Veterans Day Closures

People in the United States honor their veterans on Monday, November 12, and many companies are closed or have more limited customer service hours. If you are doing business with a US-based company (or a company with US-based employees), there’s a good chance that nobody is going to be in the office to answer questions or help with your transactions.

Some companies like Escrow.com and Sedo’s US office are closed for business, while others like NameMedia’s properties and eNom are open as usual. Even if a company is open though, many people take vacation days since public schools are generally closed and it’s a good time to get away for a long weekend.

On a side note, thank you to all our vets for your service! There are a number of veterans who are active domain investors, and I appreciate all you do selflessly for others. It’s a big family sacrifice, and you are appreciated.

Approximate Dates of 6 Figure Marchex Sales

As you are aware by now, publicly traded Marchex announced that it would be split into two separate companies, with one company, Archeo, focusing on its domain assets. While announcing the news, Marchex also revealed the company’s top 500 domain sales  (pdf). I don’t know if this excluded any sales subject to NDA, although the company may not sign NDAs when it comes to sales.

A benefit of this public release of sales data is that the sales can be added to Ron Jackson’s sales report so that we can all reference these sales in the future. One issue is that Marchex did not reveal the sale date for these transactions, so Ron couldn’t easily place these sales in the correct sales charts.

On Friday, Ron announced his plan for publishing these domain sales:

“I considered several options before deciding the best route would be to add a special entry in our Domain Sales Archive detailing how the Marchex sales, made over a span of several years, came to be released, including a permanent link to their complete Top 500 list – just as there is a link to each of our Top 100 charts. “

I think this is reasonable, but I really think people reference the annual top sales charts more regularly. That said, I took it upon myself to see if I could find the best guess when the highest value deals were transacted using the invaluable  DomainTools Whois History tool. If there was any question about when the transfer took place, I noted that in lieu of the year. I also linked to the change, whether it was a registrant change and/or a registrar change.

I hope Ron reconsiders this and will use the information below to add the individual sales to the sales chart.

Marchex 6 figure deal best guess transaction year based on Whois change:

Testing Out Domain Name Sales

I’ve heard quite a bit of positive feedback about Frank Schilling’s Internet Traffic and Domain Name Sales, and I finally signed up for an account.

I’ve been meaning to sign up for a while, but I didn’t apply until yesterday. The reason is that I don’t make much money from PPC, and I didn’t want to ask for a favor to open an account, knowing the company has specialized in servicing accounts with significant PPC earnings.  Now that the company has launched the new and improved Domain Name Sales platform and iPhone app, it seems they are opening up the platform to owners of very good domain names, in addition to those who make solid PPC revenue.

I spent some time yesterday evening uploading some of my domain names and testing it out, and I want to share some feedback. So far,  I am impressed with the back end and user interface. It’s simple for someone to make an offer on a domain name, and it’s quite easy to respond, complete with supporting information about the domain name and the ability to finalize a deal.

Here are some things I really like about the platform, some things I feel need improvement, and a few suggestions:

Go Daddy to Auction 1 & 2 Letter .Org Domain Names

Go Daddy and the Public Interest Registry (PIR), the non-profit organization that operates the .org domain registry, have jointly announced a special auction of one and two letter / character .org domain names. This is the first time that single character .org domain names are available for sale.

In total, 42 domain names will be auctioned on a special page at Go Daddy Auctions (see list below). In order to participate in the auctions, interested companies and individuals must be pre-approved. According to the press release, “there will be some requirements for the winners of a single- or two-character .ORG domain name, although re-branding is not mandatory.” This is similar to other registries that have auctioned single letter domain names, although I am not sure what the requirements are.

I would imagine the single letter .org domain names are going to see bids into the six figures, although it might be a challenge for a non-profit organization to spend that kind of money on domain names (imagine a cancer organization explaining a $500k domain purchase to donors). PIR is planning to “forward its share of the proceeds to programs that enhance open development and Internet security.”

The auctions will last ten days each, and although the exact date has not been set, the auctions are expected to begin in the coming months.

.Org domain names at auction:

DigiPawn Co-Founder Starts Domain Financing Company

I received a press release this morning that I want to share with you. Matt Collins, one of the original DigiPawn founders, has announced the launch of inteLend.com, a new domain name financing company. The inteLend brand is a play on “intellectual property lending.”

According to the website, Mr. Collins is a practicing attorney who has served as “legal counsel for many successful ecommerce companies. The Collins Law Firm provides a wide array of legal services to businesses involved in ecommerce, domains and other businesses involved in the internet.”

I checked out the new website, and it looks pretty sleek.

The press release is below:

What Domain Blog Has The Best Lists?

It’s Sunday morning, and I plan to watch football for as much of the day as possible. I saw that there was a bit of friendly banter between Domain Shane and TNT Names yesterday evening (yes, now that I have a baby, my Saturday nights aren’t exactly filled with Red Bull and Ketel One any longer)

To briefly recap, Domain Shane mentioned the fact that TNT Names has a note on its website that says it is the “number #1 place to find some great domains”  and TNT Names followed up with a poll asking readers which domain blog has the best lists..

I have heard many people discussing the value of reading lists on blogs, so I thought it would be slightly less biased as a third party to post a poll asking the same question. As you see, I added two selections not found in the original poll, reflecting some comments I’ve heard in the past.

What are your thoughts about the best place to find domain names and domain blog lists in general? Time saver or a waste of time?