Traffic Extended Online Auction – Last 5 Hrs To Bid!

For those that missed the live auction at Traffic ( like me ), the Extended Auction is a great opportunity to bid on a few names.

I’ve been closely watching a few of them and its coming down to the wire. Here are a few interesting names across multiple price ranges, that I’ve hand picked.

zeel.com – $775.00
saskatoon.net – $660.00
prot.com – $525.00
superhero.net – $485.00
joystick.net – $550.00
orlandohotelrooms.com – $485.00
helicoptersforsale.com – $450.00
imply.com – $1,380.00
entrepreneurs.info – $375.00
epick.com – $375.00
flowerstands.com – $375.00
n81.com – $535.00
adulttelevision.com – $665.00
assaulted.com – $640.00
bar.biz – $375.00
born.info – $375.00
clicknews.com – $2,460.00
contactlenscleaner.com – $375.00
cutlery.info – $350.00
deliveryboy.com – $1,280.00
duty.net – $640.00
forecast.info – $350.00
franchiseopportunity.net – $350.00
inaugurations.com – $350.00
internetbroadbandphone.com – $350.00
gotrich.com – $1,950.00
investigations.info – $325.00
laptopbatteries.info – $325.00
millionaire.org – $6,140.00
squatter.com – $3,400.00
terrorist.org – $1,230.00

With names as low as $325 there are definitely a few bargains. Let me know how you go.

Moniker $2.1M In Sales At TRAFFIC Silicon Valley

ad.com sold for US$1.4M – was that too cheap? Here is the official list of domains and their sale prices.

Ad.com $1,400,000.00
BottledWater.com $45,000.00
Athletic.com $40,000.00
Vixen.com $32,500.00
Shutter.com $25,000.00
Diets.net $21,000.00
NonProfits.com $20,000.00
OnlineTelevision.com $20,000.00
Jonesboro.com $19,000.00
SteakKnives.com $18,000.00
Debug.com $17,000.00
HomeMortgage.net $17,000.00
CampingSupplies.com $16,000.00
Ycg.com $14,000.00
Antihistamine.com and Antihistimine.com    $13,000.00
Punks.com $13,000.00
MedicalProblems.com $12,000.00
Bionic.com $12,000.00
SiameseCats.com $12,000.00
GardenOfEden.com $11,000.00
Filet.com $11,000.00
Sham.com $11,000.00
HeadShot.com $10,000.00
KingCrab.com $10,000.00
ImageConsultants.com $9,500.00
Sued.com $9,000.00
Sports.info $9,000.00
HotProducts.com $9,000.00
BoatRepairs.com $8,500.00
Rejected.com $8,000.00
Cancun.org $8,000.00
AllTerrainVehicles.com $8,000.00
Stimulant.com $8,000.00
Accreditation.com $8,000.00
FloridaAttorney.com $8,000.00
DietAndExercise.com $7,000.00
Announced.com $7,000.00
UsedElectronics.com $7,000.00
AircraftEngines.com $6,500.00
MovingService.com $6,000.00
GlutenFreeRecipes.com $6,000.00
BarbequeGrill.com $6,000.00
PinballWizard.com $6,000.00
Cosmetician.com $6,000.00
DentistFinder.com $6,000.00
FerrisWheel.com $6,000.00
BusinessBankruptcy.com $5,750.00
PopUpBlockers.com $5,500.00
BaptistChurches.com $5,500.00
GolfCaddy.com $5,500.00
AffiliateAdvertising.com $5,000.00
Lz.ca $5,000.00
VehicleRepair.com $5,000.00
Exhibiting.com $5,000.00
Transferring.com $5,000.00
Wager.co.uk $5,000.00
FreightLines.com $5,000.00
GraduateStudents.com $4,500.00
Retrain.com $4,500.00
SystemBackups.com $4,500.00
Junk.net $4,000.00
CureForCancer.com $4,000.00
Reimbursement.com $4,000.00
ForeclosureRefinance.com $4,000.00
Maintaining.com $4,000.00
GarageKits.com $4,000.00
ModernHouses.com $3,500.00
Respected.com $3,500.00
Buffoon.com $3,500.00
BackgammonSets.com $3,000.00
Bargain.travel $3,000.00
WorkoutClothing.com $3,000.00
PhotoDeveloping.com $3,000.00
DebtCollection.org $3,000.00
Redistribution.com $3,000.00
DesignFirm.com $3,000.00
Bribes.com $3,000.00
Refund.me $2,500.00
Downriggers.com    $2,500.00
DiscountAirfares.org $2,500.00
ReElect.com $2,500.00
OfficeSupplyStores.com $2,000.00
Allusion.com $1,500.00
HighSpeed.net $1,500.00
Packages.net $1,500.00
GlassPanels.com $1,250.00
15YearMortgageRates.com $1,250.00
John.mobi $1,000.00
LaptopComputers.info $1,000.00
Commitment.org $600.00
NoEvil.com $500.00

Where do you think the market is at?

My Easter Present = A Domain & Namecheap Coupons

While eating my hot cross buns this morning I received an email from Snapnames support. It seems that 4 months ago I won a domain at auction and did not receive the credentials from the registrar, Directi.

This wasn’t a pro-active step on the part of Directi or Snapnames; I had contacted Snapnames after winning the auction requesting their assistance to get the credentials. When I logged into Directi I noticed that auto-renew was conveniently turned OFF.

Here are the lessons I learned (again) from this experience:

1. Keep track of the domains you win at auction.
2. Ensure you are sent the credentials – if you don’t get them, follow up with the auction/backordering company.
3. Have your default DNS settings (at the auction company) point to your favorite parking company.
4. Add the domain name to your parking company a few days after you win the auction.
5. When you get the credentials, transfer the domain to your favorite registrar – that way you dont have domains spread everywhere.

Points 3 and 4 will ensure that when the transfer happens, you start earning $$$ immediately. The domain I won had traffic and was directed to my favorite parking company. Unfortunately I did not add it to my portfolio! As such, the parking company has made 4 months of revenue from it. This makes me wonder; what is the % of names pointing to a parking company that don’t have an owner? Must be a nice little earner for the parking company!

I eneded up transferring the name to NameCheap. While doing that, I tested out a few coupons. Here are the ones that work today:

SWITCH2NC – $6.99 transfers
7TULIPS – $6.99 transfers

Happy Easter!

Oversee Appoints New CFO and Two Board Members

Elizabeth Murray has been named Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Senior Vice President.  She will report directly to company President Jeff Kupietzky.

Board Members

Allen Morgan – Venture Partner at Mayfield Fund
Scott Jarus – CEO of Cognition Technologies

Background – Elizabeth Murray

• More than 25 years of experience in financial management, strategic investment and M&A activity.

Previously

• Executive Vice President and CFO of Fluid Music Canada, Inc.,
• CFO for RazorGator Interactive Group, Digital Insight Corp, and KornFerry International.
• Bachelor’s degree in Business Studies from Robert Gordon University in Scotland
• Chartered Accountant and member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland.

Murray replaces Stacey M. Peterson, who has resigned to pursue other professional opportunities.

Background – Allen Morgan

• Almost 30 years counseling entrepreneurs
• Closed more than 750 venture capital financings, mergers and acquisitions, and public offerings.

Previously

• Partner at two Silicon Valley law firms, Latham & Watkins and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.
• Serves on the boards of directors of BlackArrow, DECA, Electric Cloud, Jobster, Slide, Snap Technologies, Tagged, Perfect Market and Zenprise.
• Undergraduate degree (summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa) from Dartmouth College
• Second bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Oxford University ( Christ Church )
• Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia

Background – Scott Jarus

CEO of Cognition Technologies, Inc., an advanced Semantic Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology company.

Previously

• Chief executive of j2 Global Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: JCOM)
• President and COO of OnSite Access
• Senior management positions at RCN Telecom, Multimedia Medical Systems, and Metromedia Communications.
• Serves on the boards of directors of Cognition Technologies, Global Conference Partners and Ironclad Performance Wear (ICPW.OB), where he is Executive Chairman.
• Bachelor’s and master of Business Administration degrees from the University of Kansas

What do you think about these appointments? Strategic? Financial? Feel free to post a comment.

SnapNames Terminates The Names Registration

Late yesterday I received an email notification from Snapnames regarding the termination of their relationship with The Names Registration, Inc. What was interesting to me, was the recommendation to transfer my names (that I had acquired through the Snapnames process) to another registrar.

The only problem with their email was that it didn’t tell me what domains were with that registrar. I didn’t know if it was 1 or 100. It turns out that the support staff at Snapnames couldn’t tell me either! Thank goodness I had kept all of my backordering emails, auction results and other little gems in an archive. A quick search found that I had previously transferred the (1) domain away.

— starts —

Our records show that you have registered one or more domain names at
The Names Registration, Inc.  SnapNames will be terminating its
relationship with The Names Registration, Inc.  While that will have no
direct impact on your name(s) registered with The Names Registration,
Inc we nonetheless recommend that you transfer your domain name(s) to
another registrar well before the name is set to expire.  We will assist
you in any way that we can, but please be aware that we have no ability
to control or influence the operation of The Names Registration, Inc.

If you have difficulty locating the domain names registered with
The Names Registration, Inc you may download your registration history
from your SnapNames account and search for The Names Registration, Inc.

SnapNames.com

--- ends ---

Did you get an email from Snapnames? How many domains did you transfer?

Register.Com Recovers From DDoS Attack

I just confirmed this a few minutes ago with CEO, Larry Kutscher.

Not all of their customers had been affected, but it appears that some of their systems had suffered service disruptions as a result of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.

For those that don’t know, this type of attack floods systems with traffic from various points across the internet. As such its impossible to effectively shut down.

Here is an extract from the email sent out to Register.com customers 10 mins ago:

“Services have been restored for most of our customers including hosting and email. However for some of our customers, services are not fully restored.  We know this is unacceptable.

We are using all available means to restore services to every one of our customers and halt this criminal attack on our business and our customers’ business. We are working round the clock to make that happen.

We are committed to updating you in as timely manner as possible, please check your inbox or our website for additional updates.

Thank you for your patience.”

I believe its great that Register.com notified their customers of this attack. Are you a register.com customer? Did you notice anything wrong? Feel free to post a comment.

New Domain Name Scam – 85% of Appraisal & No Affiliate Links

Like most domainers I get my fair share of spam, scammers, discount offers from registrars and the like. Here is a scam that I received last night.

– cut here –

From: j.jo...@rocketmail.com

Subject: Regarding your domain YOUR-DOMAIN.COM

Hello,
I came across your domain name YOUR-DOMAIN.COM and I would be interested in buying it from you.
Here is my offer, you have to send me a professional appraisal from one of the following companies. and I will pay you 85% of the appraised price.
For payments under $2000 I prefer to use paypal. And for larger amounts of money I prefer if we used escrow.com

I accept appraisals from any of these companies:

-sedo.com
-pedma.com
-accuratedomains.com

If you already have an appraisal from one of those companies please forward it to me, and we will do business.

Regards,
James Johnson

– cut here –

Pedma is a parking page, Sedo is self explanatory and Accurate Domains.. are they? I have no idea.

For me, the interesting question is…. Why would someone refer people to an appraisal website with NO affiliate link? The html version of the email doesn’t have an affiliate link. As such, the only people to benefit from this appear to be Sedo and/or AccurateDomains. That is assuming that the person(s) behind this scam are not going to take your domain away using some other means.

What do you think? Have you received a scam lately? Post and let us know.

Canadian Politician Forgets To Renew Domain – What Happens Next?

Canadian politician Rodger Cuzner appears to have forgotten to renew his domain name rodgercuzner.ca. It was renewed by someone else and is now showing dating links for Senior Friend Finder.

Cuzner told CBC News “Guys watch for these opportunities and they see the opportunity and then they come back and sell you back the domain site.”

Unfortunately for Rodger, he still hasn’t changed his Facebook page – its still showing “Website: http://www.rodgercuzner.ca” under Detailed Info. Good on you Rodger!

About Rodger

Born in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, he is a current member of the Liberal Party of Canada in the Canadian House of Commons, representing the riding of Cape Breton—Canso. Cuzner is a former organizer of events. He was parliamentary secretary to former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien from January 13, 2003 to December 11, 2003.

Kosovo.com Auction At 32,500 EUR

Kosovo is a disputed region in the Balkans. Its majority is governed by the partially-recognised Republic of Kosovo.

There are 3 days left in the auction for Kosovo.com and its at EUR 32,500 right now. Considering iran.com sold for $400k and melbourne.com for $700k, Kosovo has a long way to go.

Its a buyers market; if you have the cash its time to pickup some bargains.

Live Sells Two Domains – US $1.65 million

Live Current Media Inc. (OTCBB:LIVC) has announced that it has entered agreements to sell two more of its non-core domain names for $1.65 million.

Live Current Chairman and CEO Geoff Hampson said “We believe the recent sales of three of Live Current’s non-core domain names for a total of over US $2 million is a testament to the inherent value of our domain name assets, especially in this challenging economic climate.”

From the looks of things it seems that they need the cash – “These sales form part of management’s strategy to achieve the goal of cash flow positive operations by the end of 2009.”

I will be interesting to see if other domaining companies follow suit and start selling the family jewels to keep their heads above water. Seems time to pick up a few bargains!