Another year is over at BiddingForGood, and while we’re already gearing up for a productive 2012, we’d like to take some time to reflect on all the good things that have happened in 2011. It was a busy - but very rewarding - year!
Here are a few of the highlights from the year:
- Launched In-Room Mobile Bidding, which brings the best parts of the online bidding experience – ease of use and heightened competition – into the room. Mobile bidding adds new excitement to fundraising events, and enables supporters to bid anytime and from anywhere, whether they’re attending the event or not. With several successful pilots completed, we’re ready to help more customers “go mobile” with their fundraising events in 2012.
- Completely redesigned BiddingForGood.com, where our Bidder Community of more than 260,000 cause-minded consumers shops regularly, across all our auctions. The results are better searching, better browsing - and better-looking! Our clients who choose to open their auctions to this Community can showcase their auction catalogs and get discovered by our audience of over 3 million annual visitors.
- Produced and presented a treasure trove of educational webinars, in partnership with our new friends at Constant Contact, HubSpot, and PTO Today. We also presented a cornucopia of webinars on our own, including a 5-part series for customers on how to maximize their online auctions, and more.
- In November, we hit the road for a series of luncheons to meet with fundraisers across the country and to talk about new innovations in online auction fundraising – with more to come in 2012!
- Kicked off Goodness in Action™, a place for our customers to share their stories with the other schools, nonprofits, bidders, and businesses that make up the BiddingForGood community. We love hearing about the important work that our customers are doing in their own communities, and we’re looking forward to helping them amplify their impact by showcasing their stories on our site.
- Enjoyed great press coverage! BiddingForGood was widely covered in the media in 2011, with features in or on: The Today Show, NPR, CNET, The Boston Globe, The New York Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, SUCCESS Magazine, FOX News Boston, and many more.
We’re looking forward to a great 2012, and to continuing to provide exceptional tools, services, and support that help our wonderful customers run more successful auction fundraisers!
I’ve long been proud of my early adopter tendencies, but in the smartphone world, I confess to arriving a bit late to the party. I had restrained myself as long as I could, but late last summer, I finally surrendered and bought an iPhone®. Four months and 100+ apps later, I would say that I’m happy with my purchase. Well, okay; I’m addicted. And since we’ve launched our In-Room Mobile Bidding platform, the BiddingForGood for iPhone App, and an HTML5 mobile site, I’m now paying a huge amount of attention to all things mobile.
Perhaps it’s because of my growing fascination with this topic, but it seems to me that mobile apps are rapidly infiltrating many aspects of our lives.
During my family’s Thanksgiving gathering, for example, several of us - adults and children alike – spent a good deal of time with iPhones in hand, introducing one another to our latest silly app discoveries. Please note: the iPhones were turned off before dinner, for Heaven’s sake! We’re not that far gone!
That evening, my nieces showed me two <sarcasm>very useful</sarcasm> apps, one for transforming yourself, your pet, or a loved one into a fabulous drag queen, and one that adds the illusion of several hundred pounds to a picture of your face. The next day, I read an article in the New York Times about the New York Philharmonic’s Jeffrey Kahane conducting a Mozart symphony using an iPad instead of a musical score. Kahane describes his use of the device for conducting and performing as “life-changing.”
From an augmented reality app that makes Black history come alive in Boston to those that can help those with brain injuries, there really are apps for everything, from the transformative to the seemingly pointless. Even Sesame Street has observed the “There’s An App for That” phenomenon, putting their own unique spin on it for the toddler set (do toddlers have iPhones, too!?)
What are some of your favorite apps? Whether silly or serious, please share with us in the comments!
PS - we won’t judge you if you tell us that Angry Birds changed your life.