I don’t usually learn about upcoming domain name auctions from the New York Times, but I did this morning. According to an article written by Niraj Chokshi, Democracy.com is coming up for auction, and the domain name has a minimum bid of $300,000. The auction is being managed by Heritage Auctions, which has been running domain name auctions for several years.
Democracy.com had been used by Talmage Cooley as a political / civic social platform. From what I can see, the domain name may have been financed by Domain Capital, and the Whois registrant information went private in 2017. Unfortunately, things did not work out for Cooley:
“The start-up raised $4.5 million, much of it from friends and family, but struggled in recent years to line up more substantial, institutional investment. A large crowdfunding campaign was planned for April, Mr. Cooley said, but the site ran out of money in February.”
Aron Meystedt, who previously worked at Heritage Auctions and is working as a consultant on the Democracy.com auction, was quoted in the article discussing valuable one word .com domain names:
“Now, the trend is get a killer one-word name, and the reason is that you can pivot into anything you want,” said Mr. Meystedt, who has traded domain names for years and owns Symbolics.com, which became the first public dot-com address when it was registered in 1985.
The bid deadline for the Democracy.com auction is 4pm (Central time) on October 25, 2019. There will be a 15% buyer premium added to the high bid.
You can’t get much better publicity for a domain name auction than an article in the New York Times. It will be interesting to follow the auction to see if the coverage gives it a boost.
The guys from the CPC should pick it up…
http://cpc.people.com.cn/
Kim Jong-un should buy it just for fun
Or the Houston Rockets maybe..
Good domain. Does Democracy still exist? Lol
We vote, but have no say. Politicians do and say whatever they want.
Uncle Trump will get it for free.
This domain isn’t worth anywhere near that, won’t get a bid.
In this day and age, Socialism.com and Communism.com would sell for more. I’m with Snoopy; with a 300k minimum, no bids.
This would be a great domain for David Rubenstein, the billionaire and media person on Bloomberg. He’s purchased some of the most important documents and objects and art related to democracy in the USA.
Aron, reach out to David. I may have his number or email address.
Pool.com used to do two phase sealed auctions.
Phase one had sealed bids.
Phase two only included the top two bids AND all bids within 85% of the top bid.
Stupid format.
This one is really stupid.
And if this one gets one legit bid, well that makes my CapitolHill.com worth a few more bucks than I paid for it at Pool.com several years ago in the two phase Pool.com auction.
somebody apparently bought it with an NDA