Although the main focus was directly on Yahoo! and the sale of their domain Contests.com which they submitted and sold this week for $380,000 in the DRT2009 live domain name auction, I think Aftermarket.com and the business partnership with DomainConsultant.com need a big pat on the back as well!
The news broke After the live auction was over by DNW.com that Contests.com was owned by Yahoo.com. This brought in a TON of buzz and comments and other stories etc. The popular TechCrunch.com wrote about the sale and now has 108 comments to the story at posting time.
There are some pretty good comments in the TechCrunch.com story and I put in my 2 cents after reading what several people wrote (that have no clue) about things I needed to clear up about the Contests.com sale. (see below)
Going back to Aftermarket.com and the Still Open extended portion of the domain auction which closes on June 23rd at 5 pm ET. There are 262 lots total still open, with 32 currently having bids. To top it off, Aftermarket.com keeps adding some more Gems to the auction list!
Here are some of the new additions to the live online auction:
- Tvo.com
- Larger.com
- Heartstopping.com
- Exquisite.com
- KidsSwimsuits.com
- Primers.com
- HolidayGreeting.com
- Prophylactic.com
- FootballHats.com
- Superbody.com
- Elaina.com
- Starvation.com
You can bid on the above domains or any of the 262 that are currently accepting bids simply by visiting Aftermarket.com .
The debate on the sale of Contests.com is Great for the domain name industry, Yahoo and a lot involved. Yahoo alone is getting a TON of free press out of the sale! It would of been better if Aftermarket.com (the name) was used in several of the stories other then just "Auctioned Off" or "Live Auction" etc, but I was sure to put it in when I placed my comments on several sites. If you have a chance to help out our industry, I hope you would do the same.
It will only help grow our domain industry and with Aftermarket.com teamed up with DomainConsultant.com makes a Power Team! Getting a huge company like Yahoo! to list a domain at a very attractive price of $150,000 is not easy to do, but they got it done! Power Teams make things like this happen!
The following was the comment I placed on TechCrunch:
Also note that bidding opened at $150,000. In the end, 13 bids were placed from 3 different bidders. The auction was held during a domain name conference which has in-house bidders and online bidders via Aftermarket.com .
Was the advertising “selling” the domain poor? For the company that was selling it, Yes! A simple link on Yahoo.com that the domain was for sale would of spread the word nicely.
According to Whois.sc, Yahoo owns over 20,000 domain names, so 1 sold in the group is really nothing to them and was likely more of a test. Also consider that only a handful of domain names alone sell for 7 figures each year.
Comparing Contests.com to Toys.com or Candy.com really should not be done, because Candy and Toys are in a whole different league!
Looks like National A-1 was the only “smart one” when it comes to all those saying it sold so cheap.
Be sure to check out the extended live auction at Aftermarket.com and if you see any of the guys from Aftermarket.com, DomainConsultant.com or DomainTools.com to give them a pat on the back!
Adam
Jamie. We reported that the name was being sold by yahoo! before the auction too
http://www.domainnamenews.com/up-to-the-minute/domain-roundtable-auction-adds-yahoos-contestscom/5352
Thanks for the compliments.
Jamie Zoch
@Adam,
Somehow I must of missed that and I think others did as well. I think that could of been a big plug/news maker before the auction/event. Oh well, it was out there. Congrats again guys!