Earlier today a friend told me about a website called Biddu.net. Since I am an Internet geek I can’t help but to check out a website whenever I hear a URL mentioned so I decided to head over to Biddu to check it out. When I arrived on the site I quickly realised that is was one of the hundreds (or maybe thousands) of bidding sites out there (also referred to as penny auction sites).

Even though I have seen this type of site before I have never really done any research on them. When I visited the Biddu.net website something triggered the Internet geek within me and I decided to do some actual digging to find out more about the site.

Reasons Why I Don’t Trust Biddu.net

Even though Biddu might be a totally legit website that is not using bots to make “shill bids” or other rouge techniques I have still found a couple of things that make me not want to deposit money on their site.

The Use of a .net Domain

This is just my personal opinion but I can’t see why any serious business would use a .net domain these days. I understand that the name “Biddu” might have been the best name that the people behind the site managed to come up with. I also understand that the .com domain was already registered when they decided to launch their site. After some quick research I have found that the domain Biddu.com was registered back in 2000 while Biddu.net was registered in 2010. If I was behind Biddu I would either go ahead and offer the owner of Biddu.com a pile of cash to buy his domain name or I would go back to the drawing board and come up with a new name for my business. Going ahead with the .net domain is telling me that they are not planning to be in the business for the long run as it’s a lot harder to brand your business as a .net rather than a .com.

It’s a Relatively New Site in the Niche

Penny auction sites have been around since 2005 when Telebid launched their website, it was later re-branded as Swoopo.com and they filed for bankruptcy in March 2011.

Biddu.net launched their operations in 2011 according to the about us page on their site. When reading through the Biddu.net about us page I came across a pretty interesting snippet of text that made me want to research them a bit further;

„Biddu“ is a cent auction platform on which you can snap up new bargains every day. Our products come at a fraction of the retail price. The platform opened in 2011 and is breaking visitor records almost on a daily basis; we are now one of Europe and North America’s most popular cent auctions.

When first reading this snippet of text I wasn’t really surprised. It’s not really uncommon these days that a business launched in 2011 goes on to dominate certain markets within a year. What is very surprising though is that a website that claim to be one of the largest ones in its niche in both Europe and North America is hardly ever discussed online. When searching in Google for terms like “Biddu.net” and “Biddu.net scam” I only came across one site on the entire Internet where this website was being discussed, and that was on a German version of Yahoo Answers. Now there is just no way, whatsoever, on this planet, that a website that claim to be one of the market leaders is never once being discussed online in terms of being legit, customer friendly and so on. If this site really had the amounts of clients that they say they have then the search results should be flooded with results when you search for things like “Biddu.net“, “Biddu.net Review“, “Is Biddu.net a scam?” and so on. The fact that they are nowhere to be found in a Google search is raising all kinds of warning flags.

The Alexa Rank

When looking up Biddu.net on the traffic ranking website Alexa.com you will find that Biddu.net has a traffic rank of 217.167. This means that according to Alexa there are 217.166 websites on the Internet that are receiving more traffic than Biddu.net. Just to have something to compare to I also looked up penny auction site BidRivals.com on Alexa and it turns out their traffic rank is 26.399, now that’s surprising considering Biddu.net were supposed to be one of the largest bidding sites in both Europe and the US.

Who Is Outbidding Me Then?

Before I write this next part of my Biddu.net review I should say that I have no proof that these people are running a shady business and I don’t really have any reason to think they are using “shill bids” on their site to keep the auctions going.

With so many different bidding sites out there it’s obvious that there are going to be a few bad apples. I am not saying that Biddu is one of them, I’m just saying that it is possible. Getting a penny auction site going from scratch is almost impossible without doing some kind of cheating. The website PennyAuctionWatch.com recently uncovered a cheating scandal where the bidding site 7Bidz.com where using a bunch of people from India to create fake bids for them to keep the auctions going.

If Biddu.net was to be a scam site cheating its customers this would most definitely be the way they are doing it.

The Conclusion

Biddu.net may or may not be a scam and there is no real way of knowing for sure since there are absolutely no reviews or statements from users available on the Internet. Since there are so many options when it comes to penny auction sites I don’t see any reason why you should be signing up with one that doesn’t have any reputation. In many cases I would rather sign up with a site that have a couple of bad reviews rather than none at all. The bad reviews are at least showing that there are actual people visiting the site.

Update

After I finished writing this article I felt a bit guilty about criticising a website without trying it out myself. So I decided to give Biddu a go and bought a couple of bids. I started out by bidding on a Samsung Galaxy S2 to test the waters without any luck. What struck me as odd right from the start was the amounts that these products end up going for. The Samsung Galaxy that I was bidding on ended up going for close to €100. The reason I find this odd is because similar products almost never go for over $30 on BidRivals.com which is a similar website. In order for an auction to reach the €100 limit there need to be 10.000 bids which holds a total value of €2800 (€0.28*10.000). Another reason why it doesn’t make sense that the auctions reach these kind of amounts is that it just doesn’t make fiscal sense to sit and bid up to the €100 regions when the value of the product is only €429.

Since the really valuable auctions seemed impossible to win I decided to try bidding on an Amazon Kindle instead as I had seen those go for between €3 and €5 all day long. I started bidding when the auction reached about €4 since the previous auctions had told me that this one would soon come to an end. Unlike the other Amazon Kindle auctions earlier in the day this one just kept getting new bidders all the time. I decided I was just going to keep blasting bids on this auction to see how far it was going to go once I knew for a fact that at least one of the bidders (me) was a real person. About 180 bids later I was the winner of the Amazon Kindle auction and I got it for €11.03, that’s about three times as much as any other Kindle had gone for during the entire day.

Obviously none of this is proof of Biddu.net using “shill bidders” to keep the auctions going but the whole experience left me with a lot of doubts.

I will make sure to update this post once I have received my Amazon Kindle to let you all know how long it takes to get the stuff delivered once you have won an auction at Biddu.net.

Foursquare is a location-based social application game which brings local businesses in Malta and all over the world together with customers. The game itself is centered around earning badges but Foursquare can be much more than a mere game – especially to local business owners. With Foursquare, users are able to check-in to local establishments like restaurants, bars, stores and hotels using their smartphones. They are able to give tips to others and share their location with their friends.

Foursquare can provide a Maltese business owner with a remarkable way to market his/her business because it makes the process of social discovery and check-in fun. Millions of times each day, people are using Foursquare to check-in and share with others where they are and what they are doing. Regardless if a user is visiting a favorite shoe store, checking out a new diner or meeting friends for drinks, they are chronicling and sharing their activities using their mobile devices. A business owner on Foursquare can be a big part of that experience. This platform allows businesses the opportunity to find new customers and to form better relationships with the customers they already have.

For no cost at all, local businesses in Malta can set up promotions, arrange give-aways and build networks of friends and customers on Foursquare using the available business and manager tools. An example of this is a local toy store that has joined Foursquare. The platform is used to offer a special 10% discount to any user that has checked into the toy store. Using Foursquare in this manner is a good way to maintain and keep awareness and interest alive in the toy store at no cost. It is free to register and to set up a venue or business on Foursquare and it is also free to run a ‘special’. A business owner is allowed to change or add variations to its special as it progresses. Foursquare also offers a bit of added value in that it integrates with other social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

If you are a local business owner who is unfamiliar with Foursquare, it is quite possible that people are using this application to check-in to your business each day without you even knowing it. You probably know that social media marketing works best when you can get a dialog or relationship established between you and your customers. So the quicker you set up your business on Foursquare, the faster you can get these dialogs going because Foursquare is all about being social. In light of the fact that anyone can list a business on Foursquare, yours might be there already. However, you will need to set up an account with Foursquare to “claim” your listing so that you can edit it and make the most of this remarkable social application that is growing by the day.

Getting Listed on Foursquare

In order to get listed on Foursquare, visit the website and then type in your business name and location. If your business already exists on the platform, you will see a tab marked “Do you manage this venue? Claim here”. Click on the tab and then follow the directions so that you can take control of the tools. You will have to verify your address, state that you are authorized to claim the venue, choose an email address and specify whether or not your business is a part of a chain. You can expect to receive a phone call from a Foursquare rep to verify that you are who you say you are.

Setting up Specials on Foursquare

Specials are designed to give users rewards for checking into your business. Specials also encourage users to share information about your business with their friends. You can choose to offer specials to new customers who check-in, to those who have checked in a set number of times or to those who have checked in the most over a specified period of time. What exactly your specials are is completely up to you. You can offer money off, freebies, special limited time discounts, etc.

To manage your specials, simply visit the “Manage Specials” page on the Foursquare business management site. When first starting out, you can only run one special at a time and every special has to be approved by Foursquare. It is very simple to set up a special as there are only a few steps involved.

How Specials are Found

An existing or potential customer will be able to find your special when they have the Foursquare app open to check-in to a business. He or she will probably do this by hitting the big ‘Check In’ tab which will provide a list of nearby venues. If your business is in the list of nearby locations and you have a special to offer, a large orange ‘Special Here’ button will appear at the top right of your business page. The user can then click the button to see your special. Foursquare users are also able to hunt for specials using the ‘Explore’ button in the app. You will see, once you have a special to offer that people will start unlocking it so that they can redeem the deal. So be ready for more business as it is all but sure to arrive – as long as your special is attractive of course!

Becoming a Foursquare Business Guru

If you really want to optimize your Foursquare marketing tactics you can offer incentives to your customers if they share tips and photos of your business with their friends. Foursquare tips are sent to users who are nearby your business. These tips give your venue a lot of good exposure and make it come across as legit to those who may not be familiar with you. Use your creativity and give your loyal customers something of value so that they are likely to share tips about your business with their friends.

Good Reasons to Join Foursquare Now

Foursquare has grown by leaps and bounds since its inception in March 2009. This community is designed for people who are on the go. It helps users find local businesses so that they can check-in and let their friends know where they are or where they have been. There are already 15 million people using this platform and a whopping 1.5 billion check-ins have happened with millions more occurring each and every day. As of January 2012, over 750,000 businesses have used the merchant’s platform.

Everyone these days loves getting a discount or freebie and Foursquare check-ins are quickly becoming the new discount ‘coupons’ for local businesses. One of the hottest areas in mobile technology is geo-location based services and Foursquare is just that. It allows people to openly engage with each other. Foursquare also gives local business owners the opportunity to maintain relationships with their regular customers and to attract potential customers by promoting their brands in real time.

The typical Foursquare user is young, college educated and employed. He or she is a heavy user of online social media platforms and is actively engaging his or her friends and acquaintances with the businesses he or she frequents. This person has money to spend, is highly mobile and most importantly, is very influential. Local businesses have much to gain by jumping on the Foursquare bandwagon as existing customer relationships can be strengthened and potential customers can be driven through the doors.

Foursquare is a location-based mobile application that allows members to “check in” using a smartphone app or SMS. Foursquare is designed to make “the world easier to use”. You can share your check-ins with your friends, earn “badges” and even become the “mayor” of locations as well as earn points. Foursquare is in its totality, a game.

Foursquare is currently available in eleven languages and is classified as a social networking application or platform. You only need to download the Foursquare app, open it and Foursquare will recommend businesses you will probably like based on what you and your friends like. You can also use Foursquare to see what your friends are up to. If they wish, they can share photos with you and you can comment on those photos if you wish. You also can tell your friends where you are so that you can ask them to come and spend time with you.

Many businesses using Foursquare offer specials, discounts and freebies just for checking in. You can easily keep up with friends, discover what is nearby you and unlock deals for free using Foursquare. As of January 2012, 15 million people the world over are members of the Foursquare community. Since its launch in early 2009, there have been over 1.5 billion check-ins with millions more each day. There are over 750,000 businesses currently using the Foursquare Merchant Platform.

Developers are Welcome at Foursquare

A unique feature of Foursquare is the fact that it has an application programming interface (API) like Twitter has. This allows developers the ability to build their ideas on the Foursquare platform. Many developers have used the API to create new check-in functions, fun games and interesting data visualizations. There are now hundreds of apps to choose from ranging from an application which will send you a recipe every time you check into a grocery store to an app that locates nearby Wi-Fi venues.

How Foursquare works

To illustrate how Foursquare works, we will use a fictitious Foursquare member we’ll call Adam. When Adam visits his favorite coffee shop, he can open the Foursquare mobile application on his phone and check-in. When he does this, his location is announced to his friends on Foursquare – much in the same way a Facebook status update works. Adam is also able to, in real-time, find out where his friends have checked in at. In other words, he can use Foursquare as a tool to help him find and meet up with his pals. These check-ins can be shared on Twitter and Facebook to greatly expand Adam and his friends’ audience.

The coffee shop Adam frequents offers deals to Foursquare users to get them to check-in. This means that when Adam got a dollar off his cup of java because he checked in at the coffee shop, all of his friends could see that. This may prompt a few of Adam’s nearby friends to come and join him for a discounted cup of coffee which benefits the friend and the coffee shop as it is gaining a new customer. Can you see how this can continue on, as each ‘friend of a friend’ on Foursquare will see where others are and may be tempted to join them?

Foursquare can be a powerful tool for a business to use as you can see by the example given above. Businesses near the coffee shop can steal customer traffic and money from other businesses by offering a deal that is visible when customers are checking in nearby. For example, Adam might have been on his way to another cafe when he learned that the coffee shop he ended up at was offering him a discount.

Leaving Tips for Other Foursquare Users

One of Foursquare’s best features is the ability to leave tips on a business or venue. You can leave a tip about a favorite meal you had at a restaurant, a tip about where the cleanest restrooms are in a park or where to find the best beer in an airport. Not only can you leave tips, but you can read tips left by others like for instance “avoid the BLT sandwich because it doesn’t have much bacon” or “don’t forget to check out the new boots in aisle 7 with the buckles”. When your friends have left a tip on a venue you are checking into or on one nearby, you will see a pop-up on your phone letting you know what they have to say.

Other uses can see the tips you have left about a venue on the Foursquare website, on the venue info screen on their phones or by searching for nearby tips in the mobile app. Your friends will receive a “Since you’re here…” pop-up notification when they check into a place where you have left a tip or when they check-in at a nearby venue.

Earning Badges

Remember that essentially, Foursquare is a social media game which allows you to compete with your friends when checking into to various locations. You earn badges by checking into venues. Earning badges proves that you are more social than your friends. There are a few introductory badges which are earned as milestones in usage. Foursquare keeps badge unlock rules intentionally vague so that it is more fun when one is unlocked. However, you should know that a “Newbie” badge is awarded for your very first check-in at a venue, a “9 to 5” badge is earned for checking in to the same venue for fifteen days out of the last thirty, and an “Adventurer” badge is awarded when you check-in to ten different venues, and on and on. Unlocking Foursquare badges has become a hobby and even an obsession for many active Foursquare users.

Become the Mayor

You can become the “mayor” of a venue by being the person who has checked in the most times at a over the past two months. Others will see that you are the mayor as you will be recognized on the venue’s Foursquare profile page. And here is the best part about being the major of a venue: some businesses like Starbucks for example, reward their ‘mayors’ with discounts and freebies! 

So, should you use Foursquare? That is up to you of course but if you tend to get out and about a lot and like to keep in close touch with your friends, then yes, you should considering joining. Plus, as mentioned above, there are many benefits associated with being a member of Foursquare as you can get discounts, free offers and some incredibly useful tips from other Foursquare users.

Since I haven’t been blogging a whole lot lately I thought I would try to update the blog a bit more frequently. The only problem is that I am too busy lazy to write those long articles I used to write here. So in an attempt to make a post I will just copy and paste my favorite movie quotes of all time.

Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) in “The Bucket List”

“Here’s something to remember when you’re older Thomas – never pass up a bathroom, never waste a hard-on, and never trust a fart”

Allie Keys (Dakota Fanning) in “Taken”

Some people put a lot of work into their lawn, as if a patch of green grass was the most important thing in the world. As if they thought that as long as the lawn out front was green and mowed and beautiful, it wouldn’t matter at all what was going on inside of the house.

Resource: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Taken_%28TV_series%29

Monty Brogan (Edward Norton) in “25th Hour”

This one is way to long to quote in writing so I will just embed the Youtube video with the whole monologue.

Willie (Billy Bob Thornton) in “Bad Santa”

Well, wish in one hand, shit in the other; see which one fills up first.

After watching the NFL every Sunday for the last 20 weeks I have seen my fair share of TV commercials. About 50% of an NFL broadcast are commercials and if it isn’t for the fact that some of them are really entertaining I would have to stop watching the NFL. I would for example not put up with watching these games if there were 2 hours worth of boring Swedish TV commercials.

My favorite TV commercials this year is a series of spots promoting the satellite TV company DIRECTV and below you can see some of the funniest ones.

On the 5th of February this year the 46th annual Super Bowl will be played and this event is known for their amazing commercials during the game breaks so I’m sure there will be a new one of these from DIRECTV coming out on that day.

Even though I am pretty terrible at it I like to make predictions so I thought I would put together a post about some things I predict will happen in 2012.

New England Patriots to Win the Super Bowl

I was going to pick the Green Bay Packers here but since they went out with a bang last night against the New York Giants I don’t see how the Patriots would not win the Super Bowl this year. Sure the San Francisco 49ers were great against the New Orleans Saints but I don’t think they will manage to beat the Patriots, no matter how good their defense may be.

Tiger Woods to Flop (Again)

After Tiger Woods managed to win the Chevron World Challenge at the end of the 2011 PGA Tour season there is once again an enormous hype surrounding the previous world number one and it seems everyone is expecting him to win the PGA Money List this season. I am of another opinion however and I think Tiger will continue to play the poor golf we have got used to post scandal.

I predict that Tiger won’t win a major this year and he won’t finish in the top 5 on the PGA Money List.

Webb Simpson to Win the PGA Tour Money List

Since Tiger Woods will have another terrible season the door is wide open for someone else to win the PGA Tour Money List this year. Webb Simpson finished second on the PGA Money List last year but this year I think he will improve that and claim the number one spot. It’s hard to find a more consistent performer on the PGA Tour than Webb Simpson and consistency is exactly what you need in order to finish high up on the money list.

Brendon de Jonge to Win a PGA Tour Event

Brendon de Jonge is far from what I would call a solid player but when he is playing well he can put together a string of very low scoring rounds and it’s only a matter of time before he claims his first win on the PGA Tour. I wouldn’t  be at all surprised if he manages to win at least one PGA Tour event during 2012.

Marcus Nilsson to Continue Playing Crap Golf

If there is one thing I am sure about it’s my own inability to improve as a golfer. I don’t think 2012 will be the year where I finally manage to get all aspects of my game to fall into place and I predict yet another year of playing poor golf. I will however start taking some lessons to try and improve my game so that I will give Stefan a run for his money this year but I would be very surprised if I manage to get good enough to beat him on a consistent basis.

I’ve really been hooked on all things Ricky Gervais lately and this speech from the Christmas Special of the series “Extras” pretty much sums up how I feel about crappy “reality shows” like Big Brother.

It’s been a while since I updated this blog and it’s been even longer since I updated the coin project. The main reason for the lack of updates when it comes to the coin project is that I just haven’t found any coins and the reason why I haven’t made any other updates is due to the fact that I am extremely lazy (at least my self awareness is intact).

After the longest cold streak in the history of the epic coin project I finally managed to find a €0.20 coin on my way to work the other day. Since I haven’t found a cent since day 66 of the project this was a very welcome addition on my way to the €10 goal that I had set for the end of the year (day 365 of the coin project).

Day 184 of The Coin Project

Money Found: €0.20

Total Amount Found: €1.39

Current Amount to be Donated to Unicef: €6.95

It’s been a while since I say a truly funny comment on Times of Malta but when I visited their website yesterday I found this article about a 15-year old boy getting caught driving a car without wearing a seat belt while speaking on the phone. The police also found two shotguns in the car after they had stopped him.

The article itself is not very entertaining as you can see in the screen shot below.

As always when it comes to Times of Malta articles the real comedy and entertainment value is in the comments. The comment in the screen shot below takes the price as the funniest I’ve read all year.

I don’t think I will see a better reply to an article anywhere on the internet this year.

Steve Jobs is probably the greatest visionary and entrepreneur of our time and since he died today at the age of 56 I thought I would put up his Stanford Commencement Address from 2005.