auctions

The Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday that it will vote next week on at least some of the rules pertaining to the much anticipated 700MHz spectrum auction.

The FCC's agenda notice said the commission will consider a "Second Report and Order concerning rules governing wireless licenses in the 698-806 MHz band," more commonly known as the 700MHz spectrum band, during its open meeting scheduled for July 31, 2007, at 9:30 a.m. EST.

The new rules, which determine how to divvy up licenses and actually auction them off for the coveted 700MHz wireless band of spectrum, … Read more

If eBay's 50 percent growth this last fiscal quarter is any indication, online auctions are still a favorite way to shuffle goods and pocket extra change. Power sellers--those eBay auctioneers who sell and gross high volumes--have gained the edge by applying their business savvy and possibly using one of the many auction software options from CNET Download.com. One popular program is AlienFiles, a listings creator and editor that supports multimedia files and helps manage your sale items.

There's plenty here for power buyers, too. Check out eBay Auction Sniper and AutoSearch, for instance, which automatically bids on … Read more

Google wants to put its money where its mouth is...to the tune of at least $4.6 billion.

The search giant said Friday that it's willing to participate in the Federal Communications Commission's upcoming wireless spectrum 700MHz band auction and pay the minimum reserve of $4.6 billion.

But for Google to participate, there's a catch. It's requiring the FCC to adopt all four of its licensing recommendations, no matter who ultimately wins the bidding process.

Google has also been pressing the FCC to reserve a portion of that spectrum to be used primarily, or … Read more

There's a tremendous amount of attention focused on whether the Federal Communication Commission's September auction of new wireless spectrum in the 700 MHz band will be "open access," available to many mobile providers and applications, or be limited to whatever the auction winner wants to do with it.

There is also an important public safety issue in this debate that is not getting as much attention. That is whether some of this valuable wireless real estate should be reserved by the FCC for our first responders--the people who drive our ambulances, show up for fires, and … Read more

Regardless of what P.T. Barnum said, we can't legitimately call the buyer of this $100,000 iPhone a sucker because it was all for charity. An anonymous bidder won the phone (pictured here), the first sold at Apple's Soho store to Spike Lee, on eBay as part of the "Keep a Child Alive" auction to raise money for children suffering from AIDS in Africa.

It's not all blinged out (blung out?) like some others we've seen, but that's actually a good thing. And BornRich does say it comes with other fringes, including &… Read more

If you happen to be in New York today and are a fan of old video game memorabilia, then you'd better get down to Sotheby's pronto.

That's because the auction house is selling off a huge collection of vintage Atari marketing materials.

According to Gizmodo, there are "135 large file folders stuffed full of original sketches, early designs and proofs of games" like Dig Dug, Asteroids, Pong and others.

But apparently, the price is steep: somewhere in the $150,000 to $250,000 range.

For a pack rat like me, eBay is a terrible tease. When I want to use it to get rid of crap lying around my house, it's just too hard to use. I'm no Power Seller. I just want to unload my old Star Trek phone (link goes to some else's phone, not mine). But the potential $16 payoff makes it a poor use of my time: I'd have to take pictures, upload them, and create a listing without knowing what I'm doing. A new site, Ztail, looks like a very promising solution to this problem.

Ztail creates online sales listings for eBay and other sites. You tell it what you're trying to unload, and it will format a nice listing with a picture of the product and its specifications. You set your own price, add text about the particular item's condition, hit publish, and you're done.

While my Star Trek phone wasn't in the Ztail database, other junk priceless artifacts I have in my closets were, in particular old cell phones, kitchen gadgets, and stereo equipment. It took me next to no time to create a decent listing for my old Ericsson T39 phone.

Whether or not anyone actually wants this old phone is another question, but Ztail lets you improve your odds of selling it by optionally multi-listing an item on the "Ztail network" of non-eBay sites: Google Base, Edgeio, Vast, and Oodle, for starters. You can also embed a widget on your own blog or put a link (but not a widget) on your Facebook page to sell your items.

The service is free to use, and the company will make money from affiliate traffic driven to eBay from the widgets users post on their sites. (Enough to keep the company going? I don't know.)

… Read more

eBay released a statement on Wednesday afternoon confirming that, as speculated, it has acquired Web site discovery service StumbleUpon. The price, according to eBay, is approximately $75 million.

eBay's most famous acquisition is arguably Internet telephony service Skype, which it purchased in 2005.

"StumbleUpon is a great fit within our goal of pioneering new communities based on commerce and sustained by trust," eBay's senior director Michael Buhr said in a statement. "StumbleUpon's downloadable toolbar provides an engaging and unique experience to its users, but it is the similarities in our approaches to the concept … Read more

Normally we wouldn't torment you with an eBay auction that's already ended, but we've learned over the years that practically anything about Apple is worth mentioning--even used sneakers.

After seeing all manner of Mac tattoos, haircuts and other signs of affection, we're accustomed to seeing the familiar logo pretty much anywhere. The only thing that's somewhat surprising is that image-obsessed Apple allowed the hallowed icon to be used on something as easily soiled as footwear, even for just prototypes. (Then again, it was done during the non-Jobs years.)

Whatever the case, this size-8.5 promotional … Read more