Auctions Pick Up Speed
479075
By Mark Fagan, Journal-World, Lawrence, Kan.  Dec.
464845
Since its 700-MHz auction began on Jan. 24, the FCC has raised more than $18.8 billion. That well surpasses the agency's own early estimates of attracting between $10-15 billion.
305435
With 36 rounds of bidding concluded Wednesday morning, the Federal Communications Commission auction of the highly coveted 700-megahertz band of the wireless spectrum has shifted to a faster-paced stage 2. Under rules designed to promote more competition, the number of new bids rose from 87 in Round 35 to 203 in Round 36.
460963
In a real-estate market in which homeowners have been flipping properties almost as quickly as they would stocks, eBay&#39;s getting in on the action.
112966
Top bidders put up a total of more than $2.4 billion in the opening round of the Federal Communications Commissionâs auction of coveted U.S. government-owned airwaves.
690445
eBay's latest auction trend may give the company a major headache.
357948
The Federal Communications Commission said that, starting Wednesday, new rules will apply that will encourage more bidding and hasten the auctionâs end.
55216
Online auction king eBay (Quote, Chart) reported a better than 50 percent rise in quarterly revenue from last year and profits that jumped by about 77 percent compared to last year, thanks in part to its PayPal unit and growth overseas.
684060
The leading auction site gives a dime tomorrow.
698252
Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills rose in auction yesterday to the highest levels since April.
331129
By Anna Jeys  TAKE That tickets were up for sale on eBay today for up to 8 TIMES their actual price - moments after the NEC completely sold out in just 30 minutes.
512239
Are bid management tools still useful, or have they outlived their purpose?
618808
(InfoWorld) - A massive computing grid helps eBayÂ make changes to its auction Web site on the fly while maintaining a 99.94 percent up time, said Paul Strong, a distinguished research scientist there. While eBay designed most of its grid infrastructure, the company also wants to participate in standards-setting communities to bring more improvements to computer grid technology, Strong said Tuesday during the GridWorld conference in Washington, D.C. EBay's core business is hosting Web-based auctions, not in creating new grid technologies, he said. "We don't see ourselves as an IT development shop for development tools," he said. By working together on grid standards, participants can help "transitions be less painful," he added. On Monday, the Open Grid Forum standards body officially opened for business, delivering on its commitment made in June to detail its goals during GridWorld. EBay has made great strides in its back-end technology since the late '90s, but the company still wants more improvements, including the ability to change the site's code nearly instantaneously, Strong said. Right now, the company, with more than 15,000 servers in its production environment, distributes new application code to its Web site every two weeks, he said. EBay developers write about 100,000 lines of code each week, and using a traditional grid made up of about 350 Windows, Linux and Solaris computers, the site takes about 20 minutes to update with the new features, Strong said. With 104 million items listed for auction on eBay every day, the company needs to keep the site running while those changes are happening, he added. "We can't afford to take the site down," he said. "It's like changing the engines on a jumbo jet mid-flight." About $1,608 worth of merchandise sells on eBay every second, and a vehicle sells every two minutes on average, Strong said. A trading card sells every six seconds, and a pound of the Korean food kimchi sells every minute. The site has seen huge growth since the late '90s, he noted. Ebay.com has gone from 54 million page views a day in June 1999 to 874 million in December 2005, Strong said. The site sent out 35 million e-mail messages a day in December, compared to 1 million a day in June '99. And the site's up time went from about 97 percent to 99.94 percent in that time period. Still, the company would like more grid functionality, Strong said. EBay would like to get closer to that mythical 99.999 percent up time, he said. "We break almost anything we use," he said. "We're pretty much at the extreme limit of what you can do with off-the-shelf technology." And eBay doesn't want to wait to update the site every two weeks, he added. "We want to be faster; we want to be more agile," he said. "If someone comes up with a cool change that's not that big, I'd like to be able to roll it tomorrow." Improvements in grid computing is where community standards can help, he said. "We believe everyone has something to contribute," he said to the GridWorld audience. "We'd like to share ... with the community." GridWorld is organized by IDG, the parent company of IDG News Service.
164085
While many works may have fallen short of the auction house's expectations at Thursday's sale, there were still several high, record-breaking prices.
660081
By MAY WONG    SAN JOSE, Calif.  -- Online auctioneer eBay Inc...
669028
The first auction of official "Star Trek" memorabilia hit warp speed on Saturday when a determined bidder paid $576,000 for a model of the legendary science fiction franchise's starship Enterprise, helping drive the total for the three-day sale above $7 million.
367274
Interest rates on short-term Treasury securities rose in yesterday's auction. The Treasury Department sold $19 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 2.155 percent, up from 2.075 percent last week. An additional $17 billion was sold in six-month bills at a rate of 2.365 percent, up from 2.280 percent.