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Submit Domain Names for Domain Roundtable Auction on Aftermarket.com

Elliot Silver
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4

The Aftermarket.com live auction platform, operated by Thought Convergence, has been completely revamped and will debut at the Domain Roundtable conference on March 3, 2011  in the Bahamas.

Domain owners that are interested in selling domain names during the live auction can submit their domains on the Aftermarket.com website now thru January 21, 2011. The final auction list is expected to be published mid-February.

I would imagine Aftermarket.com and Domain Roundtable organizers will select only the best domain names at reasonable (sellable) prices, so keep that in mind when you are submitting names.

Please email questions or inquiries to support@aftermarket.com.

Is Godaddy Spurning DomainTools on Whois Lookups to Sell Domain Names?

Elliot Silver
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I’ve noticed something when performing Whois lookups at DomainTools for domain names registered at Godaddy, and I believe it is a fairly recent change. Instead of providing the full registrant information, there is a link to the Whois lookup page at Godaddy.

Interestingly, however, when you do a Whois lookup of a Godaddy-registered domain name at iWhois.com, the full Whois information is available.

When you visit the linked page on the Godaddy website, you are first met with the available domain names with the same term in other top level domain name extensions. Below this are available alternative domain names that can be hand registered, and further below this are premium domain names that can cost in the thousands of dollars.

There is also a link to Godaddy’s Domain Buy Service to help you acquire the domain name that is being looked up.  Finally, below all of this, you can see the domain registrant information.

Although this is a bit annoying for me when using DomainTools to lookup domain names, it is probably a shrewd financial move by Godaddy.

Standard Whois Lookup at DomainTools:

Whois Lookup at DomainTools for name registered at Godaddy

Whois Lookup at iWhois.com for name registered at Godaddy

TRAFFIC Cancels San Francisco Show, Announces Ritz Carlton as October Venue

Elliot Silver
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I had been strongly considering attending the TRAFFIC show in San Francisco in March. I love the Bay Area, and it would be a great reason to visit again. Unfortunately, this trip is not going to happen.

Rick Schwartz just announced that the previously scheduled San Francisco TRAFFIC show, which was to take place right around the time of the ICANN conference also being held in San Francisco, would not be taking place.

According to Rick in an email that was sent this morning, “after an exhaustive search and then sending out a poll a few weeks ago to see what most folks thought, it became clear that the interest was not really there to have a meaningful and impactful show and on the heals of the other shows, just did not make sense.”

In other better news, Rick also announced the venue of the October show in Ft. Lauderdale – the newly opened Ritz Carlton. The conference will be held from October 16 – 19, 2011, and it will be the 22nd TRAFFIC conference.

I can’t say for certain that I will be there, but it is highly likely. Registration opens soon, and I will let you know when it does, since the prices are generally much better the earlier you book.

Register .TV Domain Names for $10.99

Elliot Silver
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I have always been a .COM guy, and I don’t own any .TV domain names yet. I have heard quite a bit about .TV domain names as an investment though, and I know that a number of my colleagues and friends own some high value .TV domain names.

Mike Berkens recently  turned down $125k for D.TV, and my friend Thunayan seems to own something like half the alphabet in single letter .TV domain names (S.TV, O.TV, H.TV….etc). It’s safe to say that there has been some significant investment in the secondary .TV market.

As you can see to the right of this post, Name.com is currently offering .TV registrations for $10.99 a year. I did some looking around at popular domain registrars, and it appears that this is the best deal around. Godaddy charges $39.99 a year, Moniker charges $12.99 a year, and Enom seems to charge $49.99 in my Enom Central account.

I don’t know if there are still good quality .TV domain names available to register, but the price of .TV domain names at Name.com seems to be the best around right now.

“Or Submit Your Best Offer”

Elliot Silver
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0

When inquiring to purchase a domain name, I often receive a reply that includes a price along with my favorite phrase in this type of scenario: “… or submit your best offer.”

Why do I love this phrase? From my perspective, it means that the price is flexible, and while the domain owner would like to sell the name for a specific price, it isn’t a firm price. Without a doubt, I always reply to this with a lower offer. It really makes no sense not to do that, unless you really need the domain name and can’t take a chance that the owner doesn’t reply.

One thing you can take from this is that when you’re asked about the price of one of your domain names, you probably don’t want to encourage the potential buyer to submit a lower offer. Perhaps he will do that anyway, but why encourage it? If he doesn’t respond positively to your price, you can always follow up at a later time and ask him what he was thinking in terms of price.

This may seem pretty obvious to an  astute  domain investor, but I see it happen all the time, and I love it when it happens when I am buying!

Oprah Launches Oprah Winfrey Network, Settles for OWN.TV, Doesn’t Own Own.com

Elliot Silver
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Oprah Winfrey NetworkWith the new year now here, Oprah Winfrey has officially launched her brand new Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), a television network created by the popular talk show host.

Winfrey’s company owns and operates OWN.TV, which currently forwards to Oprah’s website, Oprah.com/own. A message across the top of the website lets visitors know that Oprah’s regular website will return on Monday, so perhaps the new network will use OWN.TV as it’s primary url.

Unfortunately for Oprah, the network was either unable to acquire or not interested in acquiring Own.com, a domain name that has been owned by National A-1 Advertising for quite some time.

National A-1 operates one of the best portfolios of top descriptive domain names like Babies.com, Antiques.com, Free.com, Cash.com, Divorce.com, and many other great descriptive domain names.

Unfortunately for Oprah, the chosen acronym “OWN” has significant meaning as a generic/descriptive word, meaning that the domain name had tremendous value well before the OWN brand existed. Own.com is certainly a 7 figure domain name, if National A-1 was even willing to part with one of its key assets.

In my opinion, Own.com is a domain name that the network should make a significant effort to purchase, since it will probably want to have a premier web presence.

*** Update ***

Interestingly, on my way back to New York City today, I saw a HUGE Oprah billboard. It was promoting Oprah.com/OWN. I imagine that I am wrong and they don’t intend to use OWN.TV in marketing.

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