Domainer's Gazette-Home

now, I’ll attest this is the last place you should look when searching for late-breaking domain name news..

but I hadn’t seen anybody mention this yet, so I thought I’d at least share..

there was a neat piece covering the domain name business on NPR radio yesterday morning:

NPR.org
Business
Competition Remains Hot for Web Domain Names

by Yuki Noguchi

Morning Edition, June 2, 2008 · Though the economy may be in decline, the market for Web site domain names is on the rise. Last month, the name Gasprices.com sold for $300,000. What sells, why and who is buying them?

here’s a link to the site, and the mp3 segment (about 4 mintues long)

… this is Peter Askew, Domainer’s Gazette, swinging it back to you in the studio, Karl.

Although I just dropped a large chunk of my cash reserves on yet another Geo domain name, I decided to raise my head out of the sand and finally attend my first domainer conference, the 2008 GeoDomain Expo up in Chicago (I guess I could consider it my second, since I’ll be at DomainerCon here in a few weeks)

Either way, the price was right, the attendee lineup seemed neat, and the sessions sounded up my alley.

Looking forward to the trip though, and hopefully can meet some of the other blogging domainers, as well as established geo and regular ole domainers out there..

drop me a line in the comments if you’re planning on going..

This afternoon, DomainerCon buddy Ryan MacDonald IM’s me..

“some good .us domains coming up today on TDNAM”..

now, was I researching .us domains to potentially buy? No.

Am I a lush regarding interesting domain opportunities? Yes.

so, the sliding doors moment begins.

I begin culling through the names.

He was right, there were some interesting ones.

I throw 20 into my ‘watch’ account.

then auctions begin.

spyware.us sells for $3,030

orchid.us sells for $455

autoloan.us sells for $2,484

all very interesting, but since I’m on a very strong Geo kick, I pass.

except for one.

ames.us

good ole Ames Iowa.

but, as I tend to have a short attention span, I begin plugging away on my other Geo domain, helping publish an article on a new breakfast place. Nearly forgetting the auction, Ryan drops me an IM..

“Are you going to bid on Ames.us?”

prior to that moment, I had forgotten.

But now I’m interested again.

There’s about 5 minutes left. The bid’s around $300 or so.

It begins to move. Jumps to 400 or so.

“Screw it. I’ll throw a bid in”, I think.

so I do.

Immediately outbid.

“Hmmm.. I wonder what this bidder’s top bid is…”

so I keep bidding.

up

and up

until I get lead position with a bid of $595.

Now, understand, I’m in a position to win this domain, a domain 4 hours ago I had no realization of, and no interest in.

So, I’m at $595.

the bids creep up, but it’s a high enough bid to Win.

So I’m now the proud owner of Ames.us.

At first I wanted to cuss at Ryan for getting me into this (which I actually did through IM). But I actually should thank him, cause, imo, it’s a pretty neat name. So, thanks. One free wine spritzer at DomainerCon, Ryan, on me.

I got to thinking today about bad domain names. Awful ones. Then, specifically, what it would take to intentionally register the most gawd-awful name known to man.. one so difficult to read and/or communicate, it might cause the end user to jump off a tall building.

So I challenged myself. Create a domain name which, upon verbally communicating to someone over the phone, would cause either the recipient or speaker to commit hara kiri, or to step in front of a moving bus.

So here’s what I came up with (the name was so long I had to split onto two lines):

OkSoHereWeGoDubDubDubDot1dahtTheLetterYou-Dash-thenspelloutthenumber8
dotorgThatsItNoSeriouslyThatsItPsyche-Dotcom.com

simply coming up with this name gave me a headache… which means it works..

and no, I didn’t register it.

I’m high on geo-domains these days.. Mainly for the development potential. From a ‘building business’ perspective, it’s pretty darn easy to establish instant credibility if you mention you’re from, say, ‘TellurideColorado.com’..

After grabbing a beer today with Charles from Snowcap Labs (thanks for the beer Charles), I came home to Rick Latona’s Daily Domains email.. he’s been serving up some gems lately, and today he served up one I began instantly chewing on..

Gadsden.com — for $19K — not a bad price in my book, really..

Gadsden Alabama is only a short trek away from Atlanta, and has a population over 100,000 - which means there’s plenty of small business advertisers who’d possibly be interested in advertising on a local blog/resource..

So I began digging.. What’s Gadsden like? There a college there? Industry?

Before I even got started, I stopped.

Why?

Cause of Rand McNally.

In 1989, Rand McNally listed Gadsden as one of the “Seven Worst Cities to Live in the United States.” (per wikipedia)..

oye..

A fantastic domain name? Yes, no doubt. Potential? Definitely.

For me? eh… I’d rather build an empire on - at least - the 8th worst or better city in the U.S. ….

I’m trying to get my hands around Macromedia Fireworks, and hacking away testing it’s features..

cutting, pasting, modifying, stretching, zooming, … you get the point.

As an exercise, I decided to drop in all the domainer blogs and publication logos out there, and mess around with those..

rather than delete my newbie masterpiece, I thought I’d dump here (as I tend to dump all my research here as well)

how about that fancy cropping on the ricklatona logo.. classy.

my apologies to elliot, frank, and modern domainer, as their logos are a bit grainy - had a bit of stretching issues.

oh, and whoops, what do you know, DG got the biggest logo..