Comments on: DomainTools Auction Sells $30,000 in Domains

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 19:13:07 +0000

#9 I think Stephen was only in charge of the Roundtable, so I don’t think it has anything to do with this.

#10 I don’t really think he was trying to pre-empt these. It’s hard to schedule an auction at any time without running into another one. I do think it was thrown together at the last minute, however.

By: doman_lurker

doman_lurker — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 18:05:58 +0000

Jay was trying to pre-empt the DOMAINfest (JAN) and TRAFFIC (FEB) live auctions by jamming his in before them, with a 60 day lockup. He announced his auction (last minute) after the other two auctions were in place and dated it for effect. His distain for oversee and rick schwartz/moniker on full display.

The timing, lack of preparation and poor quality of domains blew up in his face.

By: Basicity

Basicity — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 17:59:22 +0000

Wonder if the recent departure of Stephen Douglas from the team has any effect on the company as a whole and of course this past domain auction.

By: Seb

Seb — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:31:16 +0000

Agree with #5 and #7, never will do business with Jay unless he adds an opt out feature to registrant search or definitely takes it down.

You can’t earn money from both sides.
Selling domains at auctions (and getting a fee from the sale) and then getting money from lawyers to provide them your whole portfolio.
Most one word dictionary word have trademarks and Jay provides a tool to allow bogus trademark claims.
The simple fact of owning several generic domain names makes you a cybersquatter to lawyers and the general public these days.

One day, you have to choose Jay…

By: ld

ld — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 13:51:10 +0000

KL above is spot on. Jay will never again
have access to prime selling stock unless he
starts mending fences with the domain
community that he apparently has not
recognised is his ‘life blood’. He may be a
good code-cutter, but his commercial skills
are barely above nerd level. An offensive
nerd at that. Jay has alienated his ‘feeder’
demographic by selling their private
information etc. and unless he reverses the
perception that he is a ‘rat’, his enterprise
may fade into oblivion.

By: James Jean

James Jean — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 13:09:10 +0000

That’s what they get. i submitted some quality names including a great 2 word .com and a 3 letter .net and .org and they were all rejected. Sorry to say, but they need to get some new monkeys at the helm. But seriously, they should not need a trial and error stage. They should have learn tons from the Moniker and Domainfest auctions. Beside, you yourself Andrew wrote a great article a few months on how those could have been improved. Someone at DT should have read that.
p.s
I too canceled my DT account.

By: KL

KL — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:42:38 +0000

One important point missed I think, whatever your opinion is on registrant search and/or Jay , a lot goodwill was lost with domainers. I know of several who cancelled their DT accounts back then and will flat out have nothing to do with the company.