G + a social version of ebay?

In a far too long post I talk about that much of the success of g + takes place under water .The proverbial nine tenths of the iceberg sit under water. The only thing I can think of  comparable to that is the auction system of ebay. 

ebay 
The auction system of ebay, did you ever compete in it? Not many people in the Netherlands have ever participated in an auction on ebay. And even those that did  do not know how this ingenious system works. In addition, a lot of people have never participated in a real life auction. 

Pierre Omidyar 
That it works so well is actually acknowledging the original programmer and founder  of ebay in his realisation that  auctioning it and the following process is a social event. Pierre is now billionaire and ebay owns marktplaats and PayPal. 

A real auction 
An auction takes place generally in a space where alll bidders present. The property is offered for auction and the auctioneer starts with the minimum bid and then the bidders offer. The dynamics of the auction work in such a way that the bidders increase the price and decide whether they still make a profit or not. The thrill of the auction may push up the price  higher than the actual value of the property. Especially with goods of which only a unique version exists, like with art. 

Simulate 
How do you simulate this on a computer screen? At marktplaats.nl there is a possibility to bid, but it is not the same as ebay. There is no obligation to pay the bid, while a bid on eBay is binding. In addition, the mechanism is not the same. 

Marktplaats.nl (The Dutch version of Craigs List)
On marktplaats.nl you just enter an amount and then that remains standing as the highest bid until another higher bid. At eBay you can insert amount, but that is not immediately displayed. Eg 100 euro by bidder A. However, the minimum bid is then shown as at what price the auction stands. Say 5 euros. The next bidder B who then makes an offer at first thinks that it is cheap and makes a bid. He bids 25 euros. That is higher than the 5 euros but below the 100 euros that bidder A has offered. Bidder A, is still the highest bidder and his bid is automatically increased to 30 euros. This is actually a simulation of the auction process. Of the entire auction process the bidders are informed throughout the process by e-mail from start to finish. 

Sellers assessment 
Then when the auction is won by the passing of the auction time then there is the rating that the seller gets from the winner of the auction. Whether the product is correctly described and delivered on time. Something that is missing on marktplaats.nl. Again this recognises that trading is a social event. 

Explaining the ebay auction system 
In word and even in speech it is very difficult to explain and transfer the way ebay works. I know because I have led a project in 2006 that was a copy of the ebay auction system. And I was the only one who understood it, because in 1998 I bought a laptop bought in the U.S. via ebay. It took a while before the developers and the Indian builder figured out what exactly was meant. 

Link with g + 
A long story, but what does it have to do with g +?  This also works like the bidding on ebay. Only if you post or react to a post there is interaction which spurns more interaction. If you do not participate in the auction by a good offer or participate in the auction then you will not notice what fun it is. The mechanics of g + is such that it encourages action, react and ideas. This helped even further on its way by the notification system and the ability to easily call others to discussion. A lively trade in ideas and insights is the result.