Domainer's Gazette-Home

I started analyzing myself the other day, on the type of domain auction bidder I’ve become (mainly within namejet, snap, and tdnam). Logic would tell you to place one bid, your highest, and simply let it ride. But I’m very emotional regarding domains I target. Because of that, my bastardized logic tells me to wait until the last 15 mins, stay in the shadows, and lob in a high bid.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

My mind tells me: “Maybe one competitor’s internet connection will drop, and another will be too caught up in a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie on Lifetime, and another’s boss will be hanging over their shoulder at their 9 to 5 - rendering them un-bidable.”

And no, chances are my strategy has no effect on the final outcome or eventual sales price… but you never do know, do you…

And so I wait..

So….. what type of domain auction bidder are you?

there’s always talk of whether it’s “too late” for new domain investors to enter the field.

“All the good domains are already taken”, “I’d only be able to buy the dregs if I entered now”, “It’s way too expensive”…

all I can say is wrong, wrong, and WRONG. (I’m starting to sound like Rick Schwartz)

don’t believe me?.. let me give you a personal example:

I un-officially started [truly] domaining in 2006. Playing the Snapnames & Pool game - heavily.

Being a part of Pool, I became exposed to the .mobi sunrise event - this was in October of 2006. It seemed like an interesting extension, so I brainstormed a list of possible names to consider - names that seemed to make sense for a mobile application:

fantastyfootball.mobi (play fantasy on your phone)
traffic.mobi (check traffic on your phone)
weather.mobi (check weather)
trivia.mobi (play trivia on your phone when you’re in the line at the DMV, or waiting for someone at the airport)

so I tossed all those names into my account, half-ass-edly expecting Pool to actually secure any of the names for me..

But they did.. FantasyFootball.mobi and Trivia.mobi - specifically.

Both went to auction. I was high on FantasyFootball, cause I could see a mobile application built around that name..

Trivia was an afterthought - I expected the name would bid too high..

FF was up first, and I ended up bidding it to around $10k….and lost..

defeated, and beat down, I darn near logged out…until I saw trivia.mobi still there; had about 20 mins left in it’s auction..

I quickly moved my attention to it’s corner.

The bid was cheap’ish..around $150.. So I upped it.. $200. Saw some slight competitor activity, so I upped the bid to $260..and all went quiet..

and that was it.. trivia.mobi was mine for $260. Here’s the screenshot:

The .mobi extension was new, untested, untrusted, but who knows, you know?

Fast forward to 1/22/2008. DOMAINfest auction in Hollywood California. (I shoulda gone, cause I need to meet all the neat people in this industry..)

I was well aware they had an auction planned, so I decided to drop a few of my big boys in, rentalcondos.com and rentalvillas.com. And at the last second, I threw in trivia.mobi as an afterthought, with about a day to spare.

Weeks later condos & villas were turned down cause the reserve was too high. But they accepted trivia.mobi. And it ended up being placed in their live auction. First day.

And you wanna know what? the thing sold.. what was my reserve?

$8,000

$260 to $8,000

“those are my kind of margins” my brother text messaged me.

And please don’t take this post as me gloating, cause that’s the last thing that would cross my mind.. cause I’m well aware I’m still on the lower rungs of the domaining business.

I feel it simply shows that new blood into the industry can survive.

I simply love this industry, though. Love the model. Love it’s direction. and love being a part of it.

and - assuming the trivia sale closes..

Guess where all that money’s gonna be re-invested?

(sorry, got to turn ole DG into a plea blog real quick)

it’s 4:27am, and I’m bummed. Couldn’t sleep, so I decided to wake up and post a quick blurb.

A few months back I helped acquire two domains for a small investment group. Our initial interest was to fully develop the names, but after some time, we decided to move our interested onto other projects. Since the DOMAINfest auction was coming up, we decided to toss them into the ring for consideration.

the names? RentalCondos.com and RentalVillas.com.

Initially - I now realize - we were a little aggressive on our reserve price. Because of that, we were originally turned down. I personally thought we had some good names, so our investment group decided to lower the reserve, and re-submit.

We eventually got Tony Clark of Snapnames on the horn, who was a great help, and worked his tail off submitting our names for re-consideration.

On Thursday 1/17, I got a quick chance to speak to Tony, when I was on vacation in Utah, and received verbal confirmation our names were accepted, and that they’d be placed in the auction (I wasn’t sure of which auction - live or extended - I didn’t really care, just wanted them included somewhere).. And just so I could have sort of confirmation, he was cool enough to drop me an email verifying everything:

Hey Peter,

I got it, and will push them in!

Take Care,
Tony-

SnapNames
Tony Clark | Account Manager | 1600 SW 4th Avenue, Suite 400 |
Portland,
OR 97201

Then comes today, Friday 1/18 (or make that yesterday since it’s 4am), heading home from the airport, checking messages. Ran across the email, “Final SnapNames Live and Extended Auction Catalogs Released”..

sweeet..

run a quick check..names not on the live list.. darn. Oh well, extended is fine with me.. Quick scan. names not there. double darn.

Tony, my man, can you help a brother out? Ron (Sheridan), can you help me out?

I’d love to have these names included. I thought blog post might be one way (as I’ve already left ya’ll a message)..and also thought a blog post might be wise as early speculators are gonna download the lists without our names included, and may never realize they’re up for consideration..

and I ain’t here to bash Tony or Snapnames, cause they’ve been great. I’m just here to try and get these little babies included on those lists..

Can ya’ll help a (red headed, glasses wearing, Larry Page stalking) domainer out?

So you decided to drop a fair amount of cash to attend your first domainer conference..

you got a few domains accepted into the live conference; the stars are beginning to align..you’re beginning to count the cash in your head…

..until you jump on your flight.

Ever sit on a bad seat on a plane?

I have.

And I witnessed, recently, the worst I’ve possibly ever seen.

Take note the plane and seat numbers:

Boeing 767-400er (a Delta plane in this case)

Seats 14C and 14E

Bad, obviously not in terms of poor selection of row mates, but poor in regards to location to lavatory.

not like a row away.. but directly across the aisle.

close like you’re dancing a tango with a urinal cake.

On a solid 4 hour flight out to Salt Lake, I duly noted this seat number to alert myself, but hopefully, alert others, to it’s unfortunate location.

“Well, Peter, when I’m making my online reservation, I’ll - obviously - be able to see it’s crappy location, and avoid booking it.”

Here’s the thing..good ole Delta (and other airlines) seem to use fuzzy math clearly identifying these locations on this plane..

take this image I grabbed from their site:

14C and 14E are situated *directly across from the lavatories*

The image shows a blank area across from these seats, and my red arrows show the actual location of said wash rooms.

The poor gal sitting in 14C for 4 hours from ATL to Salt Lake seemed dizzy with fumes after the flight…so..

Save yourself, my dear domainers. Take heed. Smellfest, crappy seat airplane flights are avoidable.

so I’m out here in Park City Utah skiing, celebrating my 1 year wedding anniversary (also the reason for the low posts)

In my head, I decided to (somewhat) detach myself from ‘the game’ as I tend to call it. Give my domaining brain a break. To relax on the seo, and not terribly think about work.

sure, domaining and seo thoughts would still creep into my head, but I’d quickly quarantine them.

Last nights dinner reservations were at The Riverhorse on Main, our first meal..

“I’m here to think about nothing…refresh the ole noggin”, I continued to tell myself..

..until, at dinner, Larry Page, cofounder of Google, plus his new wife (I think he married her) stroll in with two other buddies and sit 2 tables away from my wife and I.

‘Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in.’ …All bets are off now. Noggin engaged.

I sat gap jawed.

My wife asked if I was ok.

I didn’t respond.

I had to blink a few times to verify everything.

yup, it was still him.

but I needed proof.

so I pulled my 2 day old iPhone, which I’m still learning.

Slide the button > Camera > Sit Camera on table facing their direction > It’s low light but screw it > Snap 1

>Snap 2

I tried to think of every conceivable way to go say hello, but they all collided with my being rude -which I would have been.

Send him a shot of Tequila?

My wife vetoed that.

So, I was content with leaving him be..

Even billionaires need a nice meal out.

so, I was in an auction for the domain ComputerPros.com a few days back, and was soundly thumped and outbid. It sold for $7,400. Worth the price though, and a good buy.

Since NameJet continues their inane ‘nameless bidder’ auction process, I finally followed up through whois to determine who won it..

DN Investment Group, LLC , it told me..

hmm, never heard of those guys (or gals)

let’s visit their site, dninvestmentgroup.com

holy ba-jeezus..did their nephew-in-law design the site in Front Page?

and the Title tag on their homepage is ‘Welcome Home’..oye..

Let’s just ignore that for now..

Their portfolio is what I’m interested in seeing..

..and their portfolio is quite well stacked..

Bubbles.com

CubanCigars.com

and a domain I competed against them for, way back on May 13, 2006, that they eventually dropped $55,350 to acquire:

GolfClubReview.com

Yeah, the names are good, but more importantly, these guys seem to have cash to back up their investments..

the more this industry becomes exposed, the more small, subtle and quiet businesses like this are popping up..

great for the industry, but stanky for smaller, self funded guys like me..

I wish there were a big domaining company here in the ATL I could work for..

I’d work for free : )