New ownership, but a similar formula for Bido.
Social domain auction site Bido is back and under new ownership. There’s a familiar face at the helm, with Jarred Cohen returning as Chief Operating Officer. He’s a busy guy right now, but I was able to steal a few minutes of his time via email for an update:
DNW: Who bought Bido?
Cohen: The Bido software, website, and some other related assets were purchased by Bido.com LLC, a Switzerland company.
DNW: What is your involvement with Bido going forward?
Cohen: I continue just like in my former role as COO. I’ve taken a position as COO of the new company and I’ll be visible and accessible to our members on the front end as well as busy behind the scenes overseeing the development and business teams. I may be reached at jarred (at) bido.com.
DNW: What has happened to the platform (what’s been going on behind the scenes) since Bido shut down?
Cohen: It’s as you could imagine, a sale of such magnitude takes some time from start to finish. There are many steps along the way; there was a lot of paperwork, asset transfers, as well as setting up the Bido software and moving into a new server environment. In order to do all those things, we had to take a step back, keep our heads down, stay busy, and focus on the goal. Moving forward, we are glad to be back and once again open Bido up for the buyers and sellers in the domain community to utilize.
DNW: How will Bido be the same/different? Given what’s happened in the past, what will be different this time around in order to make it a profitable/sustainable venture?
Cohen: We’ll put focus on the most needed things and, with the support of the community, move to new heights. The core aspects of Bido remain for the most part the same. We will be optimizing things, simplifying some things, and making some changes with the formats, such as auction durations, and overall making it easier for people to buy and sell. What has happened in the past is behind us and we’re just looking ahead at the opportunity that awaits to get back into business and help a lot of people buy and sell. One of the changes you’ll notice right away is that we’re doing some experimentation and instead of running 1 hour auctions as we did in the past, the auctions will run for a longer duration of time. At first, you’ll see auctions that last 4 days and we’ll evaluate the feedback and results after some time. We’re also going to be starting and ending the auctions between the hours of 3pm to 4pm Eastern at first, and observing from there. The voting system (Vote For Profits) and the other core innovations that had always set us apart remain nearly the same. I would advise anyone reading to visit our site and take us up on a tour of the system to learn how it works.
Thank you Andrew for the opportunity for our voice to be heard on DomainNameWire, and we’re glad to be back.
Welcome back Jared, and best of luck with the re-launch.
Hey Bido, get rid of the stupid iframe and I will think about using your site.
I hope BIDO has addressed the issue of slow website response time. I recall it always being really slow which will always results in a high abandon rate…
Good Luck…
I just submitted “DomainerBlog.com”.
i don’t know how how you will make money taking a 10% commission on domain names with an average value of eight dollars but i guess you can make it up on volume.
Some people just don’t like failing once… err twice.
What was the price for “a sale of such magnitude”?
New owner probably paid pennies for it in comparison to what it cost the original owner to create, thus making being profitable in a shorter period of time more likely for the new owner than the original.
Bido’s been airtight with the sale price, the new owner and last I remember, they were wanting mid 6 figures. If anything, I think they partnered with someone to run it and take a small share of the profits. Though thats merely my opinion and I could be wrong. Personally, I think BIDO should be competing against eBay and not just domains. A short and easy to remember names like BIDO, why not give it a shot?
You have to admire the creative effort and tedious work that went into Bido’s creation. I’m glad to see it positioned for a rebound.
For Jarred, on the optimization goal. I would like to suggest that some attention go to simplifying the site’s complexity. My PC/browser always struggled with slow Bido loading times … as if the site was very memory hungry or perhaps a bit overloaded. Someone above mentioned that visitors might abandon their visit with slow loading, and I believe there is merit to that comment.
My other hope/suggestion is that the new owners be careful to avoid the trend that was evident just prior to Bido’s closing, in which they were adding numerous low quality domains. This, to me, got out of hand and I finally quit visiting due to the high volume of low quality domains. I think duplicating that model will lead to poor user loyalty, and be completely counterproductive to drawing business & corporate level users.
Just my two cents. Thanks, and good luck!
Hi Jarred,
Welcome back and good luck, I’ll be checking things out.
Richard St Cyr
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VERY happy to see they are back! The site looks very good and I will register today!
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@suborbital….
Judging by your handle u must have just seen the same special on tv that u just watched. Funny it just made me think about what suborbital and intergalactic domains I should register
@jp
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I’ve already suggested on my blog three new TLDs: .SPACE .MOON .MARS
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about the (commercial) “suborbital and intergalactic” domains market, I suggest to not waste your money for (at least) the next ten years… 🙂
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Yea, the scrolling iframe is off the wall annoying… Constructive criticism: fix that soon… Glad to see Bido return.
Welcome back and good luck, I’ll be checking things out.