Internet's First Live Streaming Video Dutch Auction
( Newsbytes News Network ) -------------------------------------------------- Internet's First Live Streaming Video Dutch Auction 04/22/99
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, U.S.A., 1999 APR 22 (NB) -- By Martin Stone, Newsbytes. Bid.Com International Inc. [NASDAQ:BIDS] [TSE:BII] and American Interactive Media, Inc., (OTC: AIME) have teamed up to host the Internet's first live streaming video and audio auction.
The project is the first programming event to spring from the two companies' joint venture agreement signed last January and brings together Bid.Com's proprietary declining-price (Dutch) auction format and technology and AIME's creative, marketing and production capabilities.
Bid.Com president Jeff Lymburner told Newsbytes the Dutch auction format reduces prices at set time intervals from an established starting price until the lot of goods is sold out. "The thing that makes it particularly powerful is that it merges audio and video with our patented Dutch auction technology, which even with audio and video, is a unique proprietary technology which has a very aggressive count-down, game- like dynamic. The underpinning of it is already exceptional and quite unique to Bid.Com, and when we layer on audio and video, what we have is really is a first step toward real-time interactive, TV-like functionality."
In a Dutch auction, the longer you wait, the lower the price, but as Lymburner says: "If you wait too long, it's possible that others will click-in ahead of you."
He claims the system is affected only marginally by latency, the time- warp between the instant a bidder clicks and the bid is registered on the site, but admits that a user with a faster ISP may have a slight advantage over the user whose modem or ISP is slower.
In addition to the sports memorabilia, Tag Hauer watches, Hewlett- Packard computer monitors and a variety of other items will be up for the bidding.
The auction will be hosted by veteran comedian Lewis Black, who is regularly seen on AIME's ComedyNet. Black has headlined comedy clubs for 20 years and has appeared in Mad About You and Homicide on television, and in Hannah and Her Sisters and Jacob's Ladder on film.
The hour-long event will broadcast on RealNetworks' [NASDAQ: RNWK] Real Broadcast Network in RealAudio and RealVideo on Tuesday, April 27 at 10:00 p.m. EST (9:00 Central, 8:00 Mountain and 7:00 Pacific) and will feature an autographed Wayne Gretzky hockey shirt and baseballs signed by Roger Clemens.
Browsers can bid in the live auction by visiting bid.com or linking through AIME's comedynet.com .
Bid.Com, founded in 1995, is one of the Internet's largest online auction sales organizations, with offices in Toronto, Ontario and Tampa, Florida.
American Interactive Media, Inc. headquartered in New York City with a Website at aime-inc.com creates original, branded entertainment programming that can be distributed over many platforms, including the Internet, cable and satellite television, and radio.
Reported by Newsbytes News Network, newsbytes.com
(19990422/Media Contact: Paul Godin, 905-672-7467 x226, or Jeff Lymburner, 888-750-7467/WIRES ONLINE, BUSINESS/)
Copyright © 1999 Newsbytes News Network.
Internet's First Live Streaming Video Dutch Auction., Newsbytes News Network, 04-22-1999. |