Like Traditional Investors, Owners Should Focus on Diversification

You hear it almost daily through the money wire – diversify, diversify, diversify. And while most domainers usually scoff at market returns, it is important to heed this fundamental in the growth of ones own portfolio.

Diversification in domain names is important because of the swings and tides of monetization and traffic and even public perception. We strive to rise and fall with the waves, we look ahead without dwelling or, at times, focusing on the issue at hand. Continue reading

Technical difficulties continued to plague the auctions in Australia this evening (afternoon in Australia). Rick Latona’s auction experienced similar audio/video issues that Aftermarket.com experienced earlier in the day at their TRAFFIC Down Under auction. When the audio and video feed came in, it was quite clear Latona was agitated by the over 1 hour delay.   He was heard saying before the event “Let’s go. We’ve got business to do.”  He managed to knock out the list of 69 names in around 1 hour and 15 minutes.

The auction moved along smoothly after the late start and only had one minor hiccup between the bidding of ProBasketball.com and PsychicAdvisor.com.  It was hard to follow what exactly happened and we might not have this right. It seems that an onsite bidder was still wanting to bid on ProBasketball.com, which was displaying on the screen at the event,  but the auctioneer had already closed bidding and moved to another name.  That being the only minor problem in the technical side of things, the auction moved on smoothly.  Latona sold a total of 40 names, many coming in from the large pool of no reserve names he had included. The .com.au lots also attracted a lot of on-site bidding, as was the case in the earlier Aftermarket.com auction as well.  Latona netted a total of $413,640 in sales.  The top position went to SanJuan.com and CR.com tied with a top bid of $150,000 for both of these names.

(Yeah I said Rick Rolls in the title . . . clever eh? )

We will be were live blogging the auction results of the auctions at the TRAFFIC Down Under conference in Australia, this time for the Rick Latona Auction. As always we do not guarantee the accuracy of these results. You can see them after the jump.

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Aftermarket.com got off to a late start early Thursday morning (Australian time) with their TRAFFIC Down Under auction. The start of the auction was delayed 20 minutes with technical problems with the audio and video feeds.

However, once the auction got going, it seemed like the auctioneer really was moving the names well.  We counted around 60 viewers online according to the Ustream video feed.  Very few names seemed to past, given the No reserve prices on many names. The activity really skyrocketed through camera.co.uk, which sold for $35,000 . Around the time lot 38 came up it was clear that their were technical difficulties as these auctions didn’t show as closed on the users side once the hammer fell.  By the time the auction reached lot 48, the Aftermarket.com team decided to pull down the auction and take a 5 minute recess. Word from the team on the ground was that they were having technical difficulties on their network back in Washington.

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We will be were live blogging the auction results of the auctions at the TRAFFIC Down Under conference in Australia, this time for the Aftermarket.com Auction. As always we do not guarantee the accuracy of these results.

Since the auction was delayed several times due to technical difficulties, the live auction ended without going through all of the names so these results may not be complete. The last bids were received on Coed.com and then the remainging .com.au were sold as well as Saws.com and PrivateResort.com which had already received online bidding. The remaining names will continue to be listed for a silent auction until November 26th at Aftermarket.com’s site.

You can see them after the jump.

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OpenSRS, the registrar brand of Tucows (AMEX:TCX, TSX:TC) has announced the launch of “OpenSRS Storefront” today, which is a fully hosted solution for their resellers. The system basically works like a branded affiliate offering, where the reseller receives a commission for any sales that occur under their brand. The reseller can upload a logo, choose from one of four themes and add their own text on the home page and about us and contact us pages.

The retail pricing can be set by the reseller. The difference to the wholesale pricing plus a 6% payment processing fee will be paid out to the reseller once they reach an aggregate of $100 in commission. There are no other charges to the reseller, other than a one time signup for for new resellers.

Other registrars such as for example eNom (through PDQ) and GoDaddy (through Wild West Domains) have been offering similar options for an annual fee.

[via email, OpenSRS blog]