Phoenix Forum Extended (Adult) Domain Auction

Elliot Silver
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For those of you who may have missed Saturday’s Phoenix Forum domain auction or were unable to bid for some reason, you have an opportunity to bid in the extended auction. There were some notable sales on Saturday, including my personal favorite StripClubs.com, and several top domain names remain on the auction block, including XXX.com – Yes – you read it right. See the news release below for more information.

Rick Latona Auctions started their first extended domain auction.   There are 600 adult domains currently for sale at very low reserves and the auction is over Sunday at 2:00 EDT.

Atlanta, Georgia USA – April 6, 2009 – Today, Rick Latona Auctions started their first extended domain auction.   The sale will be over this Sunday at 2:00PM EDT.   “Domain names aren’t selling for the kind of money we saw a year ago, or even 6 months ago.” said Rick Latona, CEO of www.RickLatona.com.   “This is great news if you are a BUYER…there are really some good values on our list that rolled over from the live sale in Phoenix.   Our minimum sale price is $300 and I think there are over 350 names that would sell for $300 and if you are willing to go up to $500 you would hit the reserve price on over 75% of the domain names in our sale.”

There are over 600 adult domain names featured in this auction, including:

XXX.com
WebCam.com
CamGirls.com
BangedUp.com
Porno.co.uk
GirlonGirl.com
Novelties.com
Sadistic.com
SexShows.com
Skimpy.com
Shocker.com
Nudist.net
CyberPorn.com
NiceLegs.com
Wet.co.uk
Womanizer.com
Whoppers.com
FirstDates.com
NicheTube.com
StudFinder.com
Posing.com

This is the first time Rick Latona Auctions has had an extended sale and it comes off of the heels of the live auction at The Phoenix Forum on Saturday, April 4 which had sales below hoped for levels.   This is really good news to buyers because they were able to pick up domain assets for below market values at the live sale and there are still a lot of domain names with very low reserve prices in the extended sale.

The entire list of names can be viewed at www.proxibid.com/ricklatona.   Registration and bidding are also at www.proxibid.com/ricklatona.   All technical questions regarding Proxibid registration and bidding can be answered by calling toll free 877.505.7770 from inside the US or +1.402.505.7770 from outside the US.

About Rick Latona:

Rick Latona Auctions was founded as a natural extension to www.RickLatona.com to pursue other avenues in the domain marketplace to sell domain names.   When asked why he made the decision to launch now, Rick said, “I had been considering the idea for years.   When I realized that I was one of the largest individual resellers and brokers of domains it really became an issue of timing.   Rick Schwartz created that timing for us…I understand what names people want and what prices will get them to bite. It’ll be more than interesting to see how this winning formula will perform in a live format.”

Mr. Latona has been in the internet and domain industry since the mid-90s and Rick Latona Auctions is just one of several companies that Mr. Latona has founded during that time.   Other ventures include:
www.RickLatona.com – RickLatona.com stays busy Buying, Hosting, Transferring, and Selling more than 1,000,000 USD worth of domain names per month.
www.DigiPawn.com – DigiPawn is the first company to recognize domain names as assets and loan money on them.   Today, it remains one of the largest companies of its kind in the world.
www.aeiou.com – Aeiou.com offers an affordable development solution for domain owners ready to move forward with their internet properties.

DomainFest Highlights Available Online

Elliot Silver
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The DOMAINfest website has been updated with content from their January 2009 conference.

Visitors can now view a collage of photos taken at the event.   Also posted are full- length videos of each session so that attendees and non-attendees can benefit from the vision and advice of our expert panelists.   In addition, there are a number of written and video testimonials available. They give a flavor for the business-building and networking opportunities that DOMAINfest Global offered.

The links are:
http://www.domainfest.com/videos
http://www.domainfest.com/photos
http://www.domainfest.com/videotestimonials
http://www.domainfest.com/writtentestimonials

The updated website also mentions the feedback from the DFG post-event attendee survey.     Sample findings include:

–       97% of survey respondents rated DOMAINfest Global as valuable or extremely valuable.
–       87% rated the sessions and content as valuable or extremely valuable.
–       84% of respondents said that they were able to meet with industry leading vendors and service providers.
–       81% met new, influential business contacts.

The video of the fireside chat with Steve Wozniak, the keynoter and co-founder of Apple Computer, is also on the site. As many of you know, Steve has been in the news lately with his appearance on “Dancing with the Stars.”

Quick Hits for the Weekend

Elliot Silver
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Some quick (and informal) hits from the last week.

On Thursday, I was thisclose to buying a ticket to fly to Las Vegas for the Domain Madness finale. If it wasn’t for a trip to New Hampshire in a week, a cross country trip in 3 weeks, followed by a trip to Michigan right after, I would be at The Palms with the Domain Consultant crew.

SES is a great show with a lot of information for developers. If you can make one of the many shows, it’s worth attending. If you can’t afford to pay for the actual show (or if you don’t want to pay), get a free exhibition floor pass and meet with some of the companies that exhibit.

There have been more times in the past 2 weeks than I can ever remember where I started to respond to an ignorant/misinformed/stupid post on a domain forum and ended up deleting my post before hitting submit.

If you own a geodomain – especially if it’s a city, state, or country domain name, you NEED to be in San Diego for the GeoDomain Expo at the end of April. If you want to develop it, there are no better mentors and advisors than those who will be at the Expo (ie Dan, David/Mike, Skip, Jess, Fred, Mark, Sara, Josh, Shaun, Nat). If you are looking to partner (or maybe even sell), these people are your primary targets. I mean, who else are you going to turn to – newspapers? LOL. The agenda should be posted in the next few days, but no matter what the panels are, it’s the informal events that are best.

I am not investing in any .tel domain names. I simply don’t get the concept behind why I would want or need to have a .tel domain name, and if people don’t want/need them, investing in them will probably be a fruitless activity. If I want people to have all of my contact information, I make sure they have it. If someone can’t find my phone number or other contact information quickly, chances are very good that I don’t want that person to have it.

Speaking of .tel, have you noticed that most of the people who talk about alternative TLDs like these (ie mobi, asia, tv…etc) have significant investments in them? I don’t want to be an ambassador for an extension. It shouldn’t be the job of registrants to pump a particular extension.

I was very surprised to hear about Monster Venture Partners closing its doors. This is big news that will impact domainers in more of a trickle down affect, as the company invested in domain names and partnered with companies that own great domain names.

Domainer Mardi Gras Auction List Released

Elliot Silver
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banner250x2The live auction list for Aftermarket.com’s Domainer Mardi Gras auction has been released, and there seems to be some pretty good values in the list. The auction will be held live and simultaneously online on Saturday, February 21, 2009 at 2:45pm (EST).

Below is the most updated list that I have, and the names I like are bolded.   As a FYI, PortableDrive.com is a domain name I am selling, and I priced the reserve much lower than my clearance price to drive interest.

If you can’t make it to the conference, register to bid online ASAP.

AirlineRewards.com
Babefest.com
brightenteeth.com
BusinessProblem/s.com
CandyCane.com
CashForSites.com
Couple.org
Credenzas.com
CustomSites.com
DCW.com
Decor.net
Discretion.com
DNSales.com
DownAndDirty.com
Dreamy.com
ElectronicToys.com
ExerciseGuide.com
Favorites.com
FinancialBailout.com
GasCash.com
GoCart.com
GolfSet.com
Heal.tv
ItalianHoliday.com
Jobless.com
LowFare.net
Mahogany.com
MardiGrasTube.com
MedicalTextbooks.com
MovieBuff.com
NurseCollege.com
PetHospitals.com
PHO.com
PortableDrive.com
RapidMoney.com
RentalVillas.com
Resolve.net
ShowMeYourBoobs.com
SongDirectory.com
StorageFacility.com
SunTanning.com
TextLinks.com
TheFrenchQuarter.com
TicketBooth.com
Titillation.com
Trays.com
VirtualServer.com
Voodoo.com
WorkPrograms.com
XXXFilms.com

DomainFest Auction Wasn’t All Bad

Elliot Silver
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I think we can all agree that the Moniker live auction at DomainFest was pretty much a bomb, but I don’t really think this is a bad thing for the industry. There weren’t many bargains in the live auction, which shows that domain owners aren’t necessarily losing faith in their investments and selling their domain names for whatever the market will yield as a consequence.   This shows that there is strength in domain assets, especially those that are of high value.

For the most part, it seemed that the high priced domain names that were listed were priced far too high for other domain investors to purchase.   Sure, they may be worth the amount to someone with a solid business plan, but most domain investors don’t have business plans for names they plan to buy.   Many have them for names they own, but it can be fruitless to build a business plan around a name that isn’t owned by us.   This coupled with just a short amount of time between the final list publication and the auction, it’s not very likely that a plan can even be built.

Also, many of the names up for sale at auction have either been listed at other auction(s) recently or had been privately marketed recently.   There were a couple of names I made private offers on in the last couple of months, and I decided against bidding on both (even though my offers would have equaled or superseded the reserve).   Personally, I don’t like to buy at public auction, and I’ve only done so once.   With a market in flux, I didn’t want to be the price setter – especially in a public auction.

So how can live auctions be improved?   Mike and his readers have some good suggestions. I’ve also made a few additional suggestions in the past, mostly related to end user education.   I still think it would be wise for a domain ambassador to attend a non-domain tradeshow and run small group sessions discussing the importance of generic domain names.   Every single industry has tradeshows, and most tradeshows have opportunities for educational seminars.   Why hasn’t any company made in-roads with end users yet (with the exception of when an end user already knows that he wants to buy a particular domain name)?

Over the past several years, it always seemed that live domain auctions would yield seven figures no matter what.   Well, this isn’t really a reality any more.   Domain owners are more picky about what they buy in this tight market, and without domain owners continuing to be speculators, it is much more difficult to produce eye popping auction results with domain investors being the primary target audience.

Times are changing, but I don’t think this is a bad thing for our maturing industry.

You Need to Attend a Domain Conference

Elliot Silver
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For those of you who are involved in the domain industry as an investor, developer, or other service provider, I again strongly urge you to attend a domain conference.   The one complaint I heard and have to a agree with is that there are so many good shows now, it’s difficult and expensive to attend them all.   Well, with shows being held across the United States and the world, I suggest you pick at least one close to you and do your best to attend.

Here is a list of some upcoming shows:

Domainer Mardi Gras – February 19-21 in New Orleans, LA

GeoDomain Expo – April 24-25 in San Diego, CA

Traffic – Silicon Valley – April 27-30 in Silicon Valley, CA

Traffic – Amsterdam – June 1-4 in Amsterdam

Domain Roundtable – June 14-17 in Washington, DC

Traffic – New York – October 26-29 in New York, NY

I am still undecided about which shows will attend.   As I did last summer, I have several weddings to attend this spring and summer as well in Michigan, Massachusetts, New York and California.   I am fairly certain I will attend Traffic NY because it’s practically in my backyard (if Brooklyn was my backyard).   I also really want to attend my first Domain Roundtable, especially because it’s on the east coast.   Of course I want to visit Amsterdam and I should really attend the GeoDomain Expo. Clearly I am still up in the air and need to figure some of this out!

Here are a couple of money savings tips if you want to attend the show and save some cash:

1) If you book a flight with JetBlue (not sure about other airlines), keep checking on the price of your flight after booking.   In the past, 90% of airfare prices increased.   These days, they are decreasing as it gets closer to the day of departure.   JetBlue will give you credit for the difference between your booking price and the lower price if it goes down.   Just keep monitoring the price and call if you see it go lower.

2) Check with your service providers to see if they offer customer discounts.   Chances are good that you would have received an offer if they do have discounts, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.   I don’t make enough PPC money or have enough domain names in my portfolio to qualify for any company discounts, but perhaps your service providers can hook you up.

3) Share a room with someone you know in the industry.   Ask friends on the domain forums and maybe you’ll find someone who will be willing to share a room.   Most of the time is spent socializing and you won’t be in your room much anyway. I wouldn’t directly ask someone to share a room though because it could put them in an awkward position if they don’t feel comfortable with it.

4) Stay in a hotel close to the conference but not at the conference.   Again, you are going to spend little time in the hotel anyway.

5) Share rides to/from the airport and don’t rent a car.   Frequently the valet parking or parking garage at a conference hotel is sky high.

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