Deleting Tonight: Make Money on Your Expiring Domain Names

Elliot Silver
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16

WhenI visited  DeletingTonight.com, I immediately thought of the saying, “one man’s trash is another’s treasure.” A Facebook friend posted a link to the site on her wall, and I thought that this was a great idea and has some serious potential with some additional work.

Owned and operated by Tasha Kidd, DeletingTonight.com currently lists her inventory of soon to be deleted domain names that are for sale inexpensively. The first to agree to buy the name before it deletes gets it with the next year renewal paid. Instead of making no money on domain names she plans to drop, Kidd is selling some of them.

At the present time, it only appears that Kidd’s names are for sale, but I can see some potential for the site. If she permitted others to list their dropping names on the site and then connected via API with Freshdrop and/or DropDay, it could be a very good opportunity for others to pick up names inexpensively, without having to compete at auction.

Yes, you are buying names the owner doesn’t want to renew, but it may be a deal for both parties.  Domain owners would get some compensation for names they otherwise wouldn’t keep and buyers would get some good deals. I think it’s a pretty good idea.

Cautionary Tale About Subdomains

Elliot Silver
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7

Yesterday evening, I read Michele Neylon’s article about the current issue with websites that once resided on subdomains of GB.com. According to Neylon’s post, there is an ongoing dispute involving Centralnic and the company operating the GB.com domain name, and as a result, all of the GB.com subdomains no longer resolve. Instead, they are forwarded to a message on the GB.com homepage:

“You may be here because you have been sold a domain or email service using the gb.com domain that has ceased to work.

You can restore that service swiftly by registering with GB.COM Ltd.

GB.COM Ltd will not provide a service that you have paid others for, unless they have an arrangement with GB.COM Ltd.

If you have already paid for future service and it has ceased then you should contact your supplier.

If you have any queries please send us an email and we will endeavour to answer your questions.

GB.COM Ltd.

You can sign up here or if you have an account you can login here. “

Not only does this mean that the website operators no longer have operational websites where they once existed, but it also means that emails that utilize the subdomain probably won’t work either. Clearly this could be  crippling  for a business that operated on one of these subdomains.

Centralnic has put out a statement about the current situation, and that can also be read on Neylon’s post.

From an outsider’s perspective, this issue appears to be some sort of internal dispute. At the present time, GB.com seems to be registered to steve@enovi.com, and enovi.com is registered to a person named Steve Dyer. According to ICANNWiki.com, Centralnic was co-founded by Steve Dyer.

Hopefully this situation is resolved soon since there are a whole lot of sites operating on the GB.com domain name. However, it’s a cautionary tale about what can happen to websites that operate on subdomains.

Domainsville Launches

Elliot Silver
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9

I received an email from Abdu Tarabichi this morning announcing the launch of Domainsville.com, a new website aimed at helping domain investors. Tarabichi is also the founder of DNKB.org (Domain Name Knowledge Base), and he has frequently sent me helpful suggestions for my blog.

According to a post on the Domainsville blog this morning,

“Domainsville.com is a portal that combines all the resources you need to navigate the domain industry.   Read more useful articles, and locate fresh and functional promo codes to save on your next domain order.   Plan way ahead of time for the next event with our comprehensive listing of domain conferences, meet-ups, webinars, and live auctions directly from your Domainsville dashboard.   Signed-in users can customize, edit, or remove information widgets as they desire.   For example, if you do business with select domain registrars, eliminate the clutter by hiding promo codes from all other companies.”

There are a number of websites catering to the needs of domain investors, so it will be interesting to see how Tarabichi differentiates this from other websites. I wish him luck with his new venture.

High Value Names Coming Up For Sale on NameJet

Elliot Silver
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7

While reviewing FreshDrop a couple of days ago, I saw that a number of high value domain names were coming up for auction on NameJet. I thought it was a bit peculiar for all of these names to “drop” at one time, and they aren’t actually dropping.

According to a post on FindYourDomain.com, a number of valuable domain names will be up for auction with a small reserve price of just $69. Some of the better names (in my opinion) are listed below:

  • Aerospace.com
  • AloeVera.com
  • Copy.com
  • GoCarts.com
  • HouseRentals.com
  • Rex.com
  • Trumpet.com
  • Tx.org

As you may recall, GoCarts.com sold on NameJet in July of 2009 for over $91,000. It will be interesting to see how it does this time around. The auctions start throughout July and August, so visit NameJet to find the exact date of the auction to place your bid.

I also noticed a number of other great names that are up for auction but weren’t mentioned in the article. I don’t know if they’re related to this sale, but additional names on sale include Modifications.com, TennisEquipment.com, Countryside.com, ElectricCompany.com, Polygamy.com, and others.

I Don’t Like DomainFest NYC Format Change and Price

Elliot Silver
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28

The other day, Andrew posted an article about a change in format for Oversee’s DomainFest event in New York City. Instead of full day of networking like last year’s event, there will be a 3 hour meet up with dinner and drinks at a rooftop bar in midtown Manhattan. The cost is $150 to attend.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not digging the whole $150 for dinner and drinks with Oversee in NYC. I also don’t like the change in format since last year’s event in New York was very good, with a large attendance.

In my humble opinion, fewer people are going to show up for a three hour evening event than last year’s full day event, which had a pretty sizable attendance. If you want to come to the event from out of town, you pretty much have to spend a few hundred dollars for a hotel room because it’s unlikely you’ll hit the road after drinking for a few hours. IMO, this also means fewer people, and that means there’s less of a reason for me to attend.

I’ve hosted/organized several domain “meet ups” in New York City over the last three years, and I’ve never had to charge people to attend. Most of the events were cash bar, although a couple of them were dinner events where people ordered as they wished and paid for their own food/drinks. There were also two sponsors like Domain Capital and WhyPark for two of the events (they paid for appetizers and drinks at a couple events). The events had anywhere between 15 and 50 people in attendance. The largest event was held in a private room at a bar with a cash bar and no cover or sponsors.

For the most part, even some of the cooler lounges and restaurants will give you free space if you guarantee enough of an attendance and bar/food tab, especially if it’s not during the holiday season or Thursday – Saturday evenings. There are plenty of less cool/trendy places that would be very happy to host a cash bar event at no cost.

DomainFest NYC is being held on a Tuesday evening in the summer, and if Oversee thinks over 50 people will show up, I would imagine they could assure the restaurant/bar that the tab would reach an agreed upon number, and I would hope the company could cover anything under that as a marketing or customer relationship event. Maybe it won’t be sit down dinner style, but I’ve always found it hard to talk to a large group while having a sit down dinner, and it’s also tough to balance a drink, a full plate, and manage a conversation.

I get that Oversee probably doesn’t want to have an open event that’s free because everyone and their mom will show up looking for freebies. I also get that Oversee doesn’t want to have to ask people to pay for their dinner at the end of a meal.  However, I am personally opposed to paying $150 to hang out with a NYC crowd. I’d rather organize a private dinner with 15 people in the area at a great restaurant, and I guarantee the cost with drinks would be less than $150 per person.

With all respect to my friends at Oversee who I enjoy hanging out with, it seems like the company wants us to pay them to travel to NYC to hang out and build customer relationships, and that doesn’t seem right to me.

SwiftRank Rebrands as TravelShark & Uses Creative Videos to Spread the News

Elliot Silver
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9

Travel SharkSwiftRank has been one of the most active domain buyers in the last couple of years, purchasing what is likely millions of dollars worth of domain names in public and private sales and auction. The company owns thousands of the best geographic hotel and travel related domain names, all of which operate independently but in conjunction with each other.

I believe the company’s largest publicly reported sale was SydneyHotels.com for $100k, and the company has spent significantly more in private. The company now owns names like LasVegasHotels.com, BostonHotels.com, CapetownHotels.com, VancouverHotels.com, HongKongHotel.com, and even NewYorkRestaurants.com. Do a search for large city hotel/s .com names, and there’s a good chance the company owns it.

I just learned that the company has re-branded itself as  Travel Shark, which in my opinion, suits them much better and is a stronger brand name. The company has launched a creative way to announce the re-branding effort and I want to share the four videos with you.

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