TRAFFIC live auction on webmasterradio.fm

[Rick Schwartz]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The largest live internet domain name auction ever held produced nearly
$2.1 million in sales in just 3 hours Thursday, May 4 in the main event at
the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. WEST Conference at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas,
Nevada. Another piece of domain history was made during the auction when
SEX.NET sold for $450,000 in the largest .net sale ever reported.

The gavel also dropped on two other blockbuster six-figure sales during
the bidding in front of a standing room only crowd. A rare two-letter
.com, CD.COM attracted $275,000 and a three-letter gem, POS.COM commanded $250,000. There were dozens of other sales in the five-figure range.

Veteran professional auctioneer John Berry was flown in from Florida to
call the auction conducted by Monte Cahn, CEO of Moniker.com. The auction
was the centerpiece of the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. WEST conference. The event
attracted more than 500 internet entrepreneurs for the largest gathering
of domain investors held to date.

T.R.A.F.F.I.C. co-founders Rick Schwartz and Howard Neu introduced the
event with an October 2004 conference in Delray Beach, Florida and over
the past 18 months have added shows in Silicon Valley and Las Vegas that
have attracted domain owners, venture capitalists and investment bankers
from around the world. More information on past and future events can be
viewed at http://www.TargetedTraffic.com. The next conference and domain
name auction is scheduled for October, 2006.

[brian1234]

Rick,

Well done on the auction!

I am sure I speak for many domain speculators when
I say a big thanks for moving the industry along over
the years in the way you have.

Best Regards

[mole]

OK, and I hate to rain on anyone's parade.

I think it is good for the industry to promote the value of domains, but it always a fine line between overhyping market fundamentals vs pushing future value.

This reminds of the early start of the dotcom exuberance that crashed billions of dollars, all over again.

[actnow]

Originally Posted by mole

This reminds of the early start of the dotcom exuberance that crashed billions of dollars, all over again.

Mole,

As sharp as you are. I think you are talking "apples and oranges".

Monte,

Great job. Like everything you touch.
We should start calling him the "Midas Man".

I'm sure Monte will have a phone-in line for the next auction.

(Monte knows that I am the first one to bark at him when he
does something wrong. Which, isn't often.)

Rick,

Nice job on having another successful Traffic Conference.

I missed the Vegas conference this time. But, I will be at the
Miami Conference. Just in case someone wants to buy me coke :beer_yum:
(or punch me on the nose :-D ).

Overall, the auction was another positve step forward for the domain
industry.

Maybe, at the next conference, they will break the auction up into
2 different days.

[clemzonguy]

Phone in lines would not do much to promote the incentives of actually attending the events in the future.
I say they are a bad idea despite the desire to bid on names myself.

[mole]

Originally Posted by actnow

I think you are talking "apples and oranges".

I humbly disagree, act. Prices for .COM domains are dangerously overheating as speculators chase their tails into a bottomless pit, when we all know that all it takes is one domain, eg. myspace.com, to make hundreds of millions. Development is what makes the real money.

Domainers without access to funny money are those who are crippled by all this madness. If only the top 2% of all domainers can play this game, then domaining is nothing more than an elitist, ego-feeding game. That is apparently the agenda of the "big" players, but even then, they will be anxiously throwing hard earned into a bottomless well in an attempt to convince themselves they are "big" and "belong" to this elitist club. Purely ego, methinks.

Inefficiency kicks in, ROI drops, dream states and wishful thinking becomes the drug of addiction. Tell me, doesn't this sound familiar of the situation in 1998?

Having said that, I have all respect for those who took, and are taking, serious financial risks, to ride the new Web2 wave.

Serial entrepreneurs will rule on the web. Companies like Demand Media, who believe in platform convergence.,

Not snake oil artists, sorry.

[Edwin]

Excellent job on the auction, but I think your press release would have more chance of getting picked up widely if it were a bit "tamer" and less self-congratulating. Editors don't really like anything that could be perceived as "puffery" ("blockbuster", "gem" etc.) - they're just looking for the facts, initially, and the rest comes in the follow-up after their interest has been piqued. Given the importance of these types of releases, it may be worth paying a few hundred $ to get them drafted by somebody specialised in the craft of writing press releases?

[acesfull]

I would like to see some IDNs in the next auction.

[wackytobacy]

I was there and the auction WAS chaos. Names being passed over left and right. Auction list handed out minutes before the auction didn't match that of the one displayed on projected screen, extended reverse bidding on names no one wanted to begin with, names weren't auctioned in order, names were started to be auctioned and then pulled before anyone had a chance to bid, bidders changing places during dibbing and moving infront of a competing bidder on a name - whispering somethign and that bidder no londer placed bids letting the whisperer win unchallenged. Not to mention that out of a list of over 4000 names 2/3 of the list of 160 were complete garbarge.

This was a great opportunity for many people to get their names bid on by qualified interested parties and they never had a chance, if my company had gone there with the sale of our names as one of our goals we would have been livid. Next years auction needs a complete over haul.

[Harry]

Originally Posted by GoPC

The auction was pretty much chaos
from start to finish. Very unorganized

Your assessment is absolutely wrong and malicious.
On the contrary I found it to be well prepared and run,
and the disclosure of the reserve price of each name
added even more to the credibility of the organizers,
I immensely enjoyed being there - and this comes from
a man that was expelled from Rick's board.
The only sore point the I have is that I missed out on WaterViewProperty.com - congratulations (again) Larry
Fisher on a great buy.

[Banned: JoeyMob]

Who ever own cd.com got a steal. That is an very good deal.

[brian1234]

I think its important for everyone here to
remember that it is the likes of Rick Schwartz
and Monte Cahn who are 'educating' the world
at large about domain names and moving the
industry forward...

To criticise them on here is absurd and, in many
respects, is 'biting the hand that feeds you'. They
are doing what 99.9% of you here ARE NOT doing
or CAN NOT do - they have inter-personal skills for
e.g. and do not sit 'hunchbacked' at a pc all day
waiting to receive ridiculously high offers on their
domain names.

Have a little respect for the guys who are looking
out for themselves, but who are also taking us all
along (for a free ride) with them.

[mole]

Originally Posted by brian1234

To criticise them on here is absurd and, in many
respects, is 'biting the hand that feeds you'.

Geesh brian , nobody is criticizing anybody, there is nothing wrong with expressing observations and facts and points-of-view, nothing personal.

[wiwineguy]

It does sound like some people are sour on the success of the TRAFFIC Auction. Seems like they are sour on anything TRAFFIC/Schwartz related. Frankly, that's too bad too because I say, without I hope sounding like a suck up, that with just three hours to sell 200 domains for an average of $10,500 each we all have something to be proud of in this industry and frankly this auction will make my portfolio go up in value with the sale of WineSupplies.com.

If any of you have any domains that intersect niches with one of those that were sold, be happy for the seller, the winner and start raising your prices.

Hey Rick, Cooper says "Woof, Woof "

[ShaunP]

Originally Posted by Harry

Your assessment is absolutely wrong and malicious.
On the contrary I found it to be well prepared and run,
and the disclosure of the reserve price of each name
added even more to the credibility of the organizers,
I immensely enjoyed being there - and this comes from
a man that was expelled from Rick's board.
The only sore point the I have is that I missed out on WaterViewProperty.com - congratulations (again) Larry
Fisher on a great buy.

Agree. Hey, the auction was not without it's faults .. but it WAS better than any other domain auction I've seen. I'm sure that the faults are being noted by Monte and his crew and Auction #3 in Miami in October will be bigger and better. I bought 4 names over the 3 hour auction and missed out on a bunch more I was outbid on....oh well, next time!

Shaun

Probability... The people that bought and sold names at the auction are probably happier than those that didn't.

[hiOsilver]

I sold one domain on the auction and I bought 8, including FixedRate.com and OffRoadTires.com. As a participant, I gave Monte much after-event constructive feedback on how to improve the next big live domain auction. Monte was very receptive. While there is considerable room for improvement, the auction was very well done overall. It was fun and exciting to be there, and the next should be much better.

Comparing development of MySpace.com with buying domains is absurd. It is like comparing Las Vegas to raw land in Nebraska. MySpace.com is a phenomenon. For every such overwhelming success, there are thousands of failed websites, some of which consumed millions of dollars of development funds.

Obviously, there is much more upside potential in developing a site than the value of an undeveloped domain. As for the values of domains, present and future, you should follow Dan Warner and his crew at Fabulous.com, as they have done the most real research and financial analysis on domains. Dan is now being published at DNJournal.com.

For everyone anxious to get out of the domain market, because it is now "frothy" or a "bubble", there are optimists ready to buy your domains. This business is still in the early stages, and there are definitely changes to come. Figuring out those changes will be a big part of future success in the industry.

Thanks to Rick Schwartz and Howard Neu for another excellent trade show. Great to see DotComGod and so many other industry leaders there.

[EJS]

Rick, congrats on the successful auction. It would be great if there was a web interface for the next live auction giving those of us who were listening online the opportunity to bid over the computer. Ebay does this with their live auctions, and it dould be beneficial to all parties to open up the auction floor to non-conference attendees. There could be a pre-approval process online along with pre-approved financing as well.

Anyway, great work - looks like there was some good bidding.

[sevent]

Rick Schwartz himself picked that one up. If I had the $$$ I would have bid myself at that price. Also, although the reserve prices were disclosed, that didn't happen until the bidding began. It would have been nice to get the full list, along with details about each name and reserve, at least a few days in advance.

Originally Posted by JoeyMob

Who ever own cd.com got a steal. That is an very good deal.

[Mr. Deleted]

Originally Posted by sevent

Rick Schwartz himself picked that one up. If I had the $$$ I would have bid myself at that price. Also, although the reserve prices were disclosed, that didn't happen until the bidding began. It would have been nice to get the full list, along with details about each name and reserve, at least a few days in advance.

that name is currently not displaying, Rick, you should check that.

[hiOsilver]

Moniker charged a 10% auction fee to each seller, which seemed reasonable. However, I did not know that they were tacking on their standard escrow fees on all purchases. These are more like 2% down to 1% on $30,000 and over.