Archive for the ‘SnapNames’ Category
Moniker auction nets close to $20,000 in sales.
The Moniker Premium Spring Auction at SnapNames just concluded. Here are the (unofficial) results:
drivinggloves.com 6450 – this is a recently developed site. Auction included Facebook page (with 2,000+ likes) and Twitter handle.
florists.info 3050 – good keyword, but not a bad price given how marketplace for secondary TLDs like this will change in coming years.
loaninterestrates.com 2000
obese.net 1650 – 5 bidders duked it out for this one. It was the last auction to close due to extensions.
scubadivinglessons.com 1267
bearings.net 770
alumn.com 590 – not a very common spelling of the term
njlawfirms.com 575
grilled.net 500
32a.com 470
wyvn.com 300
upcbarcodes.com 300
overnightpriority.com 300 – not to be confused with Fedex’s Priority Overnight
joggingshorts.com 300 – definitely falls under the “niche” category
attempt.net 300
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
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Related posts:
- Moniker Spring auction begins, plus sites get new logos
- Moniker Trims Silent Auction List for TRAFFIC Auction
- Moniker Auction Results: 30 .Us Domain Name Sell
Mamma.com owner selling Mama.com.
I was originally a bit surprised to see mama.com in Moniker’s Spring Auction ending this week.
Then I realized the domain on auction is actually a typo of the once popular search engine Mamma.com — not the search engine itself. Well, sort of a typo, as I later found out.
I reached out to the founder of Mama.com owner Empresario, Omar Solis. As it turns out, his company bought the Mamma.com search engine in a deal completed in 2011. I asked him for the back story on the domain and he wrote a good explanation. Rather than chop it up, I’ve decided to publish it in full here….
The back-story:
Mamma.com was once a promising search engine from the “.com-bubble” era. It was founded in 1996 by a graduate student from Quebec Canada named Herman Tumurcuoglu. Eventually it got funded and taken public, ultimately merging with a desktop search company named Copernic in 2005. They also wanted to own the single ” m” version of their brand name and an Executive at the company acquired mama.com from a small us-based organization sometime around 2000-2001.
In 2009 we acquired the Mamma.com search and ad network assets from Copernic, which included the two domain names. Originally the deal was for $5 million, but we ended up paying $500,000 for all the assets. We took over the business in 2009, but did not take ownership until Sept 2011 when the sale was finalized with the assistance from a well-known American investor.
Although mamma.com didn’t make it to the big stage as a search engine, it still enjoyed a loyal user base from the US, Canada (especially French CA), France, and Asia. The Ad Network business was also profitable, generating several million dollars a year in revenue. Plus it came with the mama.com domain, which I knew had plenty of value in itself.
Present day:
Today we continue to operate the ad network and monetize the search engine traffic from mamma.com, which has proven to be a steady revenue business. In addition we operate a business incubator called Empresario.com, where we work with nimble entrepreneurs to create new value from our business platforms. Predominately working with online publishers, advertisers, and agencies that leverage our resources to advance their own business.
Our plan this year is to develop our incubator business further, so we decided to systematically dismantle and sell assets that did not directly support our current goals. After the mamma.com deal was finalized in Sept, we took a step back and evaluated the business from top to bottom. What we uncovered was a nice cache of Internet assets that no longer supported our objectives, but had tremendous value.
A good portion of these assets came in the form of premium domain names that we acquired over the years and have been sitting on parked pages. A while back we did well in domain parking but after 2009 our revenue channels became more diverse and parking was overlooked. In regards to selling domains, we have always entertained offers and have sold many domain names over the years, but have never made it a full-blown effort like we are doing now.
Coincidentally, at the end of 2011 we started receiving serious 6-figure offers for mama.com, mostly interest from China and Japan where our largest offers have originated. As we drilled further into the analysis, we figured out that all the type-in users that went to mama.com, were looking for “female/maternal” topics and not a search engine. Separating and selling mama.com from mamma.com started making sense.
Also the sale includes the Twitter handle @mama, which will give this deal a unique twist. I have have not heard of many domain sales that also included the related Twitter handle, which these days is an excellent value-add.
Currently we are focused on the mama.com sale, but we have also put up a sample of 36 premium domain names from our portfolio that are currently available for sale via our site. In the next few weeks will place the rest of our portfolio on Sedo & Snapnames, except for a few exclusives that will only be offered on our website.
Hopefully mama.com will sell via Moniker’s auction this week, but regardless we will continue to push the sale this year, as we are eager to focus on our core business.
You can reach Solis here.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
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Domain already attracted attention with a long way to go.
Domain auctions usually don’t attract much attention until the final hours. But bidding for the domain name RightHaven.com, which is being auctioned off to help settle a legal judgement, is attracting quite a bit of attention.
The auction at SnapNames still has close to 10 days to go before it closes, yet it has already attracted nine different bidders and has been pushed up to $1,850.
The domain name belonged to “copyright troll” Righthaven, one of the most hated companies on the internet. I can imagine a lot of people would like to buy this domain name as a trophy, and the auction is certainly getting a lot of press.
Righthaven.com is currently in control of receiver Rimon, PC. They have smartly forwarded the domain name directly to the SnapNames auction page, so you can follow the action at Righthaven.com.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
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Moniker auction attracting lots of bids with one more day left.
28 domain names in Moniker’s DOMAINfest Meet-Up NYC auction have received bids with still one day to go, although only 14 domain names have met their reserves.
The auction is taking place on Snapnames.
The top domain to meet its reserve so far is Teeb.com at $5,250 with 4 bidders.
Hardcore.com has a bid of $125,000 but it has a reserve of up to $250,000.
Some of the domains that have met their reserves and are still under $500 are AirportSecurityScanners.com, Qse.net, and SundayEvenings.com.
For those with deeper pockets, five domain names are listed at over $1 million: Americans.com, Hot.com, End.com, SouthAfrica.com, and TopMovies.com
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Cahn claims company deliberately shifted Moniker‘s revenue to other Oversee.net entities.
Monte Cahn has filed an amended complaint (pdf) against Oversee.net after a judge tossed out many of his original claims against his former employer.
The amended complaint includes new details regarding how Oversee.net allegedly affected Moniker’s revenues after the acquisition.
First, Cahn explains that the acquisition violated Oversee.net’s advertising agreement with Google because of Moniker’s TrafficClub service. This forced Oversee.net to shut down TrafficClub upon the acquisition.
Second, Cahn claims that Moniker was Oversee.net subsidiary SnapName’s second best performing registrar at the time or the acquisition. Moniker received 70% or 80% of revenue Snapnames made selling domains from Moniker, or about $700,000 annually, according to the complaint.
But when Network Solutions ended its agreement with SnapNames, Cahn says Oversee.net used the Moniker revenue share payments to obscure the revenue impact:
In order to disguise and prevent the Oversee Board and others from recognizing the disastrous effect of the departure of Network Solutions, after the merger, Oversee improperly diverted Moniker’s registrar revenue to SnapNames, thereby artificially deflating Moniker’s EBITDA.
Cahn still claims Fraud in addition to breach of contract claims.
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Class representative gets a small check.
Oversee.net has paid $1,500 to Stewart Resmer, the “class representative” for a lawsuit filed against Oversee.net in the wake of the halvarez shill bidding scandal.
Resmer originally filed suit against Oversee in U.S. District Court Central District of California. But the judge tossed the case out because the amount of money concerned was under $5 million.
As a result, Resmer’s lawyers refiled in The Superior Court of Los Angeles County. Oversee.net settled the case, agreeing to adopt a new shill bidding policy. The company also agreed to pay people that had overpaid as a result of the shill bidding, although it had already made that offer to customers ahead of the lawsuit.
Resmer, as class representative, got a check for $1,500. Resmer also said two non-profits may receive money as part of the settlement, including Internet Commerce Association.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
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The good and the bad in auction ending tomorrow.
The DOMAINfest Barcelona extended Moniker domain auction on Snapnames with nearly 500 domain names concludes Wednesday.
Domains range in price from no reserve to nearly $6.5 million for WorkatHome.com. Intriguingly missing from the auction is Social.com, which received a $2.5 million bid during the live auction.
Some of the notable low six figure domains include Invites.com, Frame.com, Skills.com, Dorms.com
There are also some extremely high priced domains that confuse me — from LosAngeles.org for $704,710 to CellPhones.us for $647,060 and SelfHelp.us for $258,830.
But here are some of my picks for the sub-$100k category. They might not sell at the current prices, but are good for the right buyers.
Paranormal $58,830
WorldClock.com $41,180 someone bid $41k during the live auction for this domain — looks like they were very close.
PreMed.com $17,650 didn’t sell in live auction but a great domain
SeniorsHome.com $11,180
BodySculpting.com $9,420 received a bid in live auction but this is near the top of the reserve range.
MuscleRelaxer.com $1,770
PersonalInvitation.com $1,250
IPLawFirms.com $300
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Data.com to highlight upcoming live domain name auction in Barcelona, Spain.
Publicly traded media company UBM plc has added its Data.com domain name to Moniker‘s upcoming live domain name auction in Barcelona. The reserve price is between $1 million and $5 million.
This is a fantastic domain name, especially with the “Big Data” trend in enterprise business.
Although the domain names are only loosely related, another domain with “data” in it is one of the most expensive ever sold: DataRecovery.com, which sold for $1.7 million in 2008.
The live auction will take place at the Pullman Barcelona Skipper Hotel’s Grand Ballroom at 4 p.m. Barcelona time during DOMAINfest Barcelona.
The auction features about 60 domain names, with reserve ranges from “no reserve” to over $5 million. Some of the key domain names include Social.com, Airports.com, and HorseRacing.com.
Pre-bidding for the auction has already started on the Snapnames platform.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
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Six figure offer made for French language .com domain name.
Mariage.com — a typo of Marriage but more importantly the French word for Wedding — has received a 92,000 EUR bid at Sedo. That’s about $130,000 USD. An auction for the domain name ends March 8.
Elsewhere in the domain auction world Snapnames is running its March feature auction. It includes primarily domains related to travel and entertainment. A few domains already have bids but the auction doesn’t end until March 8 as well.
Finally, Aftermarket.com appears to have had a successful auction today. It’s the first live auction on the “new” Aftermarket.com platform. According to numbers tallied at Domain Name News, the auction sold 33 of 64 domains for a total of $194,038.
The top sale was Coed.com at $45,000. I think I can speak for everyone when I say it’s nice to see this name sell. I think it’s been through every company’s live auctions at least once. Aftermarket.com finally found the right buyer at an acceptable price.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
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Cost to get deleted domains increases from $59 to $69.
On Tuesday Snapnames will increase its minimum fee for catching fully deleted domain names by $10 to $69.
The fee increase only applies to domains that go completely through the deletion cycle and are deleted by the registry. It does not apply to domain names auctioned off through registrar partners and other sellers.
Domains auctioned through registrar partners don’t go completely through the deletion cycle. Registering fully deleted domain names is a much more intensive process for backordering services because they have to compete with hundreds of competing registrars vying for the same names at the same time.
Any previously placed bids at $59 will be grandfathered.
SnapNames did not provide a reason for the price increase.
© DomainNameWire.com 2010.
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