When looking through the just released Moniker live auction list, the most important thing I am looking to find are domain names that I can use commercially. When buying at auction, I assume the domain name’s sale price is far greater than any potential PPC revenue I could ever earn, and I also assume that since the sale price is public, it would be difficult to re-sell the name in the short term at a profit. As a result, the only time I personally would buy at an auction is if I plan to develop the domain name.

At this point in my career, I am now looking to buy domain names that I can develop and build into another website/business, so that’s what I am looking for on auction. I haven’t spent much time reviewing the list yet, so I don’t know if I will bid, but I am going to take some time this weekend to look. When you have a chance, check out the TRAFFIC Auction list (via TheDomains.com blog).

If you want to get to the TRAFFIC conference in Orlando in a couple of weeks, head over to DNZoom and either login to your account or sign-up for their services. In honor of their one year anniversary, they are going to raffle off a ticket to TRAFFIC. From DNZoom today:

“As we mark our one year anniversary, we want to give a big “Thanks!” to everyone in the DNZoom community. We have more than 1000 beta users and have struck partnerships with the best companies in the domain industry.

Here is our birthday present to you — A chance to win a free ticket to T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Orlando.”

Check out DNZoom when you have a chance… and a Happy Birthday/Congratulations to Sean Stafford and the folks at DNZoom.

 Moniker recently announced that they will auction domain names at no cost to benefit the Internet Commerce Association at the TRAFFIC East conference in Orlando. This is a great opportunity to help the Internet Commerce Association while earning a tax deduction (for contributors) or enhancing your portfolio (for buyers). Moniker plans to auction the best 5 names in their live auction format, and the remaining names that were selected will be auctioned in the silent auction.Thank you to Moniker and TRAFFIC for supporting the rights of domain registrants by supporting the Internet Commerce Association. Please submit donated names to Michael Collins and he will forward them to Moniker. 

With the most recent TRAFFIC auction not performing up to my expectations considering the quality of the domain names at auction, I think the premium domain sales market is taking a temporary breather. Sellers still have high expectations for their domain names and buyers are reluctant to pay those prices, causing a stalemate. While there are still areas of growth persevering in niche markets, the overall market is resting.

Previously, domain owners could expect their premium domain names would sell for anywhere from wholesale to end-user prices at an industry conference live auction, but that hasn’t been the case for the past two main industry events. In many cases, buyers aren’t willing to pay the premium asking prices right now, and the sellers are reluctant to lower their reserve prices, causing a stalemate in the market. While this might be a cause for concern for those who are heavily invested in domain names, it could develop into a good buying opportunity, so liquidity is important.

While $10 million in domain sales Read More »

I don’t think the results were particularly strong for tonight’s TRAFFIC West auction in Las Vegas, but it resulted in $4.3 million in domain sales. There were some great names up for auction, but in the end, most of them didn’t end up selling.

The silent auction continues for the next few days, and the names that didn’t sell will be available to purchase. The full auction sales list can be found at TheDomains.com.

If you are like me, you wish you could have been at the TRAFFIC conference in Vegas, but due to other circumstances (final stages of development for me), you couldn’t make it to Vegas. Michael Gilmour was kind enough to make his TRAFFIC presentations available for those of us who couldn’t attend the conference. If you have a chance today, I recommend downloading his presentations from his blog. Michael is a numbers guy and really knows the business well.

I found a few names in tomorrow’s live TRAFFIC auction that I like, but apparently I won’t be able to bid on them online since I have a Mac Book with a Leopard OS. According to the Snapnames website’s online bidding requirements:

“Live Auction Software Requirements

Microsoft Windows operating system
Audio output
Internet Explorer 6.0 (or newer) or Firefox 2.0 (or newer)“

Kind of a bummer, but no big deal I suppose.  Guess I should have thought about this earlier!

Thanks to Mike at TheDomains.com for providing the results of yesterday’s auction at TRAFFIC. The Moniker No/Low Reserve Auction is the precursor to Wednesday’s highly anticipated live auction, and it netted $190,000.

The results of the auction can be seen at TheDomains.com.

The website for the TRAFFIC conference in Australia was officially launched a couple of days ago, so if you are thinking about attending, now might be a good time to make your travel plans.  The conference runs from November 18-20, and it’s the first TRAFFIC conference not being held in the US. The Australian conference is being sponsored by Australia-based Fabulous.com, also a generous sponsor of this blog.

I haven’t decided if I can attend because my wedding and honeymoon are  just before the conference, but I will make up my mind in the next few weeks. I think this would be a great opportunity to travel to Australia to meet some Aussie domain investors like like Ed and Chris.

One thing is for sure though - I am sure the Tim Tams taste much better over there than they do over here!

Several people have asked me if I am going to be in Las Vegas for TRAFFIC this week. Unfortunately, I can’t make this show as I will be in Lowell for a couple of days. The Lowell.com website is nearing completion, and I need to take some photos prior to the launch.

The site is coming along quite well, and the design/layout is nearly finalized. Likewise, the directory is almost completely built. Most of the difficult part has been finished, and we just need to work on the actual presentation of the data. I will write a more comprehensive post about building the database, but the upshot is that it was a pain in the neck to coordinate the data with the phpMyDirectory application. I guess it was more of a time consuming project than anything else, but I will cover that in a subsequent post.

I don’t believe I will be bidding at the TRAFFIC auction, but there are a couple of names I really like, so we shall see. Safe travels to those of you who are on your way to Vegas. Remember - the better gamble is on a good domain name than on a blackjack table (although I love blackjack!)