It's been mentioned by a few others that Orkut invitations were, for a little while, on sale on eBay.
I decided to check again and see what the going rate is. It's down to $0.99-$2 (from $3.50-$11 in early March) with a low end of $0.01
One cent? How can anyone afford to sell an Orkut invitation for a cent? Clearly, they must be looking for something...
(Wow. It's "Bid, no pay!" That's right, it's FREE.)
... like ebay feedback.
Go to our ebay store. Click here !http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=36107&item=3661487616&ssPageName=STRK:MESSE:IT, go through the process of feedback if you believe this transaction to be to your satisfaction, and an invitation will be sent to you shortly.
That's right. Provide feedback first, get the invite afterward. The result? This seller is (as of 3/2) up to 99.4% pure, with a score of 159. Apparently, he's making up for a piece of bad feedback a year ago--and it's worked. He's gotten 154 pieces of positive feedback in just the last month!
Now, I don't mean to pick on this particular seller. I'm more interested in the general phenomenon of giving away costless stuff on ebay to jack up your feedback.
update Apparently, there's a subcommunity of "feedback exchange" types: people who sell each other very little in exhange for giving each other a good solid backslap. Does Ebay have to implement PageRank, or some similar algorithm, in order to catch cheaters?
March 2, 2004 12:15 PM | TrackBack | in Social Networks