Auction has a couple high bids well in advance of closing.

The SnapNames November Showcase Auction has some very strong bids prior to the closing on Tuesday at 12:15 PST.

Ufit.com is leading the pack at $23,530 with two bidders and ColdRemedies.com is $12,810 with 2 bidders as well. Both domain names have hit their reserves. Other domains that have met their reserves are ieq.net, 47.org, coldflu.com, 5kr.com, 0vr.com, drsites.com, and Quack.org.

Some other domain names I like are AllergicReactions.com and Comatose.com, neither of which have received bids.

You can also bid on drug.biz and drug.us, but the reserves of $10,000-$25,000 and $50,000-$100,000 are too high in my book.

Another one letter .co domain name to be auctioned.

Moments ago John Battelle, on the main stage of the opening of Web 2.0 Summit, announced that .co will be auctioning off the i.co domain name. The auction will be handled by Oversee.net through its Moniker/SnapNames division.

Indeed, it appears details are now up at i.co, although some of the links on the site aren’t yet operating (including registering for the auction) at the time I’m writing this.

It will be a private auction and bidders need to be qualified by January 21, 2011 in order to participate.

Apparently there will be many more single letter .co domain auctions last year. So far a handful of one letter .co’s have been registered, including t.co (Twitter), o.co (Overstock), and x.co (GoDaddy). Of course there was also e.co, which sold for $81,000 in an auction handled by Sedo earlier this year.

A dozen good three letter .pro domain names will be auctioned. Deadline to backorder is today.

The dotPro registry is auctioning off a dozen premium three letter .pro domain names. The list is solid:

eco.pro, dog.pro, dui.pro, ale.pro, eye.pro, tea.pro, ask.pro, run.pro, sax.pro, ear.pro, hip.pro, ssl.pro

In order to participate you need to backorder the domain names by 8 pm PST today.

I’ll be interested to see how much these domain names go for. .Pro is one of those domain names that crawled out of the gate thanks to overly-restrictive terms. At first you could only get a third level domain name and had to provide certification details (e.g. lawyer or accountant). That has since been relaxed to allow for second level registration. Technically you still need to provide some sort of credential information (at least according to the registry’s web site), but I don’t know how much this is enforced.

Opponents of two top level domain names are fighting a losing battle.

As the introduction of new top level domain names looms, two groups are still fighting over TLDs that have been in the funnel for quite some time.

First, there’s .jobs. It has been an actual sTLD for some time, but the registry recently decided to liberalize registration rules for the domains. This has the online job board community in a tizzy as many of them worry about new competition as well as the cost of defensive registrations.

Then there’s .xxx, which both conservatives and adult site operators oppose. Right now it seems that conservatives have given up the fight but adult site operators, upset about having to protect their brands as well as the potential for governments to try to force these site operators to use .xxx, are fighting in full force.

Each of these opposition groups has some valid points. For .jobs the way this all went down is a bit shady. Somewhat of a bait and switch. As for .xxx, I’m sure some governments will try to use .xxx as a way to add censorship requirements.

But it’s time to give it up. New top level domain names are coming, and if it isn’t .xxx or .jobs, it will be something else. The job boards could face .career, .resume, or something else. Adult site operators could have to suck it up and register .sex, .porn, or any myriad of other adult-related top level domain names.

The point is these guys are all fighting a losing battle. Battling these individual top level domain names isn’t going to get them anywhere in the long run.

Honestly, if anyone wants to push off the introduction of new TLDs, their best bet is to upset ICM Registry, which is going for .xxx. If .xxx drags on any longer, don’t be surprised if they sue to block the introduction of new TLDs until they get .xxx approved and launched.

Snapshots from the first ever Austin Domainer Weekend.

This past Friday and Saturday we had our first ever Austin Domainer Weekend. My original idea was to have a domainer dinner in Austin. But I got lots of requests to host it on a football weekend, so I obliged.

We had about 30 people for Friday night’s activities and a somewhat smaller crowd for Saturday. Most people attended from Austin, with a few other Texans and even some visitors from California and Michigan.

The event kicked off Friday night at Iron Cactus restaurant on Austin’s famous 6th Street. The restaurant is known for its good margaritas and tequilas, and that certainly helped get things going for the night. The dinner was sponsored by Moniker/SnapNames as well as BigJumbo (which I work for).

Above: Sipping margaritas at Iron Cactus

Next we headed over the Pete’s Dueling Piano Bar courtesy of the new Aftermarket.com.

Above: Pete’s Dueling Piano Bar on 6th Street.

At midnight the night was still young but it was time to move on. Frankly, the rest of the night is somewhat of a blur. But I don’t think many people woke up early on Saturday.

That was OK though, because the football game got moved back from an original 1 pm start Saturday to a 7 pm kickoff. That gave everyone time to hang out in Austin on their own Saturday. Or sleep in as it may be.

The Texas Longhorns aren’t playing well this year. But the upshot was I was able to cobble together a block of tickets for Saturday night’s football game. Traverse Legal generously bought tickets for everyone attending the event, and we also got into the TicketCity.com tailgate with the tickets.

Above: Tailgating before the Texas vs. Oklahoma State football game.

Traverse Legal founding attorney Enrico Schaefer does something neat for his kids when the turn 10: they can go on a trip anywhere they want. One of his sons became a fan of Texas Longhorns football when Enrico was working on a case in Austin. So he chose to come down for a football game for his trip. He showed up to the tailgate decked out with a pretty stellar body paint job. (Hopefully I’ll get a picture of it to post.)

Next we headed to the stadium for kick-off.

Above: 100,000 domainers showed up to the game. Ok, they weren’t all domainers.

Now recall that we were able to get a block of tickets to the sold out game because Texas isn’t playing well this year. And yeah, they didn’t play well again Saturday night. But it was still fun hanging out with fellow domainers watching football.

I’d like to thank everyone who attended. I’d also like to thank the companies that sponsored the event, making everything free for attendees. And a special thanks to Lisa Box of Moniker/SnapNames for helping me organize the event.