BidWatch OS
One desktop, shared by everyone who opens it
BidWatch OS is a public ranking that looks like an operating system, because that is the honest shape for it: a dock where position is worth something, folders for everything else, and open space in between that can be rented.
Everybody who opens it sees the same screen at the same moment. Pay to put your product on it, from $5, and the amount decides where you land.
How position works
The bid decides, highest first. The top 30 fill the dock at full screen width; everything below that lives in its category folder and stays one click away. Equal bids go to whoever arrived first, so a tie is settled by history rather than by chance.
Bids accumulate. Paying again for the same link raises your existing placement instead of creating a second one, so you are never bidding against yourself. Anyone can outbid you at any moment, and you will drop. That is the product working, not a fault in it.
The desk is rented by the minute
Ranking is one product; the surface of the desktop is another, and the two never touch. Rented time cannot change your dock position, and losing your dock position cannot end a rental.
There are 3 windows, 48 desktop icons, 5 menu-bar slots, 1 notification and 1 screensaver. Each runs for the minutes bought and then clears itself in public: a cursor comes across the screen, picks the tile up and carries it to the trash, at the same second on everyone’s screen.
What is counted, and what is not
The online figure and the visitor total are counted, never estimated. Clicks are counted on this side before the visitor leaves, and shown on each placement’s own page. No visitor identifier is attached to a click, and outbound links carry no referrer.
What is on this desktop is advertising, shown next to the amount that bought it. It is not a review, a rating or an endorsement, and the links out are marked as paid — a position here says what it cost, and nothing else. The house rules say what may be placed and what gets taken down.
No accounts
There is nothing to sign up for. A URL or an @handle, a category, a payment — that is the whole flow. The name, description and icon are pulled from the site you place and shown before you pay, so what you confirm at checkout is what appears. Raising your position later needs no login either: pay again with the same link and the amount adds to the placement you already have.
Who built it
Marc Hembach, in Cologne. @P4tchdd. Who is legally responsible, and how to reach them, is on the imprint.