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The answer is, of course, that little thing called "critical mass".

So who are TradeMe's competitors and why don't they have this elusive critical mass?

Well one, which coincidentally I saw advertised on Prime TV last night, is Bid4It.

A quick look at this site might give you a clue as to why it's so far down the ladder of success.

From where I sit, the site design just doesn't click -- there are too many niggling little problems. Not only is that animated title GIF an irritation but too many of the front-page images are crudely rescaled so that their aspect ratio is all distorted.

They also suffer from the big problem facing anyone attempting to reach critical mass -- they don't many users.

This is a real catch-22 situation. How will they attract sellers when they have just 2,100 registered buyers? And why would prospective buyers even bother visiting the site when it has so few items for sale?

So how do you deal with such a chicken and egg situation?

Well one way is to do what Bid4It are doing -- advertise.

However, I don't think a few low-cost ads on Prime TV are going to do the job alone.

Now have your say Got something to say about today's column, or want to see what others think?  Visit The Forums While you're here, why not visit the Aardvark Hall of Shame and perhaps make your own nomination.

Perhaps another option this site might want to consider is offering a 1-month fees holiday so as to ramp up both the number of registered users and the number of items for sale. This will bring them closer to critical mass.

Another change they could make would be to allow unregistered visitors to view their message boards.

If the Bid4It community is a happy one where people believe they're getting good service at a good price then the message boards will be filled with testimonials to that effect -- thus encouraging new users and auctions.

That they're protected behind a login screen will either turn the causal browser away or leave them wondering what's being hidden?

If Bid4It gets their act together then their "no success fees" approach to auctioning could challenge TradeMe's dominance -- but they've got a long way to go.

The other site sometimes advertised on Prime TV is TraderPoint.

These people are a lot further down the track towards reaching critical mass, having some 66,000 ads and more than 180,000 registered users.

Of course TraderPoint isn't an auction site -- it's a classified advertising system linked to a print-media publication. This means it's only partial competition to Trademe and the other auctions sites. If you're after the buzz that comes from watching the bids roll in then this may not be the site for you.

However, it costs nothing to list non-commercial ads so anyone wanting to sell something has nothing to lose and everything to gain by listing it here.

Now I'm sure there are plenty of other auction/classified sites on the web and if you've got your own favourite, why not tell us all in the forums.

Lighten-Up
Yes, it's that time of the week again -- time for your dose of levity and incredulity.

If you're a geek who has trouble meeting people and making friends, you'll probably enjoy this comprehensive and methodical review of a friend-alternative.

Of course if you decide to buy on the basis of that review you will need to make sure you don't end up with one of these

And, if you're *really* geeky then forget the cat, get a tribble and bid on this.

Finally, and to change the subject completely, here are some hilarious out-takes that you won't see in any air-force recruiting videos.

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