Spinner.com queues up auctions By Beth Lipton Staff Writer, CNET News.com April 9, 1999, 3:55 p.m. PT Net radio firm Spinner.com next week will become the latest Web company to get auction fever. Spinner on Monday is planning to launch Spinner.com Auctions, where users can buy and sell music-related merchandise such as CDs, records, cassettes, audio equipment, and memorabilia, the company said. The auction feature is being offered through a partnership with consumer Net auction firm CityAuction. Auctions are all the rage on the Net of late, with all manner of sites--including portals such as Yahoo and e-commerce sites such as Amazon.com--getting into the game, with varying degrees of success. All are hoping to get a slice of the revenue and traffic enjoyed by auction firms such as eBay. Just today, eBay chief executive Margaret Whitman joined the ranks of Net billionaires as she exercised options to acquire the company's skyrocketing shares. For its part, Spinner has been busy signing distribution deals with sites such as Cyclone, the site by portal Snap that is designed for higher-speed Net connections. (Snap is a joint venture between NBC and CNET: The Computer Network, publisher of News.com.) Meanwhile, the Webcasting space overall is going through a number of changes; Spinner competitor Imagine Radio in February was acquired by Viacom, and Broadcast.com last week was bought by Yahoo. "Our partnership with CityAuction is a reflection of our move toward cobranded partnerships aimed at offering our listeners content-related commerce," Dave Samuel, Spinner.com's chief executive, said in a statement. "We bring music enthusiasts together to hear great music, get artist and CD information, buy CDs, and now buy and sell with one another." Under terms of the deal, Spinner.com carry CityAuction banner ads on its site and music players as well as running audio ads. It also will display links on various pages to CityAuction music categories.