About 10 days ago, I posted an article about Internet REIT’s new website, DomainMarketplace.com.  I had received an email from Lisa Box who is VP of Sales at IREIT announcing the newly launched domain sales website.

Actually, that last sentence should read “was VP of Sales at IREIT.”  Apparently, Lisa no longer works at the company, as I found out when I tried to send her an email with an offer on two domain names I am interested in buying. According to her updated LinkedIn profile, Lisa is now Senior Director of Sales at Oversee.net (congrats to both).

When the email to Lisa bounced back to me, I sent another email to a second contact I have at the company who handled a couple of sales for me several months ago. That email also bounced back to me as undeliverable.  I finally sent an email to the email address on the website, and that also bounced back as undeliverable.

I made an offer directly on the website for one name, and I would like to buy a second domain name at the asking price, but I don’t know who to contact and I never heard back about the first offer. At this point, I don’t trust that my credit card will even be processed if I place my order online, so I am not going to place an order. I called their phone number, and of course I got a voicemail prompt.

So my question is… Does anyone work at IREIT anymore? If so, perhaps someone can be in touch so we can do some business.

DomainFest Global is set become a fully “global” conference. For a couple of weeks now, I have heard rumors that Oversee was thinking about – or planning to have a DomainFest conference in Prague, Czech Republic, and this information has just been confirmed by the company. DomainFest will be held in Prague for two days, from October 6 – 7, 2010 at the Intercontinental Hotel.

I have been planning to attend the Traffic conferences in Vancouver in June and Hong Kong in November, and I may add this one to the list. Prague is a city that I’ve wanted to visit for quite some time, and now I should be able to make a “business case” to attend.

Full details can be read in the Oversee press release:

DomainSponsor®, the domain monetization business unit of Oversee.net® and organizer of the DOMAINfest® series of conferences, said today that it will expand the highly regarded franchise into Europe with a conference in Prague, Czech Republic.

The two-day event will be held Wednesday and Thursday, October 6 and 7, 2010 at the landmark Hotel Intercontinental located in the heart of one of Europe’s most beautiful cities. Building on the success of last month’s event in Santa Monica, California, the October meeting will continue DOMAINfest’s focus on increasing the value of Internet real estate and will offer a rich setting for extensive networking involving topics relevant not only to domain investors from Europe, but also from around the world.

Subject-matter experts will be invited to facilitate the networking sessions on Wednesday, October 6th.  The first day will also include a Moniker® Premium Domain Name Auction powered by SnapNames LiveTM technology.  Day 2 will be focused on social activities in and around Prague designed to provide the kind of shared experiences that can contribute to the building of long-term relationships between DOMAINfest Europe attendees.  Conference details, including the agenda and speakers, will be released in June, 2010.

“DOMAINfest Europe is an excellent opportunity for European publishers, online marketers, and domain-related service providers to meet and discuss ways to increase the value of domain names, which we like to refer to as Internet real estate, “ said Peter Celeste, Senior Vice President of Oversee.net and General Manger, Monetization Services. “The DomainSponsor team looks forward to becoming more engaged with the European domain investor community, and this forum is the perfect venue to exchange ideas and build relationships.  As with all DOMAINfest events, we will be offering affordable registration rates to encourage maximum participation from a wide range of talented professionals from both inside and outside our industry.”

In January, 2010, DomainSponsor hosted a highly successful DOMAINfest Global® conference in Santa Monica, California that attracted more than 600 professionals from a variety of internet-related industries.  The conference included a variety of sessions over a three day period, including a keynote fireside chat with Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com. This recent DOMAINfest conference also featured a first-ever PITCHfest contest, structured networking sessions, and moderated general sessions with experts from the world of investment, advertising, and marketing. Videos of each session, including the keynote fireside chat, can be viewed at http://www.domainfest.com.

In November 2009, DomainSponsor announced the establishment of its European head office in Frankfurt, Germany with Joerg Schnermann as General Manager.

Mike Berkens told me that he and some other South Florida domain investors will be meeting with Oversee.net CEO Jeff Kupietzky this evening in Boca Raton, Florida. Since I can’t be in Florida, I wrote a list of questions that I shared with Mike that I would like to see answered.

I think it’s good that Jeff is reaching out, and obviously this is going to be a casual get together rather than a grilling. Additionally, I am sure he won’t be able to address any of the legal issues surrounding the case, so there really isn’t a point in asking those questions.

• When did Oversee learn about bidding by an employee?
• How did Oversee learn that an employee had been bidding?
• Why did nobody ever investigate bidder “halvarez” after so many complaints over the years?
• Did Oversee executives ever try to speak to or meet with “halvarez” who accounted for a % of Snapnames revenue?
• What measures are in place to ensure insider bidding doesn’t happen again?
• How can domain investors trust Snapnames/Oversee when we were assured halvarez was a real bidder for several years?

Based on events and announcements throughout the domain industry during the last couple of years, as well as declining PPC earnings trends and harsh economic conditions, I believe there must be considerable pressure on Oversee.net. Here’s a quick third party view of things that have transpired.

Oversee.net purchased Snapnames, which was the leading platform to purchase expired and deleting domain names. They had many exclusive drop catching deals in place with some of the leading registrars.

A few months later, Enom launched Namejet, a direct competitor to Snapnames. Some of the exclusive registrars later shifted from Snapnames to Enom, costing Snapnames some of the better dropping domain names.

Oversee purchased Moniker a leading domain registrar and auction house that primarily held its live auctions at TRAFFIC shows during the year, grossing millions of dollars. TechCrunch reported the purchase price at $65 million.

Oversee announced staff layoffs.

Oversee holds a great annual domain conference in January, DomainFest, which is held in Hollywood, California with considerable fanfare and high praise from industry professionals.

Crowd favorite and Director of Business Development, Ron Sheridan departs from Oversee’s DomainSponsor.

Rick Latona enters live auction business directly competing with Moniker auctions at some TRAFFIC shows.

Rick Latona signs exclusive deal with Rick Schwartz and Howard Neu to partner on the TRAFFIC shows, leaving Moniker on the outside. In 2009-2010 TRAFFIC will expand to 6+ domain conferences annually, and it doesn’t appear that Moniker will be the auctioneer.

Fabulous announces free security feature which will compete with Moniker’s expensive Max Lock program ($19.99/domain or $124.99/portfolio), and Fabulous also announced a free privacy protection service that will compete with Moniker’s privacy, which costs $4.00 per year.

I know Oversee.net is managed by some smart people, but it seems that many deals they’ve made haven’t worked out as well as they wanted them to work out, and in other cases, competitors are offering better products/services at better prices. Oversee companies were the best of breed in some categories, but now it seems that’s being chipped away rapidly by nimble competitors. Oversee is a well funded company with big time VC backer Oak Hill Capital Partners, but who knows how much of that investment remains and how much previous investments are currently worth.

The people that make up the company are a primary reason why I do business with more than one Oversee company. However, with tough economic times, there are difficult business decisions that have to be made. The pressure seems to be on Oversee, and it will be interesting to see their next move.