dotMobi to Auction Premium Domain Names Through Sedo
Thursday, September 13th, 2007
dotMobi will auction premium domains including ATM.mobi and Cars.mobi through domain aftermarket Sedo.
dotMobi announced today that it will auction a number of premium domains through Sedo. dotMobi’s “Premium Names” consist of 5,500 commonly used words that dotMobi set aside rather than releasing for general registration. A number of those domains will be included in Sedo’s auctions.
The first Sedo auction will start on September 26, the one year anniversary of .mobi’s general launch, and last for seven days. The first auction will include 100 names and there will be additional auctions in October and November.
But dotMobi has applied restrictions on the buyers of these domains. The domains must be purchased with the intent of development, not merely as an investment. All domains purchased in the auction must be parked with a .mobi-compliant parking page after purchase, with a live web site with relevant content launched within 6 months of the auction. The live web site must score 4 out of 5 on .mobi’s compliance scale.
This is a smart move for .mobi. Although prices may not be bid as high because of the constraints, it ensures that .mobi domains lead to real web sites and are advertised to the public. If the public never catches on to .mobi, the registry’s long term prospects are limited.
After an initial flury of headline grabbing sales, such as Flowers.mobi for $200,000, aftermarket sales of .mobi domains have cooled. But the occasional big ticket domain makes headlines — such as PhoneNumbers.mobi, reported by DNJournal to have sold for $28,000 this past week.
A complete list of domains for the first auction can be viewed here (pdf). Some of the domains for the first auction include cell.mobi, domain.mobi, forum.mobi, traffic.mobi, bank.mobi, loans.mobi, pets.mobi, police.mobi, and free.mobi.
Further Reading:
[...] But the occasional big ticket domain makes headlines such as PhoneNumbers. … A complete list of domains for the first auction can be viewed here (pdf)….All domains purchased in the auction must be parked with a . mobi-compliant parking page after purchase, with a live web site with relevant content launched within 6 months of the auction…. source: dotMobi to Auction Premium Domain Names Through Sedo, Domain Name Wire [...]
[...] dotMobi to Auction Premium Domain Names Through Sedo – Domain Name WiredotMobi to Auction Premium Domain Names Through SedoDomain Name Wire, TX – 18 hours agodotMobi will auction premium domains including ATM.mobi and Cars.mobi through domain aftermarket Sedo. dotMobi announced today that it will auction a number …dotMobi To Launch Special Premium Name Auction Series Earthtimes.orgall 18 news articles [...]
[...] dotMobi to Auction Premium Domain Names Through Sedo – Domain Name WiredotMobi to Auction Premium Domain Names Through SedoDomain Name Wire, TX – Sep 13, 2007dotMobi will auction premium domains including ATM.mobi and Cars.mobi through domain aftermarket Sedo. dotMobi announced today that it will auction a number … [...]
Andrew:
Did the auction of az.com go bust that sold in auction for $500,000? The site has not changed to new ownership yet.
Also what does this mean to other related geo real estate cities and towns with an az.com extension for valuation. Does this sale price help the “whole neighborhood” ?
Not sure on the az.com sale. But my sale of Suspects.com still is finalized (just go the push request this week), so it could just take a while longer. Or it could have been a bogus bid, given that it came in on the web and in advance of the auction, which is suprising for such an expensive domain.
Not sure on the geo thing…probably no big deal since other state abbreviations would go for about as much.
It does however highlight a way in which money could be made, although it would obviously have some moral issues. Create and launch a new domain extension, advertise it a lot, keep thousands of keywords aside until your new extension picks up, then sell the keywords at inflated prices when there is a high demand for them! Nice!
[...] dotMobi to Auction Premium Domain names Names Through Sedo [...]