.US Outrage

[zouzas]

the gvt doesn;t always have reason they have names like Affiliates.us and Archives.us reserved but not the singular Affiliate.us and Archive.us????

[mole]

Originally Posted by zouzas

the gvt doesn;t always have reason they have names like Affiliates.us and Archives.us reserved but not the singular Affiliate.us and Archive.us????

Sometimes, the 's' is more valuable in defining the meaning of a name.

[trader]

Originally Posted by mole

How many names I acquire depends on luck.

After seeing the many millions of dollars of value and thousands of amazing us names only a few got for reg fees (or perhaps fire sale prices from a mysterious private catcher) involving the secretive us reserved drops it makes most all names advertised on the forums look lame, weak and overpriced no matter how low the price is, any name and price (low or high) now seems very excessive to me, especially .us names!

It has taken away all my desire to ever buy any more names on the forums no matter how good they sound and made me think about leaving the forums for good to devote 100% of my time to ongoing additional work on my current portfolio. Call it sour grapes if you want but the way Neustar handled the us reserves is really shocking to say the least.

Also quite disappointed this major news event was not discussed in the forums until well after the fact. The us reserve drops affair is kind off similar to the hundreds of fabulous 3 letter US names (plus some great place names) which quietly dropped earlier in the year and basically only one person knew about it and he got many hundreds of them for reg fees and virtually no one else was aware of it.

All the silence and lack of exposure and knowledge on this important stuff is the opposite of what you would expect from public news groups and defeats the purpose of the forums in a way. These comments are not intended to be negative toward the few domainers who succeeded in getting all these us names for peanuts but is still very discouraging and disheartening to other players who work long and hard and are left out in the cold so to speak.

[zouzas]

Originally Posted by mole

Sometimes, the 's' is more valuable in defining the meaning of a name.

very very true ,,but i think Archive.us sounds better then Archives.us ??

[StockDoctor]

Originally Posted by trader

Easier said than done when the name of that so called private drop catcher you said you purchased America.us from is secret and even when I asked you over the phone who it was you would not identify them even more than 1 month after the purchase.

How could myself or anyone else have got them when the entire event was behind close doors and unannounced? The entire affair seems very odd. For example, what ever you paid for America.us I am sure I woud have offered more so why would that private drop catcher sell to you secretly with no offering elsewhere such as on the forums, etc?

It all seems quite strange. I know if I was selling that amazing US portfolio Blink purchased privately at fire sale pricing and selling America.us (the best of the best) I certainly would advertised the sale very heavily in all venues.

I'll try again trader --

The event wasn't behind closed doors. In fact it was very obvious to the folks that were following it. The full lists of the names were on the site for years. Those following them plugged them on their bulk whois monitoring programs and ran them several times a month for years. Some of us paid for other alert services and plugged all of the names we were after on those too. We also paid $thousands to buy backorders at more than 1 registrar. The announcements about the pending releases were posted on the registry site months in advance. The notices were quite different than the routine deadline notices from months back. Those other earlier notices NEVER said anything about a release date. These recent notices did. The registry maintains a public RGP and Pending list that pretty much everyone knows about. These names never went to RGP because they were never in redemption. They did go to "pending delete" and were also posted on the daily pending delete lists, even though the registry could have just dropped them. By posting those names on that public list, they were going the extra mile to let the people who catch .us names know in advance that the names were definately dropping. Then, along with the other notices on the site, there was the public phone number posted along with the reserved names and instructions.

On Zou's purchase of America.us, it was no secret. I saw who caught it (not me) and they were just a bit quicker. The name was available and they just beat other people to it with a backorder.

The Blink sales were NOT a secret deal, just private, and they weren't exactly as posted earlier. Several of the names discussed weren't even part of the release. Don't believe all the $ figures you read on these forums.

I have a number of buyers that have asked for previews of what I have coming up for sale. No secret again. I just don't usually want to bother members with emails unless they ask for them. They have gotten super pricing from me and I'm happy for their patronage. I've got a few super .us names coming up and I'll make sure I send you a notice.
Doc

[mole]

Originally Posted by Stocdoctor

I've got a few super .us names coming up and I'll make sure I send you a notice.

Post it here, doc, so that we can all bid on them.

[fundraiser]

Originally Posted by trader

Easier said than done when the name of that so called private drop catcher you said you purchased America.us from is secret and even when I asked you over the phone who it was you would not identify them even more than 1 month after the purchase.

How could myself or anyone else have got them when the entire event was behind close doors and unannounced? The entire affair seems very odd. For example, what ever you paid for America.us I am sure I woud have offered more so why would that private drop catcher sell to you secretly with no offering elsewhere such as on the forums, etc?

It all seems quite strange. I know if I was selling that amazing US portfolio Blink purchased privately at fire sale pricing and selling America.us (the best of the best) I certainly would advertised the sale very heavily in all venues.

You obviously have been around here on these boards trading a lot longer than me and certainly know the industry better, but please let me make a few observations with all due respect.

To add to Stocdoctor's post, more than 35 days passed between the first and second drop when 1,000+ reserve names were in the hands of the public and reflected in the whois of the registry where even one attempt to check the file of any one of those names would have clued anyone in to what was happening.

Everyone knows many large domain sales remain private and are done in nonpublic trading. Sometimes they include cash and other domains, the latter being exclusive to the registrant which means the general public can't offer the same deal. Week after week, DNJournal does a great job of publishing domain sales but I bet most of the larger .us and other extensions are not published as the parties want privacy, particulary when there is great debate on an extension.

How can you be sure you would have offered more for america.us? Do you know the price? Without being a party to the sale, you can't know even if (and I am not saying he did) Zouzas told you a number. I'll bet Blink didn't really give you accurate information on the real size and nature of his deal because it would not be advantageous for him to do so and Stocdoctor even provided some clues supporting this. It would weaken his bargaining position for gaining similar names in the future.

[actnow]

Originally Posted by Wot

. Ignorance was my downfall

I thought I had the "exclusivity" on ignorance.

[Darren06]

Im glad Zouzas got America.us. It went to a good owner.

[URLtrader]

So .us prices are going up ? Makes me VERY happy. Obviously.

URLtrader

[ShaunP]

Originally Posted by Darren06

Im glad Zouzas got America.us. It went to a good owner.

umm .. it's a domain name .. not a puppy!

Shaun

[izopod]

Originally Posted by Darren06

Im glad Zouzas got America.us. It went to a good owner.

Here, here. Zouzas is THE best person you want to have America.us given his past record of developing the name-space.

My personal favorite of his is www.taps.us

[ShaunP]

Originally Posted by izopod

Here, here. Zouzas is THE best person you want to have America.us given his past record of developing the name-space.

My personal favorite of his is www.taps.us

taps.us .. gotta agree. Well done Zouzas, a fine tribute!

Shaun

[namedropper]

Dear lord, lots of sour grapes going on. Drops have always been a matter of finding information, paying attention, and trying your luck at it. That's how I got some of my great names back in 1996, that's how I got others in 2000, and because I haven't been paying attention lately why I haven't picked up any in the last year. Rewards go to the people who invest their time and play it smart, simple as that.

If you think that there should have been billboards on every major highway, sorry, doesn't that way. Frankly, dropping them like this is a whole hell of a lot more fair than auctioning them off or making a big production out of it. Real people could get them this way. If they end up in the hands of pros it's because they paid good money to the people who registerred them, not because they bribed the registry.

And some of the values for these names being tossed around are sheer fantasy. IT's like they've never heard of a real sale. These are .us names, for crying out loud, and the prices being quoted are basically .com level ones (and sometimes unrealistic even there).

Some people here need to take a chill pill and get some perspective instead of throwing tantrums and embarassing themselves with half-witted accusations. I respect the people who admitted they missed out because they were ignorant, too bad others want to advertise their ignorance and escalate it to a new level.

[trader]

Originally Posted by namedropper

....dropping them like this is a whole hell of a lot more fair than auctioning them off or making a big production out of it. Real people could get them this way. ......

You may not be aware of the fact one guy got I would estimate about 95% of all the valuable US reserve drops. It took me many hrs of going thru the entire list of 49,000 reserve names and most every one I looked at was taken by that one individual (he has already posted in this thread).

As I scanned thru them I made notepad or mental notes of the numbers and estimated values and stopped counting at many millions of $ in values and well over 1,000 names, perhaps as many as 3,000. You really woud need to see the list to realize mult-millon $ is a good estimate!

Do you really think that is a fair system where one domainer owns such a huge slice of the good and truly valuable us namespace for only reg fees? Did he really work that much harder than all the other domainers to warrant that kind of success?

In a big way it is a negative to the us namespace since the names did NOT fall into the hands of good developers but instead into the hands of a well known reseller who I am sure will hold many undeveloped for a long time, resell many of them (likely to other resellers - see the sale to Blink) but develop very few comparatively speaking.

P.S. The list url was NOT located by me anywhere on the neulevel website when I looked for it several times before Dec 22 when so many good ones dropped. Perhaps I was blind.

[Acro]

Where was that cummulative list posted at? I went through the state names and registered about 20 names - since this thread appeared.

Edit: to avoid confusion; what I meant to say was, I went through the listings per state and registered city and county names.

[mike031]

guys.. there is no outrage here, it went down fair and square like a bunch of people already mentioned..... this is how the drop cycle works you know... gotta monitor the domain/s closely if you have a strong interest in any name because things do change every now and then, those who stayed on top of things were rewarded after all the hard work... congrats

the drop game is real competitive and there is more people joining in every other day trying out this domain phenomenon... some of the bigger players are ruthless.. some are pretty nice, but when it comes down to business.. bottom line is, they will do anything and everything in their interest.. who cares about what you like or dont like... they will get it done one way or another... im not aware of any etiquette.. rules or enforcement... atleast last i checked, lol... you know that saying where.. "nice guys finish last" well its kinda true, we're all looking for those bargains that are pretty rare this days.. and well.. there isn't too many anymore... when things get dry... things get ugly!

[StockDoctor]

Originally Posted by RADiSTAR

Where was that cummulative list posted at? I went through the state names and registered about 20 names - since this thread appeared.

Edit: to avoid confusion; what I meant to say was, I went through the listings per state and registered city and county names.

It's still there.

http://www.neustar.us/reserved/index.html

This notice below (to both the State and Federal gov orgs) was not just available for 90 days as it says, but for over 2 years. FAQs

"How long do I have to decide if I want to register my Reserved List name(s)?
Federal government entities will have 90 calendar days from the date they receive their initial email solicitation regarding the availability of their reserved .US names to register the names. The projected closing date for federal entities is December 9, 2002."

Here's the State info link and all the names for each city. It's also still where it's always been on the registry site.

http://www.neustar.us/reserved/state/index.html

[Acro]

Yes but that's broken down per state. Trader referred to a 49,000 list that also contained other words. I could not see any such generics in the US states that I searched under. Oh well, the early bird gets the worm :-D

[MediaHound]

state mottos were included