Wow, is the week really over? Is October really over? This year is flying-by and it’s only getting better by the day! It’s been a busy week but as usual and I couldn’t be more excited about everything that’s going on. As usual I like to reflect on the week and share them with all of you, so here we go!
- When it comes to selling domains through marketplaces like Afternic, Sedo, and Snapnames – Fixed Price is a clear winner. I sold domains this month on Snapnames, Sedo, and Go Daddy and as usual it was fixed prices that made the difference. This is something that may have been obvious to many people but I held-onto the whole “Make Offer” approach on my names for a long time there. Now I have separated my domains into two categories with about 75% falling-into the fixed-price category now. In most cases I feel like a domain name listed as “Make Offer” will get ignored because most people will assume the seller wants a fortune for the name. When it comes to sales letters and negotiating with end-users I still stick to Offer only and won’t throw out a price until I hear from the Buyer what they are willing to offer. It’s important to differentiate between strategies, what works best on a listing service is not the same as what works best when working directly with an end-user.
- The new version of Kayaking.org is now live! It’s been a huge effort and taken much longer that I had hoped, but with in-depth development projects I’m finding this is par for the course. Building a real brand takes time and Kayaking.org is on it’s fifth evolution. Each iteration is based on user feedback and we’re putting the finishing touches on our new Store and Classified Ad system that should go live over the next few weeks. I’ll do a full post on everything we’ve done to get Kayaking.org to where it is now – it’s been quite an adventure!
- DomainTheft.org theft reports coming in strong and we’re already making an impact! It’s been really interesting and satisfying to work with domain owners through DomainTheft.org. I’d say that right now about 50% of our time is spent helping people who had domains expire understand what happened. We are finding that incorrect contact email addresses are usually responsible for this. It is a confusing thing for someone that doesn’t know much about domain names. In each and every case we work directly with the domain owner to understand their options and how to prevent this from happening again. The other half of the time we’re verifying domain thefts, listing them in our databases, and helping the previous owners to get their domains back. On the development-side our uber-talented PHP guru in Santa Barbara is putting the finishing touches on the new DomainTheft API. This will allow our partners to easily check our database for stolen domains. We have three new partnerships to announce as well…but I’ll save those for their own posts. Needless to say there’s never a dull moment at DomainTheft.org!
- Domains in the news. It’s great to see domains in the news more and more – this has a lot to do with new TLDs like .XXX and .CO that have done major marketing. I think this is probably the biggest positive about the new gTLDs that are coming down the road. With each new TLD comes a new marketing campaign and more consumers thinking of domain names as assets. The more we can all do to get the word out that people like us are treating domain names like virtual real estate the more we’ll grow as an industry!
- Sedo .ME Auction. The Sedo .ME auction is in progress right now with some truly phenomenal .ME domains up for sale. The auction runs until November 3rd so make sure to take a look before it’s too late. I’m hoping to get one or two names on my wishlist!
- Halloween. This is one of our favorite holidays and Daina and I always have a blast dressing up and getting-into some trouble. We’re getting ready to head down to Orange County for an awesome Halloween party. That means it’s time for me to stop writing this post and put on my 1920’s Gangster outfit…and yes, we do have matching costumes – this is going to be fun!
As always feel free to share your own musings, and if you’re dressing-up for Halloween let me know what you’re going to be!
