westcoastman

At one time it had one of the highest traffic of any travel website. Believe it or not. I am not sure how one would get that data though. A lot of the success of Ezboard has to do with BiddingForTravel. They paid far more to Ezboard, because of their traffic, then any other board. Realize what they charged then might have been more then now. They had set up a "Community Chest" to collect money specifically to pay for the fee which from memory was well over $1000 with hundreds and hundreds of contributors. Later, other sites determined this was a bad deal for the boards on Ezboard see www.ezboardsucks.net . Things came to a crashing end in 2005 when 9000 boards lost all of their data and the backups were gone as well.

kilarney

I donated directly to the board, but did not place my bids through Amazing-Bargains. Are you calling me unethical? I can assure you that I donated more than BFT would have received had I bid through an affiliate link. Nonetheless, I was banned.

Shouldn't I have some say as to how I choose to support BFT? Or would it have only been "ethical" to give BFT less money by bidding through Amazing-Bargains and not donating directly? Needless to say, your views on "ethics" are myopic at best.

Of course I donated after the implication that BFT was a volunteer effort, but that's another story.

You are either an open community or you are not. BFT merely pretended that they were open. If you didn't bid exactly as instructed - you were a goner. A good business person realizes that content is also valuable. Your goal is to maximize both content and revenues. BFT has basically weeded out the people that weren't going to bid through A-B anyway. Now they've lost the content that they would have provided. That's a net sum loss. (Not to mention the loss of banner ad revenue, etc.) It doesn't take a business genius to figure that out.

jabez

Lot's of "agressive" messages here recently. Please edit where appropriate.
Let's keep the discussion "free" and civil. Thanks.

Doppy

Why do these bidding sites always seem to have so much trouble?

There are a half dozen threads in this forum here over the past few years complaining about these personality and managerial problems.

blueeyes_austin

Just idle speculation here.

In the Wayback, you had deal sites (like Anandtech and, when it spun off, FW) and you had coupon sites (mycoupons, I think was one). The deal sites were really a derivation out of the Slashdot/tech geek crowd, while the coupon sites branched out of the coupon collecting, stay-at-home-mom group.

BFTs basic flaw is that is was spawned out of/run by folks from the coupon side of the house. As a result, they didn't have the tech savvy of the deal site crowd. But, and perhaps more important, they also carried with them the "community" some might say "care bear" and "mothering" attitude that the coupon sites possesed.

As a result, BFT was never able to tap into the knowledge of the deal site crowd (since those folks wouldn't put up with the restrictions and the heirarchy of the coupon connection people). The deal sites, on the other hand, were perfectly free to plunder the coupon sites for deals and post them.

Imagine a BFT with tech savviness. You might have searchable archives, a database. A user-based ranking system for deals. A light touch on moderation. And, most importantly, a lack of nickle-and-diming.

But that is all water under the bridge, really. BFT has sacrificed much of its competitive advantage and it is difficult to see how it reinvents itself in Web 2.0.

iahphx

Is there no way to run a biddingboard based on advertising revenue? I mean, flyertalk doesn't constantly ask you to click on their links to buy travel (of course, they do offer some links). I see the logic of people using the links to help the board's owners, but that does cost the savvy bidder some pocket change (say a 3% rebate). And, on the flipside, the users of bidding boards are providing the essential content of the board (their winning bids) for free to the owner.

It just seems to me that the only successful business model for a bidding board is advertising. Constantly asking for contributions just discourages participation (which is not to say that a prominent link would be inappropriate as an additional source of revenue).

Matt-KC

The problem BFT & BB have on the advertising side is that they themselves cannot link directly to priceline as their sites violate the affiliate T & C's. To get around that, they have to use the AB & SB sites as the referrer which is why you see BFT mods reply to some threads with the "please read the PM I sent you BEFORE you start bidding"...that PM has instructions to link. Even Thereuare from betterbidding has PM'd me twice telling me to use their link as I don't post the "used whatever link" message in my bid results so the problem is not isolated to BFT.

iahphx

Yeah, and that's the flaw in both their business models. I guess just selling ads (there would seem to be obvious buyers for this traffic) won't pay the bills? And, of course, Priceline seems foolish to discourage these sites by not allowing direct links. I know it goes against their "theoretical" business model, but the existence of these sites must generate significant new business for them.

craz

The Bad part is Sheryl is gone (Ok thats the good part), but we got 'thereuare' who seems to have replaced Her.

Wondering when the Banning will start on BB.

I had gotten a PM awhile ago for not using SB, but I tried to just it wouldnt open up with all the stuff on my computer blocking things. I didnt like getting that PM reminded me of Sheryl.

I understand the need to bring in some revenue in order to pay for the site. And theres the asking that the link be used on it, I dont think PMing is the way to go about it.

Non-NonRev

Same here - I always try to start my Priceline bids via the SB portal link, but the site simply won't open for me many times.

The burden is on the board owner to make sure that it works, and can be easily accessible by potential users. Surely I should not be expected to delay my Priceline bidding until I can move to another computer?

B1

To be clear, thereuare is the administrator of Bettter Bidding - using the U of Much symbol. (Someone had posted that this was Sheryl's replacement at BFT). At BFT, I've noticed KeenWink and NancySure now doing most of the work - they seem to be volunteers - very courteous and positive ones at that. They haven't removed or commented negatively on even some of the most irrelevant or uninformed (read the FAQs!) posts. I've tried posting on BB again - the response has been very polite as well. I think we are in the golden era of both of these boards. Will Sheryl return? Stay tuned.

catwings01

I believe Priceline disallows the direct links because it gets into a gray area with the hotel agreements. Hotels are reassured that the bidding process is completely opaque, and of course, these sites provide lots of information that helps users discern with reasonable certainty which hotel they can win and at the minimum winning bid.

craz

I dont think the Hotels care much about what the minimum winning is or if anyone knows what it is beforehand, if anything it would PL that cares. PL already has a contract with the Hotels so if a person bids more then whatever PLs bottom line is even Double the amount the Hotel doesnt see an extra cent from it , it all belongs to PL.

Most people I know that used to use the system to get certain Hotels now dont really care as its almost Impossible to get ones status to get anything extra out of the Hotels on a PL winning id, be it Upgrades , view rooms etc.

Matt-KC

That is true if the hotel has only loaded one price point into the system.

Many hotels will load multiple points so that they can claim some of that additional revenue rather than letting PL keep it when people over-bid.

hammie

I don't believe BetterBidding constantly asks for contributions, its usually a reminder to use links that benefit the board. Lets say you read about a successful bid in for a hotel in Manhattan, this causes you to lower your opening bid for your trip, and you save $100 by not over-bidding. Personally, I would rather forgo "pocket change" by using a link that supports the board so it will be around tomorrow. I think I'm pretty savy when it comes to bidding, but I would never go in blind without conducting a little research. This saves me time by not making wasted bids and saves me $$ by not overbidding. Again, using a link is my way of "paying" for accessing the reasearch.

Its undisputed that the content of the board is submitted by users, and these boards would not exist without these posts. However, the posts have to be tweaked by the moderator so that they are useful and searchable by others.

Also, BB features maps of major cities, showing hotel locations and the recent wins.