The Epik Developers Conference will be holding a live auction today at 4:30pm Eastern time. You can bid on the auction via Snapnames if you are interested in bidding remotely. Below are the list of names scheduled to be in the live auction, and my favorites (with reserve prices in mind) are bolded. I do not have any domain names in the auction.

10 DvdStand.com No Reserve
20 BeachBags.net $501-$1000
30 Diode.net $2501 – $5000
40 ClothingRack.net $501-$1000
50 CamcorderMicrophones.com $1001-$2500
60 EthernetRouters.com $2501 – $5000
70 3gPhones.com $5,001 – $10,000
80 AbdominalTrainer.com $10,001 – $25,000
90 Bridle.com $25,001 – $50,000
100 HdmiAdapters.net $501-$1000
110 GirlsTees.com $2501 – $5000
120 Analyze.net $5,001 – $10,000
130 AdvertisingSales.com $10,001 – $25,000
140 ComputerTips.com $10,001 – $25,000
150 CurryDishes.com $10,001 – $25,000
160 CarTransporters.org $25,001 – $50,000
170 Pillows.net $10,001 – $25,000
180 Cuffs.com $25,001 – $50,000
190 HairCare.com $250,001 – $500,000
200 Poster.com $1MM – $5MM
210 BabyDecor.com $5,001 – $10,000
220 Dishwasher.net $10,001 – $25,000
230 Downline.com $10,001 – $25,000
240 GelPens.com $25,001 – $50,000
250 HardDrives.com $250,001 – $500,000
260 HoodedRobes.com $501-$1000
270 CottonThread.com $1001-$2500
280 RollerBlade.org $2501 – $5000
290 Drapes.net $10,001 – $25,000
300 SlideShow.com $1MM – $5MM
310 ExerciseMat.net $1001-$2500
320 Brakes.net $5,001 – $10,000
330 CamoBedding.com $5,001 – $10,000
340 NecklaceExtender.com $5,001 – $10,000
350 FishingLure.com $10,001 – $25,000
360 LedStrips.com $10,001 – $25,000
370 Nuisance.com $25,001 – $50,000
380 Bikinis.net $50,001 – $100,000
390 FlowersAndPlants.net $1001-$2500
400 Earmuffs.com $50,001 – $100,000
410 HdProjector.com $50,001 – $100,000
420 PackingMaterial.com $25,001 – $50,000
430 Hobbies.com $250,001 – $500,000
440 Leggings.net $10,001 – $25,000
450 Heroine.com $50,001 – $100,000
460 Saws.com $50,001 – $100,000
470 Comfort.net $5,001 – $10,000
480 Magazine.net $50,001 – $100,000
490 Ring-tones.com $25,001 – $50,000
500 ComputerHardware.net $5,001 – $10,000
510 ETF.com $5MM and up
520 Ship.net $50,001 – $100,000
530 Lemons.net $10,001 – $25,000
540 Spoons.com $50,001 – $100,000
550 Digital-watches.com $5,001 – $10,000
560 Modem.net $10,001 – $25,000
570 GolfSet.com $5,001 – $10,000
580 Hearing-aids.com $5,001 – $10,000
590 PlusSizeTops.com $50,001 – $100,000
600 SdCard.net $2501 – $5000
610 OrganicTea.com $10,001 – $25,000
620 Co2.com $500,001 – $750,000
630 PrinterWireless.com $5,001 – $10,000
640 HepaFilterVacuums.com $5,001 – $10,000
650 PearlEarring.com $10,001 – $25,000
660 SolitaireDiamond.com $25,001 – $50,000
670 Collision.com $250,001 – $500,000
680 Hair-straighteners.com $1001-$2500
690 Phones.de $10,001 – $25,000
700 DnaSequencing.com $250,001 – $500,000
710 RewardsCreditCard.com $10,001 – $25,000
720 Hobos.net $5,001 – $10,000
730 Insect.net $5,001 – $10,000
740 MalteseDog.com $5,001 – $10,000
750 Maid.com $250,001 – $500,000
760 Patents.com $1MM – $5MM
770 KidsChairs.net $1001-$2500
780 MiniPerfume.com $5,001 – $10,000
790 RiversideMovers.com $10,001 – $25,000
800 WeddingTiara.com $25,001 – $50,000
810 Wifi.com $1MM – $5MM
830 UltrasoundMachine.com $10,001 – $25,000
840 SanduskyStorage.com $10,001 – $25,000
850 StereoAmplifiers.com $5,001 – $10,000
860 Lubricant.net $5,001 – $10,000
870 WhoWoreItBest.com $2501 – $5000
880 SkirtsDresses.com $2501 – $5000
890 BathingSuit.net $5,001 – $10,000
900 WirelessHeadPhone.com $50,001 – $100,000
910 VesselSink.com $10,001 – $25,000
920 RacingJerseys.com $501-$1000
930 TacticalKnife.net $2501 – $5000
940 LargeSunglasses.com $1001-$2500
950 CardioEquipment.com $5,001 – $10,000
960 Complain.com $50,001 – $100,000
970 ScannerAccessories.com $5,001 – $10,000
980 NaturalHair.com $50,001 – $100,000
990 Seo.mobi $2501 – $5000
1000 Snoopd.com $10,001 – $25,000
1010 BeerCoolers.net $1001-$2500

As you know by now, Epik will be holding a live auction in conjunction with its Development Conference in less than two weeks. I saw a list with many of the domain names that will be auctioned by Moniker/Snapnames, and I wanted to share some of them with you. One of the neat things is that each domain name will come with an Epik-built site.

You can see more information about the auction on the Snapnames website once the final sales list is announced.

• WiFi.com
• Maid.com
• ETF.com
• Poster.com
• Slideshow.com
• Collision.com
• Haircare.com
• HardDrives.com
• EarMuffs.com
• Saws.com
• Spoons.com
• GolfSet.com
• BabyDecor.com

Visit the Epik Developers’ Conference website to get more details on the conference, auction, and bidding.

Most of us have probably heard about Rob Monster’s development company, Epik,  and the company’s development conference from September 15-17 in Seattle, Washington. I had a chance to ask Rob a few questions about the conference that may be of interest to you if you are either thinking about attending or working with Epik.

I know a couple of people have privately expressed concern that it would serve as an infomercial for Epik and/or that only Epik customers would benefit, so I asked Rob about that in the interview below in case you also have concerns about this.

As I blogged about previously, I am using Epik to test one site right now, and I am going to give it a few months before making any judgment. I bought BumperProtectors.com on Snapnames, tried to sell it to an end user without luck, and I opted to use Epik’s services to generate revenue on the site and increase its search engine rankings for future usage.

ES: This is more of a question related to my development with Epik, but it might be helpful to people who also have Epik websites. People can have a look at the stats for BumperProtectors.com and see there isn’t a lot of revenue yet (it hasn’t been live very long). What can I (and others) do to build traffic and revenue to our Epik websites?

RM: The pattern with BumperProtectors.com is fairly consistent with what we see. During the first 30-60 days, the focus is on getting a site fully indexed. With 75 pages indexed, BumperProtectors.com is indexed.  It is also now #10 on Google, i .e. on the bottom of page 1.   This position typically accrues 2-3% of all organic clicks compared to 30% of organic clicks for position #1.    Getting to page 1 in less than 45 days is a good outcome so I would say BumperProtectors.com is definitely on the right track.  I would expect BumperProtectors.com to become a money site when it gets to around position 5, perhaps in the next 30 days or so.

Keep in mind that Bumper Protectors is a category with 3,000 monthly exact searches, or 100 searches per day. As such, a good outcome here is say 30 clicks per day, or 10,000 clicks per year, which at $0.18 per click is still a nice business.  In other words, it is not a question of retiring on BumperProtectors.com but rather assembling a portfolio of 100 of such names.   And fortunately, we find that you can achieve similar results with a hyphenated .com or .net.  This means that it becomes affordable to have 50-100 income-producing sites without having to spend a fortune on domain purchases.

Looking a bit further out for BumperProtectors.com, once the site is #1 or #2 in search, we would suggest to either (1) sell the top-ranked site to a player that is active in the production of bumper protectors, or (2) adding dropship capability, which is something Epik expects to support  on a scalable basis starting in Q4 2010.

ES: Who should attend the Epik conference and what do you hope attendees will learn?

RM: Attendees of the conference can expect to leave with practical knowledge.  Beyond knowledge, I expect attendees will realize that there is a vibrant community of Epik developers who are some of the nicest and most competent people that I have ever met.   These developers are openly sharing what is working for them, while also challenging the Epik team to keep raising the bar.  They are genuine partners in the creation of a better Internet that also happens to serve as a platform for wealth creation and wealth preservation.

Epik DevCon is an ideal opportunity for anyone who wants to build passive recurring income by Acquiring, Developing, Operating and Selling websites.  We believe that capital efficient websites are the single most interesting investment category in existence.  I believe this for the simple reason that the internet economy is growing, even at a time when the offline economy is not.  This means that the raw land of the internet will become more valuable, and the folks who add value to that raw land can expect outsized returns.

ES: Do attendees have to be Epik customers, and is the purpose of the conference to only promote Epik development opportunities, or can people without interest in Epik attend?

RM: The event has ample teaching content that can be applied generically to domain development.  Of course we hope that folks will build on Epik, which is why we offer $500 in Developer Credit to anyone who attends the conference as this does provide an incentive to start building sites on Epik.

The auction on Thursday, September 16, co-sponsored by Moniker will feature 100 developed websites.  Most of these sites are powered by Epik platforms.  Buyers of these developed sites are not required to continue on Epik, and indeed in many cases, if a site is acquired by and end-client, they may well take the site in a different direction.

ES:  What is the most important thing you’d like domain investors to know about Epik?

RM: First and foremost, I think it is important to know that Epik is a true business partner.  From a distance, it is tough to fully appreciate the sense of shared mission that the Epik team has vis-a-vis our development partners who are building on Epik.   The Developers who have been working with Epik since early on know first-hand that Epik is committed to the success of each and every Developer. The Epik team works insanely hard at making sure that we provide compelling return on capital employed.  We fully appreciate that times are tough for folks these days. This is exactly why we take our work so seriously.  The economic safety nets are crumbling and people need to be looking for ways to provide a diversified and sustainable income stream. That is really what Epik is all about — empowering individuals to succeed in a changing world.

ES: How has Epik changed since launch and what’s expected in the future?

RM: Epik has come a long way since Summer 2009.  The vision of a connected web has been with us since day one. What has changed has been the implementation of that vision in the form of money-making websites that leverage the unified architecture or ecosystem (http://www.epik.com/blog/the-epik-ecosystem-at-work.html).

When we launched the first Product Portals in Fall 2009, we still had a relatively immature platform even though we were building on years of prior development and insights.  By Spring 2010, Product Portals were firing on all cylinders. We now have 5,000 product portals and are producing another 200-300 custom product portals per week.

Looking ahead, I expect you will see similar factory-style discipline with the expansion of Directory Portals, Video Portals, as well as new initiatives that we are actively working on in response to Developer demand for scalable development of high potential domain names.

The other area where you will see Epik increasingly active is in the larger dialog with the industry around how to solve some of the industry’s most urgent challenges.  Perhaps the single biggest challenge is the urgent need to evolve from PPC to Development at a time when many domain owners are stretched financially.  This requires innovative thinking, and in some cases requires new stakeholders.

Rob Monster is one of the most approachable people in the domain space, and I think his company has a good business model that may work for some domain investors. Epik just launched BumperProtectors.com this morning for my company, and as I promised, I will keep you apprised of the results in a future post.

For now though, I would like to remind you that Rob will be taking part in a free webcast this afternoon at 2pm EST (approximately 2 hours from now). The purpose is to learn more about Epik and Rob, and to learn how their services may be able to help you develop your domain names, as I did with BumperProtectors.com.

You need to sign up prior to the webcast to participate, so you might want to do that ASAP. I am sure this webcast will be available at a later point if you can’t make it or have other things going on, but you’ll want to check it out, especially if you’ve never connected with Rob before.

Rob Monster and his Epik team will be holding its first Developer Conference in Seattle September 15-17, 2010. You can learn more about the conference on the Epik website. I haven’t decided if I am going to attend, but it looks like it will be a good conference for people who have been developing, and it certainly promises to bring something different to the domain conference scene.

In conjunction with this conference, Moniker will be running a live auction presumably using the Snapnames platform. Epik is now accepting auction submissions, but domain names must meet at least one of the following requirements to be considered:

• Is a com with an appraised value of $25,000 or more on Appraise.Epik.com
• Is a .net with an appraised value of $5,000 or more on Appraise.Epik.com
• Is .co, .co.uk, .tv., info, or ,org with at least 5,000 exact matches
• Is currently getting at least 100 monthly unique visitors.
• Is currently earning at least $50 in monthly revenue
• Is in the top 5 positions on Google for the exact match term.

There will be 100 domain names listed for sale in the live auction, and the silent auction will consist of 200 additional domain names. Adult and trademark domain names will not be considered for inclusion in this auction.

Visit Epik.com for more information about the conference and auction.