BIGE Press Release
bige.com, a Division of Big Entertainment, to Expand its Auction
Gallery With Person-to-Person Interactive Online Auctions on
February 1, 1999
Auction Powered by OpenSite Technologies
BOCA RATON, Fla., Jan. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- bige.com, a division of Big Entertainment (Nasdaq: BIGE), today announced that it would expand the bige.com Auction Gallery to feature "person-to-person" live,
interactive auctions beginning at midnight on February 1, 1999. bige.com will utilize OpenSite Auction, by OpenSite Technologies, to implement "person-to-person" live auctions.
Person-to-person auctions refer to auctions of merchandise by participants themselves with bige.com acting as a clearinghouse and auctioneer. bige.com's existing Auction Gallery auctions merchandise from bige's own collection; person-to-person auctions enables those with entertainment memorabilia and collectibles to place in auction their own products.
"OpenSite Technologies is a leader in online auction software and a wonderful partner to work with. Our visitors love auctions and we are now opening up this area to those who have memorabilia for
person-to-person auctions to add to the wide assortment of entertainment merchandise available to our customers," stated Mitchell Rubenstein, chairman and CEO of BigE. "The bidding process is much more fun when the product being auctioned is placed in the auction by one of our users and we are delighted to start person-to-person live bidding February 1."
"bige.com is a great application for OpenSite Auction," said Michael Brader-Araje, OpenSite's CEO and Founder. "OpenSite's comprehensive set of features should make these person-to-person auctions easy
and fun for all participants."
About bige.com and Big Entertainment
Big Entertainment, Inc. ("BigE") was founded by Mitchell Rubenstein and Laurie Silvers, who earlier founded the Sci-Fi Channel(TM). BigE owns bige.com, an e-commerce studio store offering thousands of
entertainment products from Hollywood studios, TV networks, and popular culture. bige.com is available on the web at bige.com as well as on many popular websites, including usatoday.com, broadcast.com, Excite, and Film.com. BigE also owns entertainment properties created for it by best-selling authors and media celebrities, including Leonard Nimoy and Mickey Spillane. BigE recently announced that it was acquiring hollywood.com, a leading movie and entertainment website, from Times Mirror. hollywood.com, with approximately 1.2 million unique visitors in December 1998, is one of the most popular websites for movie information, news and reviews as well as a database of local movie showtimes (providing local movie start times by typing in the user's zip code). Plans are underway to combine the sites (content information site: hollywood.com and e-commerce site: bige.com) into hollywood.com. Plans are for the auction site's web address to remain bige.com with a
prominent link from hollywood.com's Home Page to the bige.com auction website.
For more information on placing products on the bige.com auction website, please send an email to auction@bige.com.
About OpenSite Technologies and OpenSite Auction
OpenSite Technologies is the market leader in Internet auction technology. Founded in February 1996, in Research Triangle Park, N.C. with a research and development office in Buffalo, N.Y., OpenSite
Technologies currently has more than a 50% market share of active web auction sites.
OpenSite Auction automates the process of setting up, running and maintaining real-time auctions over the web. OpenSite recently won two prestigious industry awards, Fall Internet World 98's "Best of Show"
for outstanding e-commerce applications and Internet Commerce Expo 98's "Best of Class" in web-based selling.
More information about OpenSite is available at opensite.com.
The matters discussed herein that are forward-looking statements are based on current management expectations that involve risks and uncertainties that may result in such expectations not being realized.
Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the risks described in Big Entertainment's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
SOURCE Big Entertainment
/CONTACT: Lois Whitman, media, of HWH Public Relations, 212-355-5049; or
Mark Cohen, investor relations, of The Pinnacle Group, 516-773-2477; or Gene
Donati, media and investors, of Clark & Weinstock, 212-953-2550, all for Big
Entertainment/
/Company News On-Call: prnewswire.com or fax,
800-758-5804, ext. 094769/
/Web site: opensite.com
hollywood.com
bige.com
(BIGE) |
