Dear Private Enterprise enthusiasts,

>Everyone pay attention to the coins in the ART section instead! 
>http://www.GoldBarter.com/viewauction.jsp?id=33 

Yes, Mr. Ray.  Them's some interesting coins.  Beautiful orange
plastic (PLASTIC?! yes, plastic) coins, created and spent by the
artist.  Wow.  I guess anything is money if you have a convincing
patter.  Now, I'm not knocking it, but there must be more story to
these coins than is displayed on the auction page.  I see that the
many fine images that are found at:
  http://www.interestingsoftware.com/pat/bog/
don't show up on the GoldBarter auction site.  That must mean
that people aren't aware of or don't see or find confusing our
input form where a link to an image can be added to the auction.
I would think we can improve that input screen, somehow, and
invite your input.

Also, as I show in my auction 
http://www.GoldBarter.com/viewauction.jsp?id=29
the system is configured to let you use HTML to code up 
your auction description, so I have another image of the
obverse of the coin I'm offering for sale.

>Shipping costs, 

Well, as I understand it, the seller doesn't insist that the buyer take
delivery.  I've talked to old Tex, and he seems to think that the buyer
may avail himself of secure storage.

> risk, and uncertainty seem to make gold coins a bad auction
>item. 

Risk and uncertainty of what?  Risk that the coin isn't a coin?  That's
covered in the terms of service.  You get what you pay for, and there
is a good system, IMNSFHO, for dealing with fraud.

As far as being a bad auction item, I would have to differ based only
on the evidence in hand.  There have been no bids on anything else,
as far as I can see from reviewing the site, which I do rather often.
In fact, it seems that this gold coin is the only thing people find worth
bidding upon.

> But you're in Houston, right? 

I am on Planet Earth.  I don't think it prudent to broadcast my whereabouts.
The experience of "Strike" as reported by the NBC Dateline (Tattleline is
more like it) representatives of the Drug Enforcement Admin the other
night is indicative of why Internet entrepreneurs shouldn't be open about
their whereabouts.

> So if I win the auction, could I pick the coin up in person?

You would have to take that up with Tex.  If you win the auction, you should
contact the seller via his e-mail account on the auction board.  I'm sure those
remain visible in the "closed auctions" section. One would think that Tex
would be agreeable to a meeting.  He's such a warm, interesting, personable,
charming, erudite fellow, after all. <grin>

Tara of TarasVirtualStudio.com writes,
>Just to let you know I have just uploaded my 6th Archive, it features 58
>Images and it's quite a bit different to the rest, it shows more of the real
>me.... (no not like that.... your minds are in the gutter) *lol*
>It's only 10$ E-Gold too.

It seems to me, Tara, that this item, this archive, is an ideal candidate for
auction.  What makes you think it is worth only $10 of e-gold?  I mean, if
an exclusive archive were offerred for auction on GoldBarter.com, it might
prove to be worth several dozen grams of gold.  Or you could Dutch auction
more than one to see where the price goes.  (Tristan - have we implemented
the Dutch auction feature?)

>(I hate replies to myself, but...)

Why?  You have to be one of the more interesting people posting to
this list, so you should feel confident in replying to yourself.

>On a more-serious note, you should consider doing as ebay does, and
>setting your system to automatically send email that says something
>like, "somebody just outbid you on X's auction for Y item! Quick!! Go to
>the Goldbarter site to outbid THEM!!!" (Ok, you might want to word it a
>bit differently!)

Yes.  I do like this idea.  In fact, I believe this idea is represented in our
plans for upgrade to version 2.0.  It would seem to be one of the more
useful features we could add to the service.

>I don't have "promotional emails" checked on my account, 

Well!  I mean, really!  I'm stung, Jim. <grin>

> but I KNOW I
>don't have it checked on ebay, either. ebay sends me what is in effect
>a promotional email every time I get outbid (I tolerate not-being-paid for
>it because it's also information I want & because most companies are
>still clueless about email-for-money).

See, I think that is one of the very highly powerful things not being tapped
in the Internet economy thus far.  E-gold and other vendors allow for the
very small denomination transactions with those three decimal places.
.001 grams of gold is, what, about 9 tenths of a US cent?  And there is
really nothing that prevents an individual from offering a product or service
for even less of a fractional gram, accumulating these micropayments 
until it is worth making a transfer, or having people pre-fund accounts
that are debited at a micropayment rate.

I would think that people would be wiling to play online games, send and
receive e-mails for money, respond to feedback surveys for money, and
even read brilliantly written essays online for a very small fee.  Things
which are free, and being subsidized by advertising, might well be 
subscriber-funded if the price is set properly.

And, that is one further reason for something like GoldBarter, to help
set prices for things.

Guido Farrugia writes:
>What can i do for you?  If you are interested in a job vacancy, then

Do people still take jobs?  Isn't that somewhat 20th Century?

On the other hand, I would think a body of business activity would
be a fine thing to auction on GoldBarter.com.  Post the job
description and see what people want to be paid for it.  Hmm.
That would require a reverse auction where the bids go from high
to low....

Regards,

Jim
  http://www.GoldBarter.com/ --> private enterprise needs
  a free market.  Your high bid means you win!


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