eBay and InPhonic, announced Wednesday a new monthly service that among other things, will let people more easily bid on an item using their cell phones.
The auction Web site already sends wireless e-mail to a small percentage of its customers who have signed up for its "eBay Anywhere," a service that sends alerts to wireless devices when an auction is about to close or when someone has been outbid. But those customers could not reply to the messages and submit a new bid. For $2.99 a month, they now can, the companies said.
The service, dubbed " Wireless Rebidding," will be available to anyone with a cell phone capable of both sending and receiving wireless messages. The technique, known as two-way messaging, is available on just about any cell phone sold now. Wireless rebidding also works with Internet-enabled cell phones that use the Wireless Application Protocol or WAP, the companies said.
One thing eBay has working in its favor, however, is the small percentage of its customers who've already signed up for the wireless e-mail alert programs. One of their main complaints, according to a source familiar with eBay's plans, was that customers couldn't act on the wireless alerts they received. Instead, they had to find a laptop or personal computer.
But for the most part, use of cell phones for anything other than making a telephone call has been nearly nonexistent in the United States. The numbers might seem significant--about 350 million wireless e-mails were dispatched last year, according to most estimates. But they pale in comparison to Europe, where between 30 billion and 35 billion wireless messages leap between cell phones every months.
News source: ZDNet News
View: Wireless rebidding for eBay
The auction Web site already sends wireless e-mail to a small percentage of its customers who have signed up for its "eBay Anywhere," a service that sends alerts to wireless devices when an auction is about to close or when someone has been outbid. But those customers could not reply to the messages and submit a new bid. For $2.99 a month, they now can, the companies said.
The service, dubbed " Wireless Rebidding," will be available to anyone with a cell phone capable of both sending and receiving wireless messages. The technique, known as two-way messaging, is available on just about any cell phone sold now. Wireless rebidding also works with Internet-enabled cell phones that use the Wireless Application Protocol or WAP, the companies said.
One thing eBay has working in its favor, however, is the small percentage of its customers who've already signed up for the wireless e-mail alert programs. One of their main complaints, according to a source familiar with eBay's plans, was that customers couldn't act on the wireless alerts they received. Instead, they had to find a laptop or personal computer.
But for the most part, use of cell phones for anything other than making a telephone call has been nearly nonexistent in the United States. The numbers might seem significant--about 350 million wireless e-mails were dispatched last year, according to most estimates. But they pale in comparison to Europe, where between 30 billion and 35 billion wireless messages leap between cell phones every months.
News source: ZDNet News View: Wireless rebidding for eBay
What's new in version 1.6?
+ Transparency for the menu, taskbar, toolbars in Win2k/XP.
+ New options for the main menu and tasbar.
+ Now, the "StayOnTop" option separate for taskbar and toolbars.
* Fixed bugs with applications' autoload from the registry,
the "RunOnceEx" key is now supported (important for IE setup
and Windows Update).
* Fixed bug with transparency in notebook.
+ New context menu for the desktop elements.
* Fixed bug with "Computers' find" in Win NT4, Win98.
* Fixed bug with "application toolbars" in Win XP.
+ Assigned font for the "tip of the day".
* Fixed bugs with some applications: ZoneAlarm, 602 office, "multimedia
keyboard" utility.
* Fixed bug in "Popup folder" with long filename.
+ Added new utility SHDOCTOR, which can easy prevent "shell not found"
problem in Win9x/ME.
* Fixed bugs with Theme Wizard with theme creation and removal.
+ 256-colors video modes are now supported.
+ Now, "Recyle bin" icon renews automatically in Win 98, (and
NT4, Win 95 with IE 4.0 or later).
+ Keyboard layout indicator is now supported XP.
* Fixed bug: the taskbar covers up the portion of screen in "Half-Life".
* Fixed bug with drag'n'drop in main menu setup.
* Fixed bug with "Cut" - "Cancel" in setup.
* Fixed bug with wallpapers' setup.
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