hoora.com has been launched to capitalise on the sizable market for IT technical training by acting as a channel for training providers to sell surplus places on courses, along the lines of lastminute.com.

The new site, billed as an online auction for IT training, asks users to bid using the traditional English bidding system for courses. According to Hoora, among those signed up to use the site to sell off extra training places are Novell, Interquad and Aris Education, although these seem to be the only suppliers offering course places at present. Further details of training providers and courses are available on the site.

The site appears to offer a good deal - it says that course prices 'often start at just £1 with no reserve price', but in reality the bids rise by £50 each time someone submits one. Nevertheless, Hoora.com apparently also features an automatic price markdown offering, in which the price of items decreases over time, which should make for some good deals.

Hoora.com has plans to expand further. They're planning to build community pages with sources of information targeted specifically to dedicated areas for IT contractors and freelancers, corporate buyers of IT training, resellers, SMEs, people in education, the armed forces and people who are re-skilling themselves to change career or find employment. As yet, there is no sign of any of this information, which will include business advice and legal and financial resources, and a regular newsletter. There is however a useful page of links to travel and accomodation sites, including late hotel booking services.

In summary, the site is built on a good idea but lacking in useful content. If they're able to offer some more course listings (some of the ones on the site are actually test records rather than actual courses), then it could be worth a look for those looking for IT training at the last minute.