Yahoo!’s Domainapalooza

Yahoo has decided to release some of its premium domain names to the public through an auction at Sedo…

Yahoo!’s Domainapalooza …(This link was updated on November 16th, 2013)

This premium domain name portfolio auction started today, November 14th, and runs to November 21st, 2013.  Although there are quite a few names that I feel are not very good (especially for the reserve price indicated), there are some great domains in the bunch…

• AV.com
• WebServer.com
• Sandwich.com
• Sled.com
• VoiceMail.com
• Crackers.com
• Freeby.com/.net
• BlogsPort.com (or brand it as BlogSport.com)

Now, please note that the above is merely a sampling of some of the best domain names in the Yahoo Domainapalooza premium domain portfolio auction.  But that portfolio is listing over 500 names on its first day, and Yahoo! also indicates that it will also be adding even more domain names throughout the auction.

Can you walk away with a great brandable domain name that you could develop into a profitable website or business?  Very likely, considering the quality of some of these names.  Especially with names that have an excellent second meaning.  For instance, even though winter is coming and sled would make a great name to sell winter snow sleds, “sled” is often how I refer to older muscle cars that had great power but lacked the handling of a sports car.  These beasts will never have sports car handling because they double as grocery-getters and transportation to work.  And if you are into muscle cars like I am you would see the opportunity in that street rod slang name.

As of this writing, there are 517 domain names available for auction and with Yahoo planning to add even more this may become the most watched premium domain name portfolio auction in history.

Happy domaining!  I hope there will be many domainers taking advantage of this opportunity to add to their portfolio and domainate the market with domainating names.  😉

Yahoo!’s Domainapalooza …(This link was updated on November 16th, 2013)

-Doug
…”Domainating”
(I’m going back to check out that list!)

Soo-Foo.com Sold

I finally received my $600.0o check from Network Solutions’ Certified Offer Service for the sale of Soo-Foo.com, yesterday.  I had been awaiting this payment for quite some time and the whole transaction was mired with delays.  I am certainly glad to have finally received this payment, although I now know to charge more per sale if I ever get a an offer through this service ever again.  Although NetSol offered me $600.00 and paid me exactly $600.00 for Soo-Foo.com, this sale was well over a month in the making and once the transfer of the domain name had been completed and verified, it still took over 10 days for them to process the payment, issue a check and for me to receive it.  Heck, I had it transferred over to NetSol within 5 days.

The main problem is that NetSol only looks after itself, not its customers.  They use every trick in the book in order to screw their clients.  Once the transfer is complete and verified, the payment is authorized for processing.  Except even then, once the transfer has been completed and verified by Friday, the payment isn’t actually issued until the checks are printed the following week, on Thursday.  Talk about a racket, NetSol has purposely structured everything in order to give everyone else the shaft.  Obviously no one gets their check until next week, so NetSol is sitting on this payment an unusually long time before the funds are ever deducted from their bank account.

Every other domain name broker or sales service is paying the seller immediately upon a successful transfer verification through PayPal or the user’s set payment method.  That means that I would be paid on the very same day, anywhere else.  It just shows what an evil attitude NetSol uses in conducting business.  They really have no sense of fairplay at all.

Note also that Network Solutions uses the very same contract for every single one of its customers.  The same contract covers domain name sales of any type, and is extended to be overly and dramatically long to cover the specifics of each and every domain name extension, and all other legal speak, as well.  It also covers its web hosting, design services, along with anything and everything else it could ever thing of selling or taking commissions on.  The contract itself is a breach of contract by its very design as a way to buck the first law of business, because it fails to constitute any attempt to do business fairly by any stretch of the imagination.  NetSol’s conglomerated contract is unrealistic to any consumer, or anyone else that NetSol does business with, and is purposely meant to create confusion and make the reader give-up on making sense of the crap.

Obviously, NetSol hasn’t changed.  It’s this crappy “holier-than-thou” corporate law attitude with virtually no support  and complete lack of social responsibility that made me become my own domain name registrar at Domain Hostmaster.  Unlike NetSol, we take pride in delivering extremely low prices and offering full customer tech support on any issue.  But NetSol continues doing whatever they want on the mere basis that they control the registry, which of course is their primary business (and probably why NetSol so flagrantly abuses its human customer relationships).

I am sure that the buyer was happy, as whoever it was messed-up in the first attempt to purchase the domain at the agreed upon price after the first month was up and hadn’t sent the required FAX that NetSol’s Certified Offer Service was looking for, and I did not quibble about the price once they re-initiated a contract for sale after the previous offer and contract had expired.

I have made a mistake, though.  I deleted the sales listing for Soo-Foo.com from my Sedo account.  I should have just set it as ‘not for sale’ because the new owner still hasn’t changed the name servers for the domain.  That means that any PPC funds the domain produces using the old name servers set for Sedo will be lost to me since I can not add the domain name again as I won’t be able to be verified as the owner.

The new owner might be able to recover those funds if he/she signs-up at Sedo, though.  But probably won’t if he/she/they wouldn’t even bother trying to purchase the name through Sedo, originally.  Or maybe the buyer hasn’t actually taken possession of the name yet and it is still sitting in NetSol’s escrow account.  That would figure.

Despite NetSol’s attempt to treat anyone as badly as possible in order to leverage all advantages to itself, the sale of Soo-Foo.com did go through and I am happy with the outcome.  But I am not happy with the process as noted above, but that isn’t even the full story.  After acknowledging the successful transfer of the domain name to their transfer holding account in one email, the Certified Offer Service sent another email indicating that the transfer was unsuccessful and the sale was stopped.  This was obviously a hick-up in their system programming, but it is truly an enormous problem.  Why the heck can’t this giant corporate player get simple domain name transfer monitoring programmed correctly?

To top that off, upon receiving the first email saying that the transfer to their specified holding account was verified early in the day on Friday, that second email indicating that the transfer had failed and therefore the sale halted came late in the day on Friday and I did not see it until after the close of business.  Of course I wrote back, strongly objecting to their apparent failure to fulfill their contract of sale and threatening legal action if they did not complete the transaction.  And of course, since it was the weekend I did not expect a reply until the next week.  But I didn’t even get that reply on the following Monday.  It was late on Tuesday before I heard an apology for their mistake.  I can’t believe how unprofessional they are.

Thank God I have setup Domain Hostmaster, because as a Domainer I require great honest support available 24/7 at the kinds of competitive prices that anyone can afford along with all those free extras I include in every package.  And yes, I am my own best customer.  😉

By the way, what does “Soo-Foo” mean, you may ask?  That is the nickname for the city of Sioux Falls (pronounced Soo Fahls), where I live.  So I did have some designs on that domain name, myself.  Luckily, I have a couple of other options for local area branding solutions that are still in my possession.  😀

Windows Laptop(s) & Windows Notebook(s) Info Sites Online

I have just setup a few domains that I think should do pretty well…

Windows Laptop TM logo

I liked how the letters flowed together (once I worked at it a while).

WindowsLaptops.com logo

This one above was based on the colors of the WordPress design theme/template.

WindowsNotebook.com logo

I like how the checkmark reflects the angles of the W and the dot of the i turned out to be the icing on the cake that completed the illusion.  In this case I am actually experimenting with keeping the text as large as possible and incorporating the checkmark to appease the web media image optimization cops.

Windows Notebooks logo

It probably doesn’t seem like I spent a lot of time on the logos for the plural versions of these domains.  But I was specifically matching them up to the colors of the WordPress design theme/template that I want to use for those two, so I didn’t want them to not look alike and if you visit the articles blog/site, I think you’ll agree that they match-up pretty well there.

I also wanted the plural versions to seem more like a conglomerate or at least a partnership between the two sites.

I did want the singular (non-plural) version domain name logos to offer their own unique identity, as they offer great value in a premium domain name.

I plan to get these posted online elsewhere, in my profile (Doug-Peters.com), and featured at Premium Brand Name, but I have a birthday party to go to for my 70 year-old uncle Gordon (great guy, by the way).  So I am just throwing out these images and thoughts as quick as I can so that all this will get posted somewhere.

I really like these sites and there are already some great reviews and tips and tricks posted.  I will be obviously be posting more articles, as well.  I will definitely be looking to post some laptop/notebook mods and hacks on the plural version domains.  The singular version names will probably be a bit more conventional.

I added about 3 pages to the WD&D group at Google Groups.  One was a resource links page.  I’m thinking that when I get it further along, I might just post it here.

Anyways, I have been extremely busy trying to clean-up my portfolio, working on my resume and doing just about everything I can think of in order to get my next web designer, online marketer, SEO, ad writer, copy writer, graphic designer, brand expert, illustrator and/or webmaster position.  Let me know if you have anything for me.  😉  This looking for a job is worse than a full time job.

I am getting tired of it.  I am ready to move to either coast, Chicago, or anything.  But if I don’t get something soon I may wind-up as an auto salesman.  Which wouldn’t be bad, but I wouldn’t be as creatively challenged.  Which is simply when I am the most excited and happiest.  😉

Dark Glasses & Dark Shades

Like most Domainers, I prize the dot com over any other international TLD.  But I do like other TLDs, as well.  I really like the .US country code, the .net (perhaps because I am in the business of reselling domain names & hosting), and I absolutely love the .info for blogs and information sites.

But DarkGlasses.net and DarkShades.net have been left unregistered well too long, now.  So I had to, of course, finally give in, go to Domain Hostmaster and register them.

Why do I do it?

Considering the risk I take for a new registration, the investment and risk is actually quite small for two dark versions of the cool name for sunglasses in a dot net.  Perhaps it is a bit riskier for me since I don’t actually plan on selling sunglasses, but I think that these are still greatly undervalued names that have until now been overlooked.  I honestly think that these names should command a $500.00 pricetag each on the very day that I registered them (for the next 5 years), even in this economy.  Or perhaps I should say, especially in this economy, as you need memorable names that can be built into brands these days.  In 5 years, they will be worth 5 to 10 times as much, at the very least, even if I do nothing.

Still, I am not supposed to be registering new names.  I’ve actually been letting a few domain registrations expire, but certain gambles did not pay off.  WiBro is still known as WiMax here in America, though I still have kept a couple of choice versions (i.e.: FindWiBro.com, ComputerWiBro.com, WiBroComputing.com, BusinessWiBro.com & PhoneWiBro.com).

I’ve also let a few of my longer High Definition keyword phrase domains expire.  I was very surprized that people haven’t been knocking my door down for these just as everyone is ugrading to High Def systems.  But I did keep the best ones.

I even let Fable.Biz expire and I actually planned on writing a fairy tale or two on that one.  But I just didn’t have the time to make that happen.

But I think these 2 dark dot net domains will do much better.  😉

-Doug
The Domainator