We finally got shirts sent off to the printer!  You’ll be seeing this version up for auction in a week or two.  We’re playing with changing up the logo a tiny bit (removed the 4 bubbles and used a normal “i” instead, let us know what you think.  Do you like the bubbly bubbles at the top or hate it?

While trying to save money and also take a break from work we decided to make our own white boards for the office.  There are a few posts about this on the web, but most of them seemed unpolished to us.  As we were walking around Lowe’s we found the perfect hardware to get the job done.  Each board ended way below $20 each after tax.  Here’s what you’ll need:

• Mark R board – If you walk around Lowe’s or Home Depot long enough you can find this stuff.  At Lowe’s it was near the planks of wood and it was precut in 4′ x 2.75′ pieces.  There was another type of board there that was 8′ x 4′, but that just seemed a little too big for us to carry/transport.  Each board was about $10.
• Molding strips – We wanted to dress up the sides of the board so it didn’t look so unfinished so we bought strips of molding.  You’ll need enough to cover all the edges obviously.  These run about $2 each and you’ll need about 1.5 per board.
• Glue – Any type of glue to bond the the molding to the board is fine.
• Mirror hanging kits – Instead of poking a hole in our white boards we decided to go with mirror hanging kits.  These run around $3.

First cut the molding to fit around the white boards.  Cut the corners at 45 degree angles so when 2 butt up against each other they form a 90 degree angle.  It takes some practice to get a nice clean cut, but if you use a sharp pair of scissors and practice a bit it gets easier.

Next glue the molding to the white board … you don’t need too much glue, just enough to keep it in place.

After that you’re pretty much done.  Use the mirror mounting hardware to put these guys up around your office.  Be sure to use a level and a measuring tape so everything looks nice.  Oh and you might need a stud finder too.  The mirror mounting kits are nice because they don’t put holes in your white boards … just your walls.  Also the boards lay perfectly flat against the wall too so there’s little to no flex.  Enjoy!

We know a few of you have been asking for this for a long time and we’ve launched the ability to archive auctions.  While we were working on this we decided to reorganize the “My Account” pages.  Most of the pages are actually the same, but the links have just been renamed.  The following is what happened in detail …

• Auctions -> Listed is now Auctions You Listed -> Open
• Auctions -> Ended is now Auctions You Listed -> Ended With A Winner & Ended Without A Winner (auctions ended is now split up into these 2 categories) (can archive)
• Auctions -> You Won is now Auctions You Bid On -> Won (can archive)
• Auctions -> You’re Bidding On is now Auctions You Bid On -> Open
• Auctions -> You’re Watching is now Auctions You Watched -> Open
• Closed Auctions -> You Bid On is now Auctions You Bid On -> Lost (now excludes auctions you won)
• Closed Auctions -> You Watched is now Auctions You Watched -> Ended

Along with the above you can always view your archived auctions and retrieve them if you need to.  Hope this helps some of the power sellers and winners out there.  We’re also working on a way to search these auctions, but that is still in the pipeline.  Hope everyone had a great weekend!

We had a busy Memorial Day weekend at our new office in San Jose.  We ended up getting 4 Galant desks from IKEA …  now for some chairs … and internet access.  Sorry it’s not the most interesting video, but more to come soon …

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up about a minor change we’ll be pushing very soon.  Right now the minimum bid increment is always 1 credit, but we’ve decided to change it so that this minimum bid increment increases as the high bid amount of an auction increases.  Be sure to note what the minimum bid value is above the bid submission box.  You’ll be notified if your bid is not high enough.  Thanks!

Recently, we’ve seen some cool videos of our users unboxing things they won on Listia or talking about Listia and showing off the web site… so we thought it would be cool to run a video contest!  The basic idea is to create a short video promoting Listia. You can do whatever you like in the video… for example, do an unboxing of something you won, talk about how much you enjoy Listia, or even show off things that you are about to give away!

The grand prize is $300 cash, and we also have prizes for the 2nd and 3rd place winners.  Look here for complete details and to vote for your favorite videos!

Here is our first entry and a great example of a cool video!

Earlier today, we removed the live countdown timer on auction pages because we were receiving complaints about it being confusing.  Some users thought that since the timer was live, the current high bid and number of bids were live as well.  This wasn’t the case (you had to refresh to see updated bid info), so we decided to take it down to avoid confusion.

However, after we did that, many of you then expressed concerns that you rely on the countdown timer and do not like to refresh the page so often.  So, rather than continuing to compromise on the issue, we’ve been working hard all day and night to make BOTH the countdown timer and the bid information update in real-time.  It wasn’t easy but it also wasn’t as hard as we thought… and in the end we think it was worth the effort.

Now, when you are viewing an auction, you will see the bid amount increase as other people bid on the auction.  It will not update immediately if there is still a lot of time left on the auction, but once you are down to the final seconds, the bid amount should never be off by more than a few seconds depending on your computer’s processing power, Internet speeds, server loads, etc.  You will also be notified if you get outbid in real-time so you can immediately submit a new bid. Although this is great for last-second bidding, we still recommend getting your highest bid in well in advance of the final seconds just to be sure 🙂

Thanks for everyone’s continued feedback… we have come a long way and there are still lots of new things coming!

Our countdown timer no longer counts down =(

It was a little bit confusing for some of our users that thought we have live auctions.  We’ve decided to change the timer until we can actually have the entire page be live with real time updates.

Over the next few days, you can get extra bonus credits for listing and giving away your old video games!  If you’ve ever owned a video game console, there’s no doubt you have a bunch of old games sitting there collecting dust.  Spring is a great time to clear out the clutter, and the bonus credits can help you get some new video games in return!

This promo will end on Tuesday night, so start looking through your (or your kids’) old games and give them away on Listia!  Only the actual games are eligible this time, but we may extend it to consoles and accessories next time.