DotWeekly To Launch Zearn.com! Beta Testers Needed

Jamie Zoch 26 Sep 2011 Domain News

DotWeekly is proud to announce the name of our new real time auction service, Zearn.com and a private beta!

Zearn is co-founded by owner of DotWeekly.com Jamie Zoch and domain investor / developer Jason Cupp.

Zearn.com is dedicated to expired GoDaddy Auctions® and we have set up the site to improve functions that we think are lacking directly on GoDaddy, with our own twist.

Since we are only soft launching and looking for a few beta testers, we are only starting with the real time domain name auction section of Zearn (many more features to come). If you can beta test for us and provide feedback based on you using the site, what you like, don’t like, what isn’t working for you etc. it would be greatly appreciated.

GoDaddy Auctions start ending at 11:00 am Central Standard Time and continue to about 4:30 pm Central Standard Time. If this time frame doesn’t work for you, it is best that you not sign up this time to beta test. If it does work for you, we are looking forward to hearing from you.

We do not want you to spend the whole 5.5 hours of auction time if you don’t wish but that is the time frame the auctions end, so it is helpful if you can use Zearn at least a little bit during that time. Beta time is expected to be about a week for this feature. Selected beta testers will be emailed special instructions upon being selected within about 24 hours or less.

Please visit Zearn.com and submit your email address if you wish to be considered for the early beta testing of the Zearn real time GoDaddy expired domain name auction experience.

Features

Zearn is real time! No refreshing needed as auctions are ending! Domains update with price, bids etc without refreshing your browser. Sweet! Just sit back and watch or bid away!
Capitalized keywords for easier reading. DomainName.com is how domains are displayed when applicable.
Domain name age is included with data
GoDaddy traffic estimates are included with data
Chat! Chat with others as you watch the real time auction in progress! Sweet! Real time auctions, real time chat all in one place…. Sweet!

Again, this is only one part of Zearn but we wanted to start small and offer one feature at a time and get it right. Things are a bit "raw" yet but we look forward to hearing your feedback. If this interest you at all, then you may want to beta test the Zearn.com real time auction and we look forward to hearing your feedback!

More to come!

Categories

Sep 26, 2011

Just curious how you came up with the name. I’m assuming Z is fir Zoch. I’m always curious where brand names come from.

Jamie Zoch

@JP,
Z did have a little play off my last name and I liked the idea of having “earn” in the domain… since many who purchase the domains “earn” money from them via development, resale, parking, leasing etc. So Zearn grabbed my eye when I saw it in GoDaddy auction. Another thing that mattered to me, low returns on search engines, so the site was easily found when marketed if searched for. Google had something like only 6K returns for the term Zearn, which simply makes it easier for searchers to find and the site to dominate when searched for. Short, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, .com, no TM’s etc. I hope that explains some things for you.

Yea sounds great. Fitting you got the name off GoDaddy too. And hey I’m getting emails for comments on your blog now! Victory all around

Ron

Dude,
Sounds great, I look forward to using this service. I would also like to express the fact that it is rather annoying to hit the refresh all the time. Real time is where it’s at. Keep up the good work!

Zork

Nice idea, but I personally don’t like the name.

Jason

Co-founder Jason here… really excited to get Zearn.com off the ground! Auctions start around 9am PST (2 hours away), so be sure to sign-up at http://zearn.com I’ll be sending out beta links to let you into the site before then. Chat will be up too, during the auctions…

Bad luck as struck! MailChimp’s email list service has gone down this morning for our launch! Hopefully it’ll be back up soon. In the mean time, I’m working on a quick-fix. You can also sign-up by send us an email at signup[at]zearn.com.

Thanks!

Looks like we’re back up! Sign-up at http://zearn.com In about 45 minutes we’ll be sending out that special link to get you into the live auctions… =)

Grrrr… our email list provider is up and down today. Just send off an email to signup[at]zearn.com, and we’ll get you in as a beta user for today’s auctions. Thanks! T-minus 40 minutes!

Ms Domainer

“Zearn” can also suggest “Learn”–I guess the teacher in me saw that first.

In any case, a GREAT name; I love one-syllable brandables.

I need to cut back on bidding and spending money; otherwise I would sign up for beta.

I look forward to seeing your full launch, though.

I wish you great success in this new venture.

Thanks for all the new sign-ups today! Keep ‘em coming! http://zearn.com

Sameh

I just signed up!

Best of luck to both of you, Jamie and Jason.

Sukh

Jamie & Jason

Just received my invitation for beta tester.

AWSOME !!!! I was totally blown away with the site. So for loving it. Few things I would like to see are some filters i.e. only want to see .com domains, certain price range etc.

What does Flame icon means on the first column? (is it more than 2 bids??)

Great stuff and lookforward to using this. When is the final release date?

Thanks
Sukh

@Sameh,
Thanks for signing up! Keep in mind that right now no domain names will show up on the page.. because no auctions are currently ending right now. The Radar page only displays domain names when auctions are ending at GoDaddy and that is from 11 am CT to about 4:30 pm CT.

@Jamie,

Great. thanks for the tip. btw, I didn’t receive any login details yet. Also, when I visit http://www.zearn.com I get 302 not found error while zearn.com still works just fine.

@Sukh,
That is great news!
~
We will not be including filters on the Radar page at this time, because that feature allows users to see all the action in one place. We will be having another page on the site that will allow you to filter data, use our algorithm and much more but that will not function like the Radar page. The problem we have seen by adding a filter to the Radar page… is if you filter and only see “.com” domains, the ending domains “spread out” and the page isn’t as interesting to watch. With domains getting bids all the time, you never know what you may miss if you filter out TLD etc. We will continue to take in feedback and if everybody wants filters on the Radar page, we can surely give it a try though.
~
The “flame” icon indicates a domain name that has at least two bids. We will be adding features about each day or two (testing load) to the Radar page during beta testing. New bids on domain names will be one of those features and the domain will either turn Green or be Bold. Jason is working on that.
~
As for a full launch date, we will see how the beta testing goes on the Radar page and then we will slowly start rolling out the other pages and features like the page that shows all the domains, algorithm, filters etc. Then the watching features and more.

@Sameh,
Signup’s are not being approved during the time that the Radar page isn’t active (11 am CT to 4:30 pm CT) because there isn’t anything to see right now on the page You will be approved so you can beta test tomorrow. We will also be adding some things to the page for tomorrow as well.

@MsD,
The funny thing…. a teacher tried to purchase Zearn from me shortly after I purchased it but the purchase price wasn’t enough ($xxx) to make me change names of the site. Thank you for the good luck and I will be sure to let everybody knows when the site fully launches.

@Sameh send us your email at signup[at]zearn.com and we’ll get you on the list. Looks like we missed you some how…

@Jason,

Email has been sent.

BullS

Sep 27, 2011

SEDO is going to buy the site for $10million USD to kill the competitors.

Morgan

Very cool – looking forward to trying it out! Just signed-up for the Beta!

don

congrats, I will have to check it out..good luck getting things rolling on this

Phil

Good luck on the new site. Look forward trying it out.

Ricky

Just signed up as well..well confirm when get home from work!

Gnanes

Good luck with the site. have you got plans to add other marketplaces as well?

Thank you Don and Phil! Tomorrow we should be rolling out a few more things as well.

@Gnanes,
Other sources are being considered… BUT, with NameJet and SnapNames it becomes a bit harder. Because those sites you have to backorder before a specific time and you can not really get into the live auction unless you placed a backorder. For those domains, it wouldn’t work on Zearn. We could add the live auction domains, Sedo auction domains etc. Something we are considering.

Jason Thompson

Sep 29, 2011

I’m definitely going to sign up to be part of the beta testing team. You couldn’t ask for a friendlier group of people! I am glad to see Jamie and Jason teaming up on a project like this and will do everything within my power to help you guys gain some traction.

Looking forward to testing the tool!

@Jason,
Thank you! We will continue to add stuff and the feedback helps greatly.