Buzzster.com is at auction at Sedo with a starting bid of only $500! It ends Tuesday, Dec/05/06 06:00 PM EST. This is a very hot name with incredible branding potential. Think of the possbilities. Think of the buzz!

BuzzTracker sold for $23,000 this year.
RealBuzz.com solf for $16,260 last year.
MediaBuzz.com sold for $3,000 this year.
MBuzz.com sold for $1900 this year.
Plus, lots of names with the word buzz in them in the mid to high hundreds.

And what about all the great sites that end in “ster?” Blogster.com sold for $100,000 last year!

You can place your bid here.

Technorati Tags: domain, domain names, auction, buzz, trends

I am so sick of Sedo’s review of comments in a bidding thread before we are allowed to read them. Rather than repeat everything I wrote in the Namepros.com thread I started, I’ll just publish it here:

Listen Sedo, I’m a big customer of yours. I have 4,000 names there, I’ve sold about $30,000 of names from your site in the last year. So I think I’ve earned the right to say this for the tenth time publicly,

YOUR REVIEW OF COMMENTS SUCKS!!!

It really does.

I’ve been waiting three days wondering what a bidder is telling me in their comments with the bid. I have no idea. Who knows?

I know last week one evening I placed a comment with a bid that might have been instructive to the other party, but instead of waiting until the comment was reviewed, they canceled the transaction. What if I had said “hey, I’ll give you the .net and ,org and .info for this price too”? I’ve done thatbefore and had the thread canceled. The other party never knew.

This is so stupid, Sedo. I’ve told you over and over to get rid of this. No one likes it. What are you afraid of? Someone might call me poopy pants or something and hurt my feelings? Oh, I know, someone might send off their email to me, to get around the 10% fee. Most people are not like that. And if they wanted to, the contact info is easily found in the Whois record.

I know you only have 35 hours in European work week to think this over. But think! No one likes this. Get rid of it immediately please. We could be losing sales, so you could be losing commissions. In fact, I’m ceratin you are.

Anyone else agree?

What do you think?

My name BlondeMoments.com is at auction at Sedo. It ends tomorrow, Nov/29/06 06:47 AM EST. While I acutally had a higher bid before than the $400 offer with which I sent it to Sedo auction, I was curious to watch one work with a name of mine. Heck, I didn’t pay a whole lot under $400 for the name at a tdnam auction. I think given what I had to pay at tdnam (always underpriced) and the interest I’ve had on it for the short time I’ve owned it, it’s a steal for the bidder at $400.

You can check out the bid here.

But hurry, time is running out!

Technorati Tags: domain, domain names, auction, blonde, blonde jokes

Anyone else getting frustrated trying to use the Overture Keyword Selector Tool becaase 9 out of 10 times it just won’t load? I’ve been searching for alternatives and would like to hear what else you’ve found that works well — and is free.

Jennifer over at Speculator.cc just gave me a great alternative. It’s another Keyword suggestion Tool at GlobalPromoter.com. So far, it seems to work every time and gives the same results as the other one.

I’d like to hear what else everyone is using. Please post the links in the comments. Thanks!

Technorati Tags: domain, domain name, ovt, overture, keyword, keyword selector, ppc

Afternic domain name sellers received an email today telling them that any names they have listed that promote “hate, sex, obscenity or self-destructive behavior, such as substance abuse, violence and gambling” will be delisted.

Well, that’s about a quarter of the domain names. LOL!

Hey, that means my new IHateRobots.com won’t even be able to be listed any longer. RoboPhobia? Crap. Robot hate crimes? I’m in trouble.

I’ve already had too much wine at the Los Olivos Cafe (you know, that movie called Sideways where the actors got drunk) so I want to be careful to not say too much tonight. I should really wait until the morning. But, I’ve got a big mouth so I can’t wait.

Seriously though, I can say that I certainly respect the rights of any private business to do as they please; I’m a conservative thinker (no not a religious conservative)–so do what you want with your business. I don’t think it’s a smart decision, if it helps them sleep better at night, then it’s the right decision for them. It’s just too bad that the only real hope of competition to get Sedo to improve their impossibly frustrating user interface is going to quickly fade away. Sedo NEEDS competition.

Anyway, Afternic’s got the religion, but nothing is going to change in the domain world. They’ll lose not only the “bad” domain names, but the rest of the names in peoples’ portfolio’s that have those domain names in them. People don’t want to start having to keep track of subsets of their portfolio at one of the sales sites; it’s enough work as it is to keep track of thousands of domains and where they are listed.

Hey, I was just wondering…I’ve got this cool name called Pleasurama.com. I suppose you guys with dirty minds think it’s about something sexual, but listen up Afternic, it’s not. Please don’t delist it. It’s about chocolate. Yeah, that’s it. Chocolate. It’s not naughty. Okay? The pleasure of chocolate.

Here’s the letter. What’s your opinion?

Note: Do you guys think you could digg the article so the subject gets some attention? if you will, please go here for the Digg page.

Dear Members, Domainers and Friends:

We want to share with you a recent decision that we believe will put Afternic in an even better position to serve the small business, SOHO community and greater domain industry.

After extensive consideration, we have decided to no longer accept domain names that promote hate, sex, obscenity or self-destructive behavior, such as substance abuse, violence and gambling. The sole rationale behind our decision is to make Afternic a more comfortable site for mainstream domain name shoppers, especially small business owners. We recognize that taking a leadership role on this issue may have a negative financial impact on our business in the near term. Nonetheless, we believe strongly that it’s the right thing long-term decision for our industry and Afternic.

In the next few days, we will de-list these kinds of domain names currently posted on our site. Members who own such names will receive a letter from us informing them which names will no longer be listed. We hope that they, and others, will understand that we have no interest in censorship and that we fully support First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and expression. And, there is certainly no lack of other Internet sites where such names are welcomed.

The Internet, much like the early days of television, is still a new frontier. We believe it is up to the industry leaders-and we include Afternic here-to step up and determine what constitutes professional standards and practices. We take this action in the interest of socially responsible corporate behavior and hope that it leads to further healthy industry dialog and discussion on the topic.

We greatly appreciate your business and support of Afternic, and will continue to endeavor to earn your confidence and trust.

Very best regards,
Roger Collins
President of Afternic, Inc.

Technorati Tags: domain, domain name, afternic, sedo, sex, gambling, drugs

I thought I’d try something different. Since every domainer has different needs, two name owners can execute a trade and both can come out ahead. One doesn’t have to “get a better deal” than the other because one may need one type of name, and the other another type of name.

So, I thought for fun I’d throw out a name and if any of you have something of equivalent value you want to trade for it, let me know. Just post the name in the comments section.

The name I’ll offer up is one I just recently picked up about a month ago and I’ve already had three offers on it. There’s no traffic to speak of. It’s just one of those cool names that is both meaningful and memorable:

Gay this and that is big, as we all know. Travel is huge. And after doing a little searching I see that gay travel and sites catering to that market are pretty popular.

So, maybe you want to develop a site for this name, or maybe you just want to hang on to it. If you do want it and you’ve got something in your opinion of somewhat equal value you’d like to trade, just let me know.

Make sure you put your correct email address in the comment (it’s private) so I can contact you.

Some domain buyers have to be insane. Or children. Or just plain stupid. On tdnam.com the other day I saw the following names for sale, each for an asking price of $39,999.

4-c-a-m-e-r-a.com
50-c-e-n-t-s.com
c-e-l-i-n-e.com
c-e-l-e-b-r-i-t-i-t-y.com
c-h-a-r-i-t-y.com
c-h-a-n-c-e.com
c-e-r-t-i-f-i-c-a-t-e.com
c-e-r-t-i-f-i-c-a-t-i-o-n.com
c-h-e-c-k-i-n-g.com
d-e-n-t-i-st.com
d-e-n-t-i-s-t-s.com

….and a bunch more!

I think he forgot one he should have kept himself:

f-r-i-c-k-i-n-g-i-d-i-o-t.com

The .cc domain has quietly been getting some attention lately. Good names are getting snapped up and prices are rising. Let me clarify that: sales prices on the very best names are rising, and asking prices on average dictionary names are rising with unrealistic expectations by sellers who will have to adjust to reality.

Why .cc? It’s doesn’t “feel” associated with any country or territory, so it’s “feels” in the same category as a com. It has a snappy sound to it. It’s easy to remember. The pricing is a bit more, than a com, but depending on coupons, I get them from $15 - 18 at Godaddy. Anyone can register one.

Is it a risk? Of course, it is. Only you can decide if it’s an investment risk you’ll want to take. I’m taking it.

But, I’m running at the mouth here. The purpose of this post was to tell you about a new site called Speculator.cc. It’s a forum where CC enthusiasts come together to discuss the .cc market. In addition, the always ready-to-share owner, Jennifer, lists ready-to-register .cc names each day. Some of them are pretty damn good too.

There is also a subforum where members can showcase their cc portfolios. You can see my names here.

So, go visit Jennifer’s forum, Speculator.cc

There is an interesting discussion going on over at NamePros.com where member “cfguru360″ has initiated a discussion regarding starting an alternative to Sedo, Afternic, et al. But before he begins the project, he is asking users for input on what would make a great parking/sales system.

It remains to be seen if anything comes of this. But even if not, I think it’s primary value is for the big parking providers such as Sedo and Afternic to pay attention. Sedo, in particular, needs to really pay attention. Their programmers are apparently busy (well, as much as a German ‘work week” allows) doing all sorts of projects, but they are not doing many of the simple things that users require. I can tell you from personal experience that great idea and great idea is “heard” (many times) and then never to be seen in production. Afternic, on the other hand, has added two categories I have suggested. And don’t get me started on Sedo categories…they are created and organized as if by a third grade class. But, I digress.

To view the thread, go here

Here is the initial post of the thread:

Recently I have been fed up with the low paying parking sponsors such as Sedo and the rest that just lie to us and drop our revenue day by day blaming it on advertiser bids. Some parking sponsors close your account when you are making too much, others don’t account for more than half of your traffic or don’t have any support team or a support team of 1 person - the owner.

It is TIME FOR A CHANGE. I am going to invest this month’s and next month’s revenue from my parked domains to create a domaing parking program with suggestions, advice, and ideas by domainers for domainers. When is the last time you seen decent templates that don’t look like they were made in 1995 - take DomainSponsor for example. Yes, DomainSponsor may have nice payouts, but CTR will not be as nice as a domain with RevenueDirect, will it? But what about RevenueDirect? Well pay is not great there as it is on DomainSponsor. What about the nice tools with Sedopro and others? Well, it is time to combine all of that to make 1 great service, that has great templates, great payouts, and great tools. And I will make that happen. I will be hiring a template designer to make the best templates, so that they can have the BEST possible CTR. With this parking program I promise to all fellow domainers, there will be no games, no lies, and no excuses.

I am asking other fellow Namepros members to contribute their suggestions/advice for this parking program that they’d like to see. Do you have a unique idea that you always wished Sedopro, or DomainSponsor, or whoever had? Well it is time to contribue that idea below, and I will do everything possible to contribute it in one way or another.

Sound off!