The first round of auctions at TRAFFIC concludes with nearly $200,000 in sales.
For the first time ever, the TRAFFIC domain conference this week in Las Vegas includes two rounds of live auction. The first round, which took place last night, included low- and no- reserve domains. Moniker tallied $191,550 in sales on 73 names with a median price of $1,050. There were 83 names in the auction.
The results looks solid, although many of these domains could have sold for more if they were included in the main auction later this week. Also, last night’s auction wasn’t available for bidding through SnapNames Live. With online bidders the results would have been better. The main auction tomorrow will include online bidding through SnapNames.
Here are the official results, as reported by Moniker:
cabinets.net 20,000
stereotypes.com 19,000
snowmobiles.net 17,000
grandcayman.net 13,000
centralamerica.net 12,000
ProfessionalAthletes.com 9,000
webdesigning.com 6,000
converted.com 5,500
scrapbooks.org 5,500
HuntingLicenses.com 5,500
CreditReferences.com 4,500
groupdentalplans.com 4,000
funnymovies.net 3,900
election2008.com3,500
washington.biz 3,500
videoGames.info 2,500
lawyers.biz 2,500
electricengines.com 2,500
BeachResortHotels.com 2,000
digitalgreetingcards.com 2,000
pillowsets.com 2,000
Freehealthadvice.com 2,000
v.nu 1,900
checkavailability.com 1,800
businessclaims.com 1,750
corporatepolicies.com 1,750
Encouraged.com 1,750
Searchcontent.com 1,750
rvbatteries.com 1,700
zeropercentfinancing.com 1,500
homeheatingfuel.com 1,500
campaignfundraiser.com 1,500
secondmortgagequotes.com 1,400
solderingkits.com 1,400
eggcream.com 1,250
partydecorators.com 1,050
ondemandtelevision.com 1,050
rentalcarlocations.com 1,000
opthamologists.org 1,000
insurancepayments.com 1,000
conveniencechecks.com 1,000
partyplanningservice.com 950
LowPrices.org 900
beeftaco.com 900
twinsofa.com 900
LousyInsurance.com 850
trophycabinets.com 750
PreProgrammed.com 750
WhateverHappensinVegasStaysinVegas.com 700
rentalcarupgrade.com 700
christmaswrap.com 600
KneeSurgeryCenter.com 600
personalpager.com 600
realestateoffices.com 550
ResearchParks.com 500
eyeointments.com 500
premiumrums.com 500
smokealarmsystems.com 500
smallpackagedelivery.com 500
valentinesday.mobi 500
emergencycontraceptionpill.com 500
freightdelivery.net 500
rentalcounter.com 500
desktopaccessories.com 400
compactcamcorders.com 400
closingcosts.us 300
semiglosspaints.com 300
freegroundshipping.com 300
NationalSecurityThreat.com 300
electricstartgenerator.com 300
socialsciencesdegrees.com 200
standingwinerack.com 200
specialtyclamps.com 150
wow, someone got a great deal on lawyers.biz.
You could flip lawyers.bz for several times that on the open market. Somewhat of an injustice to the seller.
@Michael – I thought the same thing. Although maybe it’s just a sign of how poorly the .biz TLD is thought of.
Have to say this: .mobi buyers beware. Insiders locked up all the good .mobi names: i mean EVERY name including every 4 letter, or any that might have any distant chance of being worth something. Thats not good. All these same insiders will try to hype the .mobi endings and make it seem like its something its not. Wouldn’t be surprised if .mobi fails completely. And because .mobi has been choked out, and not allowed to grow as free content, i have to say i wont be sorry if it does fail. First of all, the only domain names that generate traffic (really) are .com, .net, and .org..I sold a geo .biz 2500 for a small city; .biz and .info will come around. Theres not much development there, but its growing. Who will type .mobi in the expecation of content? uh, no one; because there wont be any.
Congrats to the buyers of these largely great bargains…as for the sellers, would have been better for them to use Snapnames excellent regular auction platform in order to reach a much larger buyer pool.
One last point: I am impressed with the valuations of those .net’s.
I thought that Premiumrums.com would sell for mid 5 figures. I think it has awesome potential. It seems that the use of stale mixers and a plethora of ingredients in drinks is declining and drinkers are more focused on the quality and taste of the alcohol. Vodka and rum that can be sipped neat or on the rocks or infused with flavors that require just a bit of fresh juice or soda seem to be the drinks en vogue.
I bet that this domain will pay for itself many times over with some savvy development.
Bryan, I do agree with you in the case of .mobi. It seems like there has been a huge PR push to try to increase the value of this extension. The reality is that NO ONE in college.. (I am a comp sci major) has ever heard of .mobi. On the other hand everyone has heard of dot net.
The fact is that the PR people are pushing for the “potential” of .mobi. The fallacy of the argument is that by the time .mobi is supposed to get popular a few years down the road, technology will have made it completely useless. Plus, there will be far more extensions in a few years that will dilute the value of the newer extensions.
Stick to whatever everyone knows.. .com/.net/.org. Sometimes being a visionary means holding back on the hype by .mobi sellers.
According to Moniker’s pr releases they had
over 120,000 names to peruse. And they STILL
have names in the final <1K that no one in
their right minds would bid on. It’s been
the same for every auction.
What is going on ??? Are they saying that for every selected name they had about 120 that were worse ?? Give me a break.
I gave up a few TRAFFICs ago when I had solid
short, strong-keyword dot coms with ovt of 40-100 and regular earnings overlooked for hundreds of names that neither sold nor ever had any chance of selling. My overwhelming
impression (without proof) is that Moniker
includes no-hoper names for reasons yet to be
determined (perhaps they own them ?).
@ Packers @ Bryan – I’m getting ready to write an article about this. I generally agree with you.
@ Ida – They probably passed on your names because of the reserves. That said, it does seem odd to see certain names when yours have been passed over. In domaintools first auction it introduced a scoring mechanism. Although not perfect, it at least brought transparency to the process.
Lawyers.biz and Washington.biz were excellent buys (nice match for the BIZ extension). I think those are owned by Marc Ostrofsky (iREIT), no? Marco Publishing have a huge portfolio of very high quality names such as these.
@ M. Menius – you’re right, those are Ostrofsky’s. I bet he’s not happy with the results.
That said, the domains are really poorly targeted on parking pages. Lawyers.biz keeps shows pictures of palm trees, laundry blowing in the wind, etc.
Ostrofsky also has Bachelor, which he bought for $125k (along with .net and .org) in a 2005 TRAFFIC auction.
“I bet he’s not happy with the results.” – Andrew
I would think not. Wondering now about the TM infringement case with Verizon and whether the iREIT settlement is creating a need for quick cash. In which case will there be more sales of such names? To be continued …
@ M. Menius – doubt that has anything to do with it. They settled with Verizon. And this is his personal portfolio. So probably just trying to flip for some extra cash.
.biz is the only extension outside of .com ive ever sold at high retail, peronally. He may have done extremely well with those
‘Condoms.info’ sold $4000 at live auction on 2/20/2008. Another Marco Publishing (Ostrofsky) name it appears from whois.