Posts Tagged ‘Second’

Split Second Auctions – the New Hybrid in Live Auction Platforms

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

Every so evenly we stumble upon a website which grabs our attention. One such site is Split Second Auctions. This site (at first glance) appears to be just a venue for Live Auctions, but, once I started reviewing their Knowledge Base it quickly became clear that this company is poised to become a major contender within the Live Auction arena. Web address http://www.SplitSecondAuctions.com

Split Second Auctions is a touch of a fusion, in that while it acts as a venue to drive traffic into its client based catalogs, it also offers Live Auction seller’s tools and technology to enhance the overall Live Auction experience. It would also appear as though this company is offering Live Auction sellers more “autonomy” over their event, as opposed to other competitive third party providers.

In reviewing other Live Auction platforms, we found distinct differences between the Split Second Auctions platform and other providers. On the user side, the Bidder Console is a breeze to download and install. In fact, once the console is downloaded and installed (within a few seconds) an icon, with the Split Second Auction logo (and co-branded auction seller) appears on the users desktop. One click on the desktop icon opens the Bidder Console. Once the user logs in with their username and password, they penetrate the auction within a split second (hence the name of the site).

The enhancements go beyond other “run of the mill” Live Auction platforms in that the Split Second Auction platform “forces” Internet bids to be accepted. In other words, an Internet user’s bids are given priority. We found that on other Live Auction platforms, Internet bids are not “forced” and many bidders find themselves clicking on their mouse (repeatedly), but, their bids are not accepted in the order in which they are expected.

In some cases, we found that bids placed through other Live Auction platforms may not register at all. In other cases, it would appear that the user is clicking dozens of times to place their bids, only to find that their accepted winning bid was much higher than they had wished to bid. The “forced” acceptance of Internet bids ensures that the bids are accepted and recorded in “real time”.

A distinct advantage of the Split Second Auction platform is the option to view and hear the auction in progress. In comparing other Live Auction providers, we found that those providers can charge upwards to $1,000.00 per event for sub-second streaming audio/video feeds. We have been informed by Split Second Auctions that they do not disturb bonus fees (per event) for audio/video feeds. In fact, we cultured that the auction seller does not even require expensive audio/video equipment – an inexpensive webcam will suffice.

Auction houses, which seek to take advantage of the global market-place, have the option to upload 2,500 lots “on the glide” and operate their auction using an extended auction window of twenty-four hours. Those houses opting for the twenty-four window may run their auction for eight hours (or as single-minded by the house), announce a floor intermission and then take up again their auction. No doubt, auction sellers will find the extended auction window beneficial as they can thwart international time zones and maximize their exposure and revenues.

The founders of Split Second Auctions have utilized various Live Auction platforms (as I came to learn in my interview with Paul Fischer – CFO of The Windsor Group). I was told that Windsor has elected to open its venue for all Live Auction sellers who seek to take advantage of the extended auction window, co-branded Bidder Console and free sub-second audio/video streaming technology. “We will aggressively market to all Live Auction sellers who operate both habitual and virtual auctions” stated Mr. Fischer.

Indeed, those operating virtual Live Auctions will have the option to participate, as long they adhere to specific rules imposed by Split Second Auctions. The site owners will require that virtual Live Auction sellers be completely transparent in the surgical procedure of their auction events and in their dealings with online users. As Fischer stated “there are many virtual auction houses, which seek an outlet in which to place forward their goods to a global audience. The advantage of Split Second Auctions to such sellers is the option to broadcast through sub-second audio/video feeds coupled with real time bidding. Virtual houses will be broadcasting their feeds, accepting bids from a worldwide audience and in the end operating a touch akin to that of a Broadcast Box Auction event.”

The thought of “if you build it, will they come” has been answered by the dozens of Live Auction sellers who are presently in negotiations with Split Second Auctions to brand their own Bidder Consoles. I spar with seven such auction sellers in preparing this article and their consensus of the site, as a venue, in conjunction with the tools and advanced technology, could give the current leaders in Live Auction industry – a run for their cash!

One New Blog Created Every Second Means Yours Is Irrelevant Unless.

Monday, October 26th, 2009

Blogs and the activity of blogging went mainstream a long time ago so much so that these days every 1.5 seconds a new blog is produced! Crazy huh? Place a further way:

• 7.4 Million blogs were produced in the last 120 days

• 1.5 Million blogs were produced in the past 7 days

• 900,000 blogs produced in the last 24 hours

• 37,500 blogs produced every hour

Those are downright scary figures especially if you are just making a blog today because it is a reflection of the extent of the competition facing you today! So what really made blogs and the activity of blogging so standard?

Why Blogs Became So Standard

Well previous to blogging became so mainstream and the internet became literally saturated with millions upon millions of blogs, the activity was pretty much restricted to only the truly savoir-faire online marketers (who traditionally set the pace for the rest of the crowd) and the geeks. Once those marketers realized the significant advantages blogs held over habitual websites they quickly, quietly and efficiently converted their habitual websites to the blog platform. Here’s why they did it:

1. Blogs are quickly indexed by search engines;

2. A blog is simple to update and add content to frequently;

3. Frequently updating content encourages visitors to return to your blog;

4. You don’t need to know HTML or any other web coding language to manage a blog;

5. Blogs hug the 2-way conversation interactivity that is so vital to today’s business environment;

6. Social Media Websites welcome and are the perfect fit for blogs;

7. Blogs rise up the search engines quickly;

8. It is dead simple to attract web traffic to a blog even if it is groundbreaking new;

9. New content added to your blog is instantly viewable and just as quickly picked up by the search engines; and

10. You don’t need to be a web designer or have web designing skills to make a cool and qualified-looking blog that stimulates visitor confidence and enhances their interaction.

What those ten attributes listed above so characteristic of blogs essentially mean, is that a blog would invariably and inevitably beat a habitual website when it comes to attracting web traffic and attaining exposure! What blogging had automatically done was to amount the playing field so that even absolute beginners could take on well-established habitual websites that had had thousands of backlinks and been around for several years. What is more not only were blogs competing effectively with them but really beating them at their own game!

Previous to long blogs were popping up as the number one listings right through Google’s index for the most competitive keyword terms! At a snail’s pace and surely those habitual websites that had maintained a vice-like grip on the top-spot listings on Google for an eternity at a snail’s pace lost their rankings to a large number of blogs.

Soon enough the secret was out that blogs wielded a considerable advantage over habitual websites and previous to long the activity itself had gone mainstream. Now let’s quick forward to the current situation today where the internet is super-saturated with blogs to the tune of a new blog being produced every 1.5 seconds!

What 900,000 Blogs Produced Everyday Means to You!

It used to be that anyone could virtually blog about anything and were nearly guaranteed to attract enough traffic to make enough sales to really justify it as being worth their while. In such a manner a lot of marketers who had embraced blogging early on were able to dominate a excellent number of niche markets quickly. But that was then and today, well, is today!

Long gone are the excellent ole days when you could target a small niche, slap together a few mediocre posts to your new blog and attract sufficient traffic to enable you to make cash enough to quit your day job! These days most of those once small-saturated and highly-lucrative niche markets are overcrowded with more competitors than their daily web traffic allotment can possibly handle! What that boils down to is that only the very few, very best of blogs are really able to make cash online from their chosen niche markets.

That also means that if you are just making a blog today, your blog will surely join the millions of mediocre blogs that never make any headway and are quickly abandoned by their owners unless you…

Make Your Blog Stand Out From The Rest Of The Crowd

To succeed as a blogger you have to make your blog stand out from the many other millions of blogs by now proliferating all across the internet. This ironically is really excellent news for you because most bloggers have unquestionably no thought how to distinguish their blogs from the next guy’s. In fact these days there are two kinds of blogging style, the habitual type of blogging known as Ancient-School Blogging and the more recent style in tune with the current internet business environment known as New-School Blogging.

The huge difference between Ancient-School Blogging and New-School Blogging is that unless your Ancient-School Blog is by now ranking well on the Google Index, you are going to find it extremely hard to draw enough attention to make your blog profitable. In other words if you start a blog today and adopt ancient-school blogging techniques then you are nearly certainly guaranteed to fail. Why? Because ancient-school blogging techniques will not enable you to stand out from the crowd which also means that you cannot possible compete against blogs that have been around for a while and are by now well-established.

The largest flaw that ancient-school blogs suffered from was an incapacity to consistently draw significant amounts of web traffic!

But if you make a new blog and adopt new-school blogging techniques, within small time you will effortlessly attract lots of web traffic. Which method of blogging you choose will ultimately determine the amount of internet success!

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