Moniker looks forward to the next chapter in domain name auctions.

Moniker put the live domain name auction on the map. So it was a surprise to many in the industry when T.R.A.F.F.I.C., host of many of Moniker’s live domain auctions over the past few years, announced that Rick Latona Auctions would be its only auction provider in 2010. That leaves one more Moniker/TRAFFIC auction this fall under the company’s existing contract.

An end of an era? Not really. Moniker has established a brand for its live auctions. Even though sales aren’t what they were two years ago, the company is finally hitting some of its long term goals, including selling to end users.

I caught up with Monte Cahn (founder of Moniker) and Peter Celeste (Senior Vice President and General Manager, Domain Services at Oversee.net) to discuss the future of Moniker’s live auctions and the live auction scene in general.

Change of Venue
With TRAFFIC off the table, Moniker will look to other venues in 2010. Its next large auction (after October’s TRAFFIC) will be at the company’s own conference, DOMAINfest Global in January. The company also plans another large auction later in 2010. Oversee.net is considering adding a second DOMAINfest event next year, perhaps on the East coast, so this would be a logical venue for its second large auction of the year.

“If you look at the attendance at DOMAINfest Global compared to some of the other shows out there, it’s clear that it is the industry’s premier show,” said Celeste. Celeste said it attracts a diverse audience, which is key to holding a successful auction.

Moniker will also offer online themed auctions, with the first scheduled for July 16. These auctions will run on the Snapnames platform.

Selling to End Users
Moniker has tried to sell directly to end users through its auctions. It has been a tough slough. It turns out end users are eager to participate in domain auctions, just not in person, said Cahn.

“Many of them don’t want to show their face and raise their paddle,” said Cahn. “We had more end user buyers at the last auction participating online than we’ve ever had before. That was a credit to our efforts in reaching out to the corporate world and getting our list out a little bit earlier this time. We feel that trend is going to continue.”

Cahn says 20-30 of the domains at the last show were sold to end users. For example, a bottled water company bought BottledWater.com.

Industry Landscape
Right now there are several live domain auction providers. Celeste sees some shakeout ahead. “You need a large audience and a diverse set of customers” for a successful auction, said Celeste. “Very few shows can provide that. I think it’s going to take a year or so for the rest of the industry to understand that.”

Moniker is adjusting to a new market reality. Gone are the days of frothy investor-to-investor sales propped up by domain parking earnings. The future of domain auctions will be dependent on end users and reaching out beyond the domain industry’s comfort zone. It will be exciting to watch.

Pair strikes a creative deal to get recruiting domain names.

I’ve written before about Harry Joiner and Jason Davis. Davis, who has one of the world’s finest collections of jobs.com domain names, sold CEOJobs.com to Joiner a couple months ago.

The two have struck another deal, and it shows how a little creativity in a deal can help get things done. The story goes like this:

-Joiner recently bought DirectorJobs.com, and Davis thought it was a great domain
-Joiner decided he should get CEOsearch.com to complement his CEOJobs.com domain
-After negotiating unsuccessfully for CEOsearch.com, Joiner asks Davis to negotiate for him
-Davis acquires CEOsearch.com from its owner, and then trades it to Joiner for DirectorJobs.com

Joiner got a domain he wanted and Davis got one he wanted. Everyone is happy.

Next time you’re working on a domain deal and can’t pull everything together, consider creative thinking.

Talk.com latest big ticket domain name sale.

Domain brokerage Sedo has sold the domain name Talk.com for $500,000. The seller, according to whois records, is Cavalier Telephone, LLC of Virginia. The domain name is currently in Sedo’s control, so the buyer is not yet known. [Update: The Buyer is National A-1, the same company that bought Contests.com from Yahoo for $380,000 two weeks ago and runner up in the $5.1M Toys.com auction.]

Sedo also turned in another six figure sale this past week, completing a transaction for TimeManagement.com at $100,000. The seller was Roy Messer, famous for his sale of Vodka.com for $3 million (also brokered through Sedo). The buyer is in the Philippines.

Here are other top sales completed by Sedo this past week.

.Com
talk.com 500,000 USD
timemanagement.com 100,000 USD
refinancerates.com 30,000 USD
medicarepartd.com 28,000 USD
directbuys.com 24,500 USD
brainstorming.com 18,000 USD
sporthub.com 17,600 USD
plugincars.com 15,000 USD
armbanduhren.com 11,000 EUR
biorust.com 7,000 GBP
sportroom.com 6,000 USD
solarox.com 6,000 USD
bankruptcy-attorney.com 5,400 USD
wiretap.com 5,301 USD
espaciolibre.com 5,000 EUR
designarea.com 5,000 USD
clickonline.com 5,000 USD
aprec.com 5,000 USD

Country Codes
kreishandwerkerschaften.de 14,875 EUR
bravado.de 9,000 EUR
careers.us 7,795 USD
zeitschriftenabo.de 6,300 EUR Magazine subscription in German
tarot.cn 6,200 USD
adhesif.fr 5,000 EUR Adhesive in French
nsl.co.uk 5,000 GBP
sport.us 5,000 USD
fueralles.de 4,500 EUR For all in German
zeitungsabo.de 4,300 EUR Newspaper subscription in German

Other
descargas.net 33,000 EUR
economics.net 10,000 EUR
babynames.net 9,000 USD
mariages.net 9,000 EUR
homepage.info 4,000 EUR

Company shows consistency in domain name sales.

Domain seller NameMedia, which sells domain names through BuyDomains and Afternic, sure is consistent. It seems that every week they total $600,000 or so in announced domain sales. That sort of consistency can only come with a large inventory of domain names. This past week the company sold about 400 domain names, or an annualized 20,800 names. Assuming an inventory of a million domain names, that’s a 2% turnover per year.

I point this out because it’s easy to look at NameMedia’s sales and wonder, “why am I not selling more of my domains”. You look at the list and think your domains are better than the ones that are selling for a $1,000 here or $2,000 there. But keep in mind:

1. If you own 1,000 domains like these, you would sell 1 or 2 a month at a 2% annual turnover.

2. NameMedia prices nearly all of its company-owned domain names. This results in more sales than the “make offer” approach.

3. The company gets great placement on GoDaddy and other registrars, resulting in a good number of sales. This sort of promotion is slowly being offered to NameMedia’s customers under “Premium Promotion”.

4. Your smaller portfolio doesn’t have the breadth that NameMedia and its sellers’ portfolios have.

5. NameMedia spends a lot of money advertising to end users and on trained sales staff.

I’ll end my soapbox and get to the list. Here are the top sales in .com for the past week:

mediashopping.com $10,000
botanicalextracts.com $8,000
fiberpedia.com $7,150
autodns.com $7,100
thetvstore.com $6,600
applab.com $5,400
twosteps.com $5,400
silq.com $5,188
jokesrwild.com $5,000
cruisesandtours.com $5,000
tfpt.com $5,000
interakta.com $4,800
newsbus.com $4,588
militarymoves.com $4,500

And here are the top sales in other extensions. I’m particularly impressed with BrownSugar.net.

blc.net $7,500
brownsugar.net $6,195.90
tstore.net $3,688
russianbride.org $3,288
hema.net $3,270
hotelportal.net $2,977
tourette.org $2,388
atmu.net $2,088
seaturtle.net $2,000

Two large online domain name auctions conclude this week.

The online-only portion of the Domain Roundtable Aftermarket.com auction concludes today at 5 PM EDT. 269 domain names are up for grabs, ranging from $0 to $300,000. A number of domains in the under $3,000 arena have received bids already, including HealthAdvisor.com ($2,245), TopMortgage.com ($1,000), and eQuestion.com ($850). There are some well priced domains in this auction; bid online at Aftermarket.com.

Sedo’s monthly GreatDomains auction ends this Thursday. The highest domain name right now is 70.com at $51,000, but it has yet to meet its reserve of under $100,000. The next highest domains seem to have reserve prices that are a bit lofty for their value: Lonely.com with a reserve of $250k-$500k and Blade.com with a reserve of $100k-$250k.

Guests.com looks like it could sell as its current bid is $11,000 and has a reserve under $25,000. A number of three letter domains will sell as well. Currently opz.com, wxa.com, zmy.com, and zzr.com have all met their reserve prices.