I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! This traditionally kicks off the Holiday shopping season, and auction sales should remain high throughout the winter months - eBay says that historically its busiest period is first quarter (January, February and March).

In this issue, we have an interesting story about a recent auction we attended that was simultaneously Cybercast over the Internet. Contents from the Wheeler Brothers' General Store were auctioned off in central Massachusetts AND through eBay Live Auctions. David attended the auction on the premises, while I "attended" via computer.

I highly recommend you watch a live auction via computer if you haven't already. It is an amazing technology that allows you to bid online in real-time.

While this auction appeared to go smoothly, we all know that technology is not 100% foolproof. Lots of things can go wrong, both with the bidder's computer and Internet connection, and with the auctioneer's. (We were told that it is up to the discretion of the auctioneer whether or not to hold up the live auction process if technical problems do occur.)

Internet bidders may be wise to leave a "left bid," also called an absentee bid. That way, if your ISP or computer lets you down the day of the auction, the auction house already has your left bid. And it does not prevent you from logging on and - if bidding surpasses your left bid - bidding a higher amount! This is a technology with great potential and brings some of the flavor of real life auctions to your computer.

Speaking of technical issues, some users have been having problems accessing our discussion forums as a result of changes we recently made to our servers. Users who are accessing our forums through bookmarks in their browsers may experience problems. Certain programs, such as Zone Alarm, may also keep users from updating the cookie necessary to access the forum. If you are logging into the forums through a bookmark, you should update your bookmark. To do this, access the forums through our home page, then add the URL to your favorites (or bookmarks).

If you ever have any questions or problems, please do not hesitate to write to us. We love to hear from you, and we want you to have a good experience with AuctionBytes.

Thanks for reading!

Ina Steiner, Editor Email: ina@auctionbytes.com