2. To Begin at the Beginning
Item is something that can be identified and bought.
Bidder is a person or organization that is interested in buying an item.
Bid is a statement that a bidder will pay a given price for an item.
Current price is the current highest bid for the item.
Stop price is the most a bidder is prepared to pay for an item.
Auction is a process for managing bids for an item.
Auction house is an institution that hosts auctions.
4. XMPP: the eXtensible Messaging and
Presence Protocol
XMPP has a decentralized, client/server architecture. There is no central
server, in contrast with other chat services such as AOL Instant Messenger
or MSN Messenger. Anyone may run an XMPP server that hosts users and
lets them communicate among themselves and with users hosted by
other XMPP servers on the network.
5. Communicating with an Auction
Join A bidder joins an auction. The sender of the XMPP message identifies
the bidder, and the name of the chat session identifies the item.
Bid A bidder sends a bidding price to the auction. Auctions send events,
which can be:
Price An auction reports the currently accepted price. This event also
includes the minimum increment that the next bid must be raised by, and
the name of bidder who bid this price. The auction will send this event to
a bidder when it joins and to all bidders whenever a new bid has been
accepted.
6. Communicating with an Auction
Close An auction announces that it has closed. The winner of the last price
event has won the auction.