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Twas the night before the auction
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June 21st, 2007 by 
Jay Westerdal
Twas the night before the auction and the reserve was too high. I wandered by this sign today and I wondered how many of the names that were on this advertisement would actually meet their reserve prices. I hate watching a domain sit on the auction block and not get any offers above the reserve. Everyone in the room looks around, they all collectively think, “next please”. With 500 people in the audience that represents a lot of man hours from a lot of highly paid domainers. I know it must be hard to tell someone they will not be in the auction even if they own Auction.com and it continues to not sell. Hire a broker or develop the site.
| Domain Names | Reserve | My Thoughts |
| Slots.com | $5,000,000 | Nope, Great name, but I think it should be auctioned off in Vegas. Not New York. |
| Student.com | $1,000,000 | Yes, if it comes with Source Code and Databases. It has a 800,000 registered users and 100,000 visitors a month. |
| Auction.com | $5,000,000 | Nope, next. |
| Scotland.com | $1,000,000 | Nope, Wow, nice name. But I have a gut feeling, crickets will chirp. I think it is worth it but this is the wrong place to auction it off. |
| Puerto Rico.com | $1,000,000 | Nope, Ditto. But maybe Frank or Reinvent will buy one of these. |
| Horse Racing.com | $5,000,000 | Nope, too high for the bidders here. |
| Dermatology.com | $5,000,000 | Nope, that is a high reserve for this name and this room. |
| DSL.com | $1,000,000 | Nope, How much is DialUp.com? Great name but I think the reserve is too high. |
| Gin.com | $250,000 | Maybe, Moderate Reserve compared to the others. Expensive but, worth it though. |
| Cats.com | $1,000,000 | Nope, I hear the number one blog on Wordpress.com is about cats. |
| Stuff.com | $1,000,000 | Nope, Is it too expensive? I think so. |
| Seniors.com | $1,000,000 | Nope, Do old people use computers? I think this one is too high. |
| Ethanol.com | $500,000 | Nope, I think a broker needs to handle this name, not an auction house. |
| Commodities.com | $1,000,000 | Nope, Seems expensive too me. |
| Text.com | $250,000 | Maybe, Wow, this should sell. Love it! |
| Pay.mobi | $100,000 | Yes, Yes, and Yes. I can see the use on mobile right now. But the real winner will be Bob Houston of Software Agents, Inc. who owns Pay.com. If someone every buys the domain for what it should be used for they will need to pay Bob $1,000,000. Else all the type-in traffic going to the dotcom will make Bob the million on his own. It is hard to own the Mobi and plan to use it if someone owns the dotcom. |
| Artist.com | $1,000,000 | Nope, I rather own Art.com but that is gone. I guess I would still pass. |
| Locals.com | $100,000 | Yes, I think the tense is wrong. But the name is good. |
| Supplies.com | $250,000 | Yes, I think someone should buy this name, but it would not be a domainer. |
| Cardiology.com | $500,000 | Nope, Seem High. |
| Comic Books.com | $500,000 | Nope, Where is Marvel? Someone should broker this sale. |
4 Yes, 2 Maybe, and 14 No. We will all see what happens tomorrow afternoon.
UPDATE: Student.com upgraded to a Yes. See comments below.
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Posted in Auction Results |
June 21st, 2007 at 3:55 am
Is Moniker nuts? I thought a reserve price is suppose to be low enough to get people interested. They’re doing a disservice to their customers who they’re selling the domains for.
June 21st, 2007 at 3:57 am
Text.com should definitely sell.
If I was a cat food producer or cat retailer, I’d want to own cats.com forever.
Locals.com is not bad.
June 21st, 2007 at 5:49 am
Jay,
By you making your projection, you might have influenced that one buyer that might bid on the domain. There will be “pro’s” that will be bidding and also some end users on these domains.
Do you also go to weddings and say “gee, I don’t think the marriage will last”.
For example, just looking at one of the domains you said would not sell is Student.com . $ 1 million reserve.
For the right buyer, that is a steal.
http://whois.domaintools.com/student.com
DomainTools shows Alexa rank of 19,567.
Overture (US) Jan., 07 - 1,994. Very impressive number.
It is a functioning website. http://www.Student.com
For a major player, this is a “natural” for them.
Personally, I think Diller should buy it.
Maybe, even Yahoo.
Imagine if Facebook and utube can be valued at skyhigh values, why not Student.com ?
I don’t know if it will be sold today. But, It will be interesting to see if some of these sell. It surely can’t be argued that the domains are not quality domains.
Just for the record, I’m not a buyer nor seller at this particular auction.
UPDATE BY JAY: I think I may actually influence someone to buy it now, here is why. I didn’t see it listed on the board as coming with a website. I just saw it listed as a domain for sale. The domain by itself is not worth $1,000,0000 to this crowd but I can see the website may give additional value if the website comes with it. It appears to have 800,000 registered users and over 100,000 people a month that use the website. That is very impressive. Basically 10 dollars per visitor or $1.20 per registered user. Seems like a good buy to me, I am sure someone will be able to monetize it better then the current owner. But why did the owner put his company for sale in a Domain auction? You get a lower value for your company by doing that. It would be a shame if the website doesn’t come with it and it becomes a parking page when it is purchased.
I am upgrading this to Yes if it comes with the source code and databases.
June 21st, 2007 at 10:21 am
I’m sorry - what is so special about Student.com? The site is nothing special. Sure it has 100k members, sure it has a 20k Alexa ranking, and sure it is a PR6 - but how much is Student.com worth on its own? Lets say 500k - are you telling me that site is worth 500k? 100% disagreed.
As for locals.com - with local.com being a public company, you would have to be insane to buy it and develop a separate site. Talk about losing traffic to the other brand.
As for cats.com and other examples - sure that would make sense, if you owned a pet-store company and were at this auction. But how many such people will be there? I think Jay was right when he started that a lot of domains might be worth that price, but not at a domainer conference.
June 21st, 2007 at 10:22 am
Err sorry mean 800k users.
But then again - 800k users and only 100k visitors a month? That is terrible.
June 22nd, 2007 at 8:15 am
what do you guys think
successfacts.com
is worth.
June 22nd, 2007 at 8:16 am
i just got an offer..
for 6k
June 22nd, 2007 at 10:35 am
Sorry but even if student.com came with the website and source code it’s not worth the reserve listed.
The current site is a poor attempt at MySpace/Facebook/Dating site. The site would be better off focusing on student services. i.e. College reviews, rental listing in college areas, book store and scholar ship listing and other such student services. Make the community part of site, the side features of the site. Then it would be something viable for a group of Universities to put content on.