Sotheby’s Website Down, Competition Up

Looks like Sotheby’s may be getting ready for the launch of mySotheby’s. But couldn’t their techies have accomplished this without forcing their website to go dead, just before the important London auctions?
By the way, I’m getting a bit irritated by how Christie’s keeps puffing itself, in its press releases, as “the world’s leading art business.” It now seems that whenever they sell more dollar volume in a particular area (i.e., Latin American art), they anoint themselves (in e-mails to the press) as the “leader in the field,” reporting their “market share” percentage from the latest round of auctions (i.e., 57% for Latin American art in last month’s go-round). These things do tend to fluctuate—season to season, year to year.
Sotheby’s is not immune from foolish self-hype, rushing to complete its press release stating that it had achieved the “highest total ever for sales of contemporary art,” shortly before Christie’s concluded its own contemporary sales, which put it confortably in the lead.
Did my comment about how market share might affect Sotheby’s stock price contribute to its rival’s penchant for playing up those percentages? (Incidentally, its stock has rebounded from the time when I wrote that, to $48.43 at Friday’s close.)
This battle for the hearts and minds of consignors is getting ugly.