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Domain Auction Acts of Impropriety

Elliot Silver
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An important discussion continues to be had at Mike Berken’s blog regarding companies who participate in their own drop auctions. The short summary is that Mike bid on (and won) 23 drop auctions at Tucows, only to be told later that the names were part of Tucows’ portfolio. Apparently these names were accidentally listed during Tucows’ transition from their auction platform to Afternic’s.
These domain names were taken out of Mike’s account, after he paid for them, and the only compensation he received was an apology and a refund. Nothing was given to Mike to compensate him for his time searching for these domain names and his time bidding on them. Mike is no spring chicken when it comes to the domain industry, and judging by the quality of names Mike has and continues to purchase, these were probably significantly valued domain names.
The conversation has turned into one about ethics, and the discussion moved to whether employees should be prohibited from bidding on their company’s auctions. While I think it is necessary that domain companies hire people who know the domain industry, I think employees should be prohibited from bidding on their own company’s auctions – or on domain names where their company could benefit from the results (ie: registrar who outsources domain drops but profits based on the final sales price).
Denying a company employee access to various stats or proxy bid information for a domain name isn’t the remedy. As long as there is the appearance of a possible conflict of interest, there is a problem. As domain investors, we could be getting screwed without even knowing it.
I think this is a conversation that needs to be had, and all domain auction houses and drop companies should pay attention. Check out the discussion on Mike’s Blog when you get a chance.

Great Blog of Interest With Focus on Hosting

Elliot Silver
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Richard Douglas of Secure Host has a great new blog appropriately named “Too Many Secrets” that domain investors and developers alike should read. For the past few months, Richard has been giving me great (unsolicited but much appreciated) advice regarding my development projects, and it has been really appreciated. For anyone that has developed websites, or if you are thinking about developing your websites, Richard’s Blog is one I recommend.
Hosting is often the last thing people think about when they are building a website, but it is a critical component to any successful website. There are different types of hosting plans, there are laws that could impact a business based on the location of a company’s servers, there are ways to enhance a website’s security…etc. There are many things that need to be considered that seasoned professionals may miss when launching a website. Richard is very familiar with all of this, and he is also familiar with the domain space. He has been offering me fantastic advice, and I think readers of my blog will benefit from reading Richard’s blog.
TooManySecrets.com is going to be a very popular blog, and I highly recommend you check it out.

Viewpoints: Additional TLD Extensions

Elliot Silver
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There are plenty of people on both sides of the fence regarding the proposal to add various TLD to the domain space. Companies, cities, and other individuals with enough financial backing may be able to apply for their own TLD. The impact on the domain industry, SEO, IP enforcement, TM protection…etc. constituencies will be enormous in some good and bad ways.
To form your own opinion, I invite you to read posts and blogs covering this topic from a few friends in the industry:   Be sure to check out Kevin’s opinion, Mike’s opinion, and Anthony’s blog for more information about this.

Fandango Buys Movies.com from Disney

Elliot Silver
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The Washington Post is reporting that Fandango recently purchased from Disney for an undisclosed sum. Fandango is a subsidiary of Comcast, a company that unsuccessfully tried to acquire Disney a few years ago. The article cites Disney’s desire to remain focused on its core brands (ABC, ESPN, and Disney) as the reason for selling Movies.com.
I understand that one needs to remain focused on its core competency, but doesn’t Disney make movies still? Doesn’t Disney have more than enough talent to be able to continue operating Movies.com without impacting its other businesses? I think this is a big buy for Comcast. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Fandango become rebranded as Movies.com, giving it more of a presence in the full movie market, rather than being a movie preview and movie ticket facilitator.
While the price may be undisclosed at the moment, the purchase price may be revealed at a later date, as both Comcast and Disney are publicly traded companies, and the price for the domain name and accompanying business could have an impact on earnings, albeit minimal.

Delegates.com – High Value Domain For Sale

Elliot Silver
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A friend of mine is looking to sell the domain name Delegates.com with a bargain Buy It Now price of just $18,000. This great domain name could have big election implications, and there are also many other uses for it. There are also over 28 MILLION references to “Delegates” on Google. Also, according to Aaron Wall’s Keyword Tool, there are 1,351 daily searches for the term “delegates.” If you count all the secondary terms such as “super delegates,” “delegate count,” “delegate tasks,” and more, there are thousands of daily searches.
This is a great domain name for any election season, but also has other uses.   The first person to post “sold” will get this great name at a great price.

Development Quick Tip – Revenue from Ad Sales

Elliot Silver
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On the mini sites I’ve either created, am currently creating, or plan to create, Adsense is the most visible revenue generating tactic. People find my “mini” websites through various means (mostly search engines), and they click on the Google advertisements to find more information, generating revenue for me. While this is great, it will certainly take quite some time to make a decent amount of money this way.
As most developers would agree, the real revenue generation from a developed website comes from direct to advertiser ad sales. Selling advertising space takes a bit more time than just putting up your Adsense code, but that’s where the money is. When building a website, you might consider tailoring parts of it to meet the needs of potential advertisers and give more opportunity for advertising.
A quick example would be with TropicalBirds.com. I created a page to advertise bird breeders from around the country. Since the site was just launched and traffic is minimal, I decided to offer free listings by state in exchange for a reciprocal link to TropicalBirds.com on their sites. This should help boost the ranking of my site and also provide a service to visitors looking for bird breeders. I sent the following email that was individually to bird breeders I found online:

“I recently launched TropicalBirds.com, a website with information about many species of tropical birds, including parrots, macaws, conures, cuckoos, cockatiels, and many other types of birds – both domesticated and wild. In addition to discussing the proper care of pet birds featured on the site, I am also going to build a small directory of breeders. I would like to include you on the site in exchange for a link to TropicalBirds.com on your site.
If you would like a free listing and will link back to TropicalBirds.com, please send me the following information:
1) Business Name
2) Business Location (city, state)
3) Website Address
4) Types of Tropical Birds Bred
5) One sentence about your company
6) Location of link to TropicalBirds.com on your site
If you are interested, please send me the requested information as soon as you have a chance. We are still building TropicalBirds.com, and not all of our links are working yet. We anticipate a full launch by the end of this month. This is the main directory page: http://www.tropicalbirds.com/tropical-bird-breeders.html”

In addition to receiving several positive responses, I also received a request for a featured listing, which the breeder will pay $xx annually for each category. She breeds several types of birds, and she would like a breeder list by breed in addition to a list by state. I didn’t even have to solicit upgrades, yet I can make $xxx/year from this one person if I create a breed by breed listing. The cost of building this is very minimal, as it will probably take just an hour of my time to do. Once done, I can also seek out other advertisers who may wish for the same type of listing, potentially netting me $x,xxx/year, making break-even less than a few years away including acquisition and development expenses.
Point of this is to let you know that you shouldn’t have to be reliant on Adsense or affiliate advertising to make money. There are plenty of old-school businesses out there who would just as soon have a relationship with a small business than one with a big search company. If you give someone a reason to pay to upgrade, chances are good that someone will take it.

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