How to Improve Upon Record-Breaking Domain Name Auction -
Moniker’s latest domain name auction is over and pulled in over $10M in domains. How can Moniker take it to the next level?
The past week has been a record-breaker for domain name company Moniker. Last Thursday it sold nearly $11M in domains in its live auction in New York. The silent auction ended yesterday with about $1.5M more in sales.
A lot of domainers think Moniker is getting rich off these auctions. I don’t think it is. The total commission from ... read more ...
Monthly Archives: June 2007
Thu 28th June 2007
Wed 27th June 2007
Silent Domain Name Auction Ends Today -
Moniker seeks to add to record $10M+ domain name auction.
The silent auction portion of Moniker’s TRAFFIC auction concludes today. Some auctions may roll over until tomorrow if there is fierce bidding — any bids received in the final 15 minutes of an auction will extend that auction by 15 minutes.
The live auction, held last week at the Grand Hyatt in Manhattan, sold over $10M in domains (complete results) including two domains for over $1M. The silent auction ... read more ...
Digg for Domain Industry Launches in Beta -
News aggregation site for the domain industry launches.
When Domain Name Wire started over a two years ago, there were few resources for domain name news. You could get domain sales data and feature stories at DNJournal and news tidbits at the forums, but there wasn’t much else. Since that time a number of domain news resources have opened, including popular blogs such as Frank Schilling’s Seven Mile. How do you keep track of all of the news without checking ... read more ...
Tue 26th June 2007
Should You Start a Business Without a Dot Com? -
Starting a business without the .com version of your name is a recipe for failure.
I belong to an Austin business email list. It’s a lively list as people ask for referrals for CPAs, which webhosting company is best, and for advice about growing a business. Today someone inquired about buying a domain name. Being an expert on the subject I chimed in. Other people gave their two cents as well, and some of the advice was misguided. Because the .com version of ... read more ...
Communicate.com Stock Nearly Doubles in June -
Domain name company’s stock jumps 85% from June 1 to June 22.
Individual domain name prices aren’t the only signs that the domain name market is white hot. Shares of domain name company Communicate.com (CMNN.ob) have soared from $1.14 at open on June 1 to close at $2.10 last Friday, June 22. (Shares fell 8 cents on Monday).
Shareholders are responding in part to the hiring of new CEO Geoff Hampson and his $1M investment in the company. Hampson appeared on TheStreet.com ... read more ...
Mon 25th June 2007
SedoPro Event Wrapup -
Last week’s SedoPro Partner Forum in New York was a great success.
Sedo knows how to treat its customers well. Last week, the domain name aftermarket and parking company treated over 50 of its SedoPro customers to a vacation at the Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, New York. Attendees paid only $149 per night, a fraction of the $500 room rate, and were treated to one heck of a time. Those invited included SedoPro customers (Sedo’s professional domain name ... read more ...
Business.com Confusion Spreads Across Web -
Misleading headlines and stories about potential Business.com sale spread like wildfire.
Business.com is for sale. That much we know. But it’s not only the domain that’s for sale. It’s a business that’s been around for over 7 years. Its 2007 EBITDA was about $15M according to a Wall Street Journal online article. That article also says some people expect it to sell for $350M at auction, but that hasn’t occurred yet.
So why are we seeing headlines like ... read more ...
Thu 21st June 2007
Live Domain Auction Sells over $10M in Domains -
These are live results from Moniker’s domain name auction at the Grand Hyatt in New York City.
Accuracy notice: these results were captured in real time. Accuracy is not guaranteed. A price of $0 means the reserve was not met, estimated last bid not accepted in ( ).
Over $10M worth of domains sold in Moniker’s Live Auction, with much more to come in the silent auction. The big story today was also the bubble bursting for .mobi domains. Many .mobi domains didn’t ... read more ...
Wednesday’s TRAFFIC Domain Conference in Review -
Several hundred domainers, investors, service providers, and other domain name industry professionals met in New York Wednesday for the first full day of the TRAFFIC conference.
Wednesday was the first full day of the TRAFFIC conference in New York City, and reviews from attendees were mostly positive.
The day started with Monte Cahn of Moniker providing instructions for Thursday’s live domain name auction. The auction will start at 3PM EDT today. This auction ... read more ...
Wed 20th June 2007
TRAFFIC: Beyond Pay-Per-Click -
Representatives of several domain name companies discuss how to make more money from domain names.
A panel of domain industry experts discussed domain revenue beyond pay-per-click this morning at the TRAFFIC conference in New York. Panelists included Ofer Ronen, CEO of Sendori, Jonathan Boswell, CEO of LeaseThis.com, Anthony Pepper of Startup Capital, Sahar Sarid of Recall Media Group, Rick Latona, CEO of Offshoring.com, and Joe Alagna, GM of CentralNic.
The general ... read more ...
Live Domain Name Auction Tomorrow Afternoon -
Moniker’s live domain name auction starts at 3PM EDT tomorrow at TRAFFIC conference.
Monte Cahn of Moniker addressed attendees of the TRAFFIC conference this morning in New York to explain how tomorrow’s live auction will work. The auction runs from 3PM to 6PM EDT.
Moniker received a record 80,000 domain submissions for this auction. 200 were selected for the live auction and another 3800 domains for the silent auction. The silent auction has already begun ... read more ...
Tue 19th June 2007
Sedo Buys GreatDomains, Adding New Features -
Sedo has purchased GreatDomains; will use it as premium domain auction marketplace.
Sedo announced today that it has purchased GreatDomains from VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN). At today’s SedoPro Partner Forum, Sedo detailed its plans for GreatDomains. It will turn it into a premium .com auction site. Each month there will be a 7 days premium domain auction. The first auction will be July 19. You can apply to list domains in the first auction from within your Sedo ... read more ...
Mon 18th June 2007
Domain Name Industry Threatened -
Phil Corwin, representing Internet Commerce Association, discusses threats to domain name owners.
Phil Corwin, representing Internet Commerce Association (ICA), addressed more than 50 domain name owners today at the SedoPro conference in New Paltz, New York. He warned that there are many threats to the value of domain names.
Corwin referenced Jimi Hendrix’ song “Castles Made of Sand”: Castles made of sand fall into the ocean eventually. Domain names are castles ... read more ...
Wedding.net Snags $75,000 Bid -
$75,000 bid at Afternic triggers reserve for .net domain name.
Wedding.net has received a $75,000 offer at Afternic, which has triggered the reserve and sent the domain to auction (see graphic below). The seller has a “buy now” price of $150,000.
The seller’s description for the domain reads:
RealEstate.net sold for $300,000 in 2/6/07
Career.net $52,500 sold for 2/27/07
Model.net $50,000 sold for 4/10/07
In Google “wedding” search results about 175,000,000 ... read more ...
SedoPro Partner Forum Kicks Off in New York -
More than 50 of Sedo’s biggest customers join together for event at New York resort.
More than 50 customers of domain aftermarket and domain name parking company Sedo joined together in New York yesterday afternoon to kick of the second annual SedoPro Partner Forum. The group met at the Grand Hyatt in New York City, where it boarded three party buses for the 2 hour trip to the Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, New York. The buses were stocked with cold beer ... read more ...
Fri 15th June 2007
NameDrive Opens Park & Sell to All Members -
Domain name parking service continues to innovate; adds buying and selling options.
NameDrive has always been more than a domain parking service. It offers a number of ways for domain owners to monetize, develop, and sell their domains.
When the service launched it offered “Park Sell”, which allowed domainers to park domains and then receive offers to purchase the domains for up to 96x monthly revenue. But the service wasn’t streamlined and there were limited ... read more ...
Thu 14th June 2007
Domain Name Conference Coverage Next Week -
Domain Name Wire will cover both domain conferences next week.
I’ll be attending both the SedoPro Partner Forum and T.R.A.F.F.I.C. next week in New York and will provide continuous coverage on Domain Name Wire.
The SedoPro Partner Forum kicks off Sunday afternoon at Mohonk Mountain Resort in New Paltz, NY. Sedo will shuttle domainers from the Grand Hyatt NYC to New Paltz in time for a New England lobster bake Sunday evening. Monday starts with a relaxing game ... read more ...
Tue 12th June 2007
Proposal Suggests Changes to Domain Name UDRP -
Czech Arbitration Court wants to provide arbitration services; proposes radical changes.
Ask any large company or small time domainer and each will tell you that the UDRP domain name dispute process is flawed. But UDRP doesn’t have much reason to change. Between WIPO, National Arbitration Forum and the Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre, UDRP dispute providers don’t need to do much to win competition. They just need to court large companies to their ... read more ...
Mon 11th June 2007
Flicker.com Receives $600k Offer -
Not-so-typo domain of popular Flickr.com service accepting offers.
I’ve never understood why these Web 2.0 companies have such horrible domain names. It’s hard enough getting people to remember your web address. So why drop vowels out of your domain? In January I wrote:
As a domainer, I look at a lot of these web 2.0 companies and laugh at their domain names. They are perhaps the worst domain names a company could ever choose. Flickr.com? (A Yahoo! company ... read more ...
Domain Name News Bytes – Jun 11, 2007 -
There’s so much going on with domains right now…here’s a summary of news that has slipped through the cracks.
Yet Another article from the mainstream press titled “Masters of their Domains“. Seriously, someone should have trademarked that term. (Paul Sloan of Business 2.0 owns the domain name, proving that he “gets” this domain name thing.) This time it’s The Canadian Financial Post which tries to figure out why there are so many big time domainers ... read more ...
Thu 7th June 2007
128M Domain Names Registered, VeriSign Release Domain Parking Report -
Two new reports from VeriSign shed light on the domain name industry.
VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN), the registry for .net and .com domain names, released two new reports this month.
The first is its quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief (pdf). Here are the highlights:
1. There are now 128M domain names registered, up from 120M last quarter.
2. .Org moved up to fourth place in terms of number of domains registered. It still trails .com, .de, and .net respectively.
3. ... read more ...
Wed 6th June 2007
NameBio Releases “3 Letter” Domain Name Pricing Report -
Report analyzes sale values, usage of three letter .com domains.
Last month I wrote an article titled “How Much is a Three Letter Domain Name Worth?“. I analyzed a few aspects of three letter domains and how they affect value: if the three letters spell a word, what acronyms the three letters may represent, and if other versions (e.g. .net) of the three letters are being used).
NameBio just released an in-depth report about three letter .com domain sales. NameBio ... read more ...
Domain Parking Sites Convert during Twice that of Search -
Efficient Frontier and Google provide the first decent stats about parked domain pages…and the news is good for the domain name industry.
Efficient Frontier released a case study about conversion rates from parked domain names and the results were good: parked pages convert at double that of search and other content sites.
Until now the only data people have used to validate parked domain conversion rates was a study by WebSideStory that suggested that “direct ... read more ...
Tue 5th June 2007
Variable Pricing Hits Yahoo Search Partners -
Domain name parking programs using Yahoo feeds will see revenue linked to quality.
Much like Google does with variable pricing for its Adsense publishers, Yahoo is now paying a variable price per click on content site clicks. Yahoo will judge the value of a click on your site and pay you accordingly for that click.
This change is being pushed out to domain parking services that use Yahoo’s feed as well. In a message to its customers today, Parked CTO Donny Simonton ... read more ...
Two Domain Name Companies Receive Investments -
.Travel registry, Communicate.com get equity infusions.
Is .travel back? A couple weeks ago Domain Name Wire reported that theGlobe.com, parent company of the .travel registry, was running out of money. On May 29 Dancing Bear Investments, Inc. took out a convertible note with the company. It’s only $250,000 but gives the option to purchase up to $2,750,000 before November 25.
Another domain company, Communicate.com, also received an investment. The company announced ... read more ...