Heritage Auctions Domain Auction Ad in New York Times

imageI am in New York City right now, and I want to share this photo that I took of the Heritage Auctions domain auction advertisement from the New York Times. The advertisement, which appeared in the November 8 (Friday) edition of the NYT, was found on page B6 of the Business section.

Yesterday’s Business section had quite a bit of news coverage of the Twitter IPO, so it was probably a very good day for the company to advertise because of the additional readership. As one would expect, the MutualFunds.com auction lot was the headline domain name in the advertisement. I understand there will also be an ad for the auction in the Wall Street Journal next week.

My apologies if there are any issues with the appearance of this post or the image. This is the first time I am writing an article from my iPhone, so it might be a bit funky, but hopefully not.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

17 COMMENTS

  1. I saw it also. And seeing it in The New York Times reminded me how you regularly see real estate auctions in the Sunday New York Times Real Estate section from auction.com (although there doesn’t appear to be an ad in tomorrow’s upcoming Sunday Times Real Estate section). I realize I am biased in my views of the value of a great domain like auction.com, but when I see different auctions listed in the New York Times, the only domain I’ll remember, and the first one I’ll notice is a listing from Auction.com. I would think the value of owning “Auction.com” would be staggering. And whomever becomes the new owner of “MutualFunds.com” will also get tremendous value.

  2. I first started saying years ago that the best domains, at least some of them, should really be appearing in the world’s best known auction houses, on “land,” alongside the great art masterpieces and the like. That is outside the box thinking, and I suspect likely to result in some much better, bigger blockbuster sales. I suspect there are numerous top reported sales that would really have been much bigger in a forum like that. This ad reminds me of that kind of approach. “Domainer” auction forums may go extremely unnoticed by the rest of the world, notwithstanding if some of their sales go into the $millions, but a top auction forum on the world stage, along with a dash of publicity, could be a bit of a game changer imo.

    • Yes, this is definitely outside of the box thinking and I bet you were the first to think of this too.
      Nobody ever thought of this before . No way.

  3. It’s absolutely wonderful.

    This is the right way to do it. The HA auctioneers should keep doing it, even if the results come out mixed.

    Eventually, it will pay off big time for all. Kudos!!!

  4. This is absolutely great news for the domain industry. I mean, our industry seriously lacks visibility and credibility in the eyes of the general public… Hopefully the results of the auction are good for the parties involved, because this kind of publicity is just priceless.

  5. If Rick ever opens his “old” archives you will see that I have posted about Sothebys or Christies auctioning domain names some 10 years ago.

  6. Sadly enough, it’s no surprise to me at all there are a few dislikes here. Are the people at the top of the domaining industry really any different from the rest of the global business world and “corporate America” in terms of wanting as much dominance, power and control as they can get and maintain? And isn’t this kind of phenomenon easily perceived as a threat, while they will simultaneously still expound vehemently and loudly about how great domains are in leveling the playing field against the big boys and girls in the business world at large, and how good it is to be a disruptive mover and shaker, etc.? And have you ever had the experience where posting an idea that can be potentially perceived as a threat to such dominance in a forum run buy someone at the top is simply stonewalled, ignored or steamrolled over in a self-interested promotional avalanche that effectively buries it into oblivion? I have. Catching my drift yet? 😉 But that kind of thinking and acting accordingly is very short-sighted, misguided and selfish. The kind of proposal I’ve touched upon, and it’s nice to see another, Ieon, mentioning the same thing – since years ago, too, no less – and apparently supported in one sense or another by a number of the commenters here now as well, is something good for everyone. In my view it can only help and benefit the parties at the top and those with competing domain related business models and so forth rather than the opposite, not hurt them, and is not any kind of either/or idea but rather both/and. Too bad it appears there are some who may not want to allow that, however, and can’t or won’t see how it really can benefit everyone even if the price is letting go of a little bit of dominance and prominence.

    • “And have you ever had the experience where posting an idea that can be potentially perceived as a threat to such dominance in a forum run buy someone at the top is simply stonewalled, ignored or steamrolled over in a self-interested promotional avalanche that effectively buries it into oblivion? I have.”

      You had a couple dislikes. Who cares ?

      “. . . is something good for everyone. In my view it can only help and benefit the parties at the top and those with competing domain related business models and so forth rather than the opposite, not hurt them, and is not any kind of either/or idea but rather both/and. Too bad it appears there are some who may not want to allow that, however, and can’t or won’t see how it really can benefit everyone even if the price is letting go of a little bit of dominance and prominence.”

      The only benefactors of increases in aftermarket prices are those holding the best domains. It isn’t “everyone”.

  7. The collector market is huge and has many similarities to domain investing. A highly successful auction series at HA.com could be much more important than new gTLDs for premium domains.

    Most businesses have never heard of Sedo or Namejet. I expect many corporate CEOs are already bidders at Heritage. This is the big leagues. Finally.

  8. Lol, looks like an invitation to be baited into something counterproductive has been extended here, but I’ll pass, thank you. And this is not even an “appraisal” thread. 🙂 (Can we say “no surprise…again,”? Lol.) Would like to point out to the rest and for the record, however, that when I first mentioned “a few dislikes” I was by no means referring only to my own original post, which only had one at the time. You know, folks, this reminds me of how it sometimes seems that when you’ve struck a nerve a certain way, it may well be that you are surely on the right track, and really did something good this time… 😉

    Anyway, some time after my last post I was thinking of what I think is a good example for the topic here, and that would be a domain like loans.com. I’m sure we could come up with many good examples, but I like that one now. So in the history books it is reported to have sold for a mere $3 million. Do most people in the general public even know about this? Do any of us even need to answer that? 🙂 I doubt there are many of us who would not agree that $3 million even in year 2000 dollars is really more than a bit of a joke for a domain like that, something more like highway robbery and quite an amazing deal for the buyer. Even if it seemed like a good price to the seller at the time, I seriously doubt much more could not have been obtained then. Let’s say it were in a public “domainer” forum today. Yes, it would probably do rather well, well into the $millions. But…let’s say instead it were in the kind of forum some of us have been talking about here now, and talking about since years ago – right along with the zillion dollar art treasures, the famous historical artifacts and the like. I strongly believe the result would not only be a price even considerably higher than the best outcome in much lesser known and much less mainstream “domainer” forums now, and no matter how famous and “big” they may be within their own current sphere of influence (sorry, just being honest 🙂 ), but that the resulting benefits to all domain investors, entrepreneurs and *all* domain related forums in terms of public awareness, psychology, influence, etc. which folks have touched upon here would be enormous and significantly game-changing as well. So from my perspective, it’s sad that we really haven’t seen this all these years, and I believe we’ve missed out as result. It would be nice to see a change that tips those scales and starts a new level of momentum in that direction, however.

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