opinion Crowdsourced Domain Appraisal Site/App

[gtldomainer]

Hi All,
It's been few months since I started domaining. Its been quite a work and I've been fortunate enough to make 3 sales till now, although very small in size. I am a regular NP visitor; I'm aware of Estibot and similar tools; I read posts from DomainSherpa and I read Mike Mann, Frank Schilling and Shane Cultra. I've subscribed to Domaining and other popular sites' newsletters. Overall, I think I'm doing well for this short period of time. I've had sleepless nights to bid for that perfect name!

Now, with all things said, there is still one thing that that gives me chills in this business. Whenever I like a name and think to buy it, I just go uncertain for some time, I cannot decide what the name is worth, I feel like I'm a total noob! I wish if somebody could help me if the name is really worthy for the money I pay.

I feel like this is every newbie's nightmare; whether to go for it or not. To address this, I am thinking to build a crowd-sourced appraisal platform. How it works (very highlevel): You submit a name and other users will give their appraisal. You'll need to appraise 10 or so names to win 1 appraisal. It'll be somewhere similar to Flippa's appraisal feature.

Core will be the appraisal part. There could be other features but I'm just not sure if anyone will find it useful in the first place.

So, do you think it's going to be any useful for you? Any feedback is welcome! It can be criticism, suggestions for new features or anything you've in your mind. Even if you say, this is s*** idea and will not work, with some explanation, I won't mind; that would in fact save me a lot of time.

On the bright side, I think this can be really helpful for all of us.

Looking forward to you input.

 

[Hypersot]

If I had a similar idea to yours, the first thing I'd do would be to compare it to existing appraisal solutions.
One such appraisal solution is the appraisal section here on this forum.

How do you think your tool will be different and more useful than a well-known place with experienced users such as this forum?

Note that I'm not being negative with your idea. I'm just trying to estimate the chances of success for a tool like the one you're suggesting.

 

[gtldomainer]

Thanks @Hypersot for your comments. Like I said, no place for negativity here.

Yes, I agree, NP Appraisal is a great place to appraise your domains. There are many experienced domainers here. It'd be great to collaborate with these veterans where everyone is win-win. Have some ideas that'd separate the platform from others but need to streamline them yet.

Appreciate any feedback.

 

[deez007]

I think in theory its a good idea... the problem you will be faced with is the same problem we see on the appraisal threads here on NP.

You will get some people saying that the domain is worth "Reg fee" but on the same thread you will get someone saying the domain could fetch $xxxx. Then you also have the whole nGTLD debate. Those of us that are pro nGTLD (not all of them are good but some of them are awesome) will appraise these domains much higher than the folks who hate them.

As much as I like the concept, Im just not sure how you are going to manage to get credible evaluations. If people need to do 10 appraisals to earn 1 appraisal credit there will be many people who will also simply rush through the process just to get their appraisal credits.

Much like @Hypersot, I am not trying to be negative but merely highlighting some of the possible considerations.

 

[Asfas1000]

Similar approaches have been worked out in the past and failed.

 

[gtldomainer]

Thanks @deez007 , I can relate to your confusions. yes, we need to sort that out to make it a reliable source for the users. I'm thinking of rating system of all users and their reviews; this can be a complex system but I see it be reliable. I can share more as this discussion matures further.

@Asfas1000 , man you must be correct. I know, this is not a noble idea. There must been services like this in the past. Would you mind to elaborate more on what you're saying? Thanks anyway.

 

[Asfas1000]

There was such a website with a very similar idea several years ago, I can't remember the name. Maybe someone with better memory can help here. Point is, it didn't work.

Flippa's feature didn't work either and they discontinued it.

The problems IMO :

1) You mostly need "Pre-purchase" appraisals to justify your purchases. This means other people may be able to buy the domain before you do.

2) For this to work, you need someone to do at least as many appraisals as many opinions they need for their own domain (otherwise you'll fall short of appraisals). I doubt someone who is in a hurry to get an appraisal for their domain will do any research before submitting the required appraisals - most probably they will simply put in numbers, so their valuation will have little value.

3) 10 uneducated appraisals are not as good as 1 really educated appraisal. I'd better ask Rick Schwarz about a domain rather than 100 newbies or even 100 experienced domainers.

 

[Cdomains]

a crowd-sourced appraisal platform

NP is a crowd-sourced appraisal platform!

 

[RJ]

I love the idea. Yes, a crowdsourcing appraisal app has been done before, as far back as the 90's by Afternic (and I loved their original implementation of it) and I even took my own shot at developing a similar system in the 2000s on NamePros (keeping it up to date with vBulletin upgrades was a pain to manage.) Flippa's system was fun while it lasted. The appraisal values are usually a little wild with these crowdsourcing efforts, either by inexperienced appraisers or people intentionally boosting values.

I enjoy appraising names for people and giving my opinion, but it can be time consuming and there is an endless supply to names to research and appraise. It would be awesome if there was an app where I could appraise names more efficiently. Nowadays I get so many domains and portfolios sent my way for consideration that I was considering charging a $1 submission fee for sellers to submit names for consideration, and in response (to provide value) I would reply back exactly why I would or would not buy your domain names. I'm afraid it would either be seen in bad taste, or too difficult to keep up with on a daily basis. The crowdsourcing app would be great. It could tie into a marketplace as well, if the domain was being listed for sale by the owner.

Let me know if you're looking for investors or beta testers.

RJ

 

[todaygold]

I feel like this is every newbie's nightmare; whether to go for it or not. To address this, I am thinking to build a crowd-sourced appraisal platform. How it works (very highlevel): You submit a name and other users will give their appraisal. You'll need to appraise 10 or so names to win 1 appraisal. It'll be somewhere similar to Flippa's appraisal feature.

Like someone else already mentioned, the #1 problem with this is that someone else will register the name if it is any good, defeating the purpose of asking before buying to save money.

 

[gtldomainer]

Thank you all for your responses with great insight. I understand there are complications. I'm taking note of all complications and working on various ways to make it a more reliable platform.

I'm still looking to hear from more. There must be more to it, than just what's come so far.