass" to their registration...you can "get special gifts, a separate registration line so you can bypass the crowds and get to the good stuff faster, and VIP access and reserved seating at the Keynote Address." I don't know how much extra that costs (if any), but if you know, post a comment here. Otherwise I'll look into it.

Comments about eBay Live 2007, or reminiscences about past ones? Post 'em here..leave a comment.

Second Life: Deja Vu from Club Caribe

I was just reading in AuctionBytes that eBay has allowed the sale of items from the virtual world "Second Life," which is an exception to their general policy of banning the sale of "virtual game items."

It's been noted by Ina Steiner of AuctionBytes, and others, that eBay's founder Pierre Omidyar has invested in Second Life. There is a great article about the site in today's (Mon. Feb. 5) USA Today, and a profile of its founder.

The whole thing about Second Life, avatars and virtual worlds makes me smile, because it reminds me of the virtual world "Club Caribe," which was produced by AOL's predecessor company, Quantum Computer Services, Inc., where I worked from 1988-1997.

I only spent a little time in Caribe -- it had been called "Habitat" prior to that, and was co-produced by Lucasfilm -- but it was memorable. As I recall I was running it on a Commodore 64 computer, and at the time I had two keys which stuck, the "w" and the "y," so my scintillating virtual comments were things like "Hi, ho are ou?" instead of "Hi, How are you?"

One of the more legnedary creatures in Caribe was a purple worm-like thing that people would get turned into from time to time. You could also steal someone else's head, which caused much joy and merriment, in addition to feelings of revenge, no doubt.

A cool site that has images of Caribe is here:

http://www.dsgames.net/qlink/caribe/pictures1.htm

It will be interesting to see what happens with Second Life, and if it morphs into a whole new, people-friendly way to navigate the net, similar to the way Mosaic, later Netscape, revolutionized the way we browse the Internet.

I also wouldn't be surprised if eBay, Google or Yahoo bought Second Life. For some reason I see Google as being the company most interested, because they seem to be into revolutionary concepts, but eBay already has the Pierre Omidyar connection, so who knows.

As with everything in the Internet world, stay tuned. But can we please take a moment to remember Habitat and Club Caribe, two of the pioneer virtual communities?

The Jury Is Out on Feedback 2.0

eBay is tinkering with Feedback for the first time in a while. Their "Feedback 2.0" is being tested in the U.K. right now. I nosed around some of the UK boards and found that some sellers were worried that  eBay is too concerned with the buyers' end of things with the feedback changes. The new feedback features allow buyers to add star ratings to sellers' profiles, so they can rate certain components of the transaction, such as shipping, communication, etc.

Although I think the changes can make feedback more meaningful for buyers, I worry a bit about sellers feeling they are being dinged and judged in too many ways, when the burden is not shared by buyers.  Some sellers whined about buyers who have crazily unrealistic expectations.

Still, with these kinds of changes, one must often wait for the dust to settle, as it were. Let's see how it all shakes out. I appreciate that eBay seems to take its changes to its all-important Feedback system very seriously. And Bill Cobb, in the webcast I downloaded, gets that there is a whole wait-for-the -other-party-to-leave-positive-feedback-before-I-leave-positive-feedback thing going on..or, I'll leave you a neg if you'll leave me a neg. So they are right to address the issue, I think.  (Inasmuch as it can be addressed).

But is this the right way to do it? Stay tuned.

New Auction Links Directory

I've created a new web site to organize and put in-context all the various companies and tools related to the online auction industry.  It also includes online classifieds, eBay and selling tools, blogs, newsletters, you name it.  A real smorgasbord. Check it out at www.juliasauctionlinks.com.