According to DotWeekly, Snapnames is allowing customers who use their Seller Program to auction their names without transferring them to Snapnames’ registrar. They will now allow Moniker-residing domain names to be auctioned on their platform. Previously, if you wanted to auction your names using the private program, you had to transfer them to Snap first. With no guarantee of sale, it was doubling the registration fee, so it wasn’t always optimal.

I am kicking myself a bit right now, having recently sold 45 decent names for $1,000. My names were at Moniker, and I thought they would be great to sell via Snapnames, but I didn’t want to pay the $7+/- transfer fee. Three of the names on the list were similar to a name I sold via Snapnames in October for $750. Tough break, but my buyer got a great deal!

This is a great idea, and I applaud the folks at Oversee.net and Moniker for making this happen. Frequently when companies are acquired, the biggest hassle is when they try to work together. It seems that there is some good synergy between these two companies, and it’s working to benefit their customers.

According to the lead in to a paid subscription article in Boston Business Journal, a Massachusetts domain investor sold 800 three letter .us domain names to NameMedia for an undisclosed sum. The article states that “web experts” value some three letter .us names at between $1,000 to $2,000 per name. The article speculates that “his take from the deal was likely in the range of $500,000 to $1.5 million.”

I am not disputing this because his names may have been exceptional, but it’s interesting to note because according to a three letter .us price guide I found (3Character.com), they say the average value of a three letter .us name is just $45. According to that site, .com names are the only three letter domain extension worth more than $1,000 each on average.

It would be interesting to see which names were sold to NameMedia and if this will have any impact on the value of three letter .us names, of which I do not own any, nor plan to buy any time soon.