From ugly to $1 million, guy wants to trade up his ugly domain name

[domaindigger]

I just saw this on digg and wanted some perspective. This guy wants to trade up his oneuglydomain.com for a more "beautiful" one worth $1 million. It's like that oneredpaperclip idea, but with domains.

My question is, does he have a chance or is this just a parody? I have a couple of dead domains I wouldn't mind trading for if I can feed off the publicity this might generate.

Thoughts?

 

[briman1970]

Dang... I kinda feel bad now that I didn't renew at least 1 or 2 of them before I transferred them to Andres. When I originally offered them up for trade on OUD I remembered them being $40 each, but later realized they are actually £40 (pounds) each, which is almost $80 per renewal.

Before the transfer, I told Andres that domainers can be pretty fickle when it comes to names that need immediate renewal after the sale. He didn't seem too worried about it, but I felt he should be. I don't want to be responsible for killing OUD!

If it's OK with Andres, I will pay for renewal of any one of the four names after they are transferred to the new owner. That way, if the winner wants to renew (for example) just two of the four names, they'll only be out $80 instead of $320. Long live OUD!

 

[Andres Kello]

Hey guys,

I've just joined NamePros for the very first time and I thought it would be appropriate to have my first post be in this very thread!

I wanted to thank everyone for their awesome support, and especially RJ for having the #1 Domain forum on the internet with such a fantastic group of domainers!

I won't be posting too much in this thread because I don't want to interfere with the OUD discussions. I joined today because I've vetoed this round's vote and have to start a NamePros poll to have you guys decide the fate of this round.

Good luck to all traders this round and let's have some fun!

Cheers!
Andres

 

[gamehouse]

I think, I have to write something here since I was the submitter for themepros.com I am sure there was some suspicious activity and its unfortunate that my name was chosen to gull up the votes. Right now, I sent an email to the guy asking him to take my name off the list. YOG.mobi was the winner by all means. Its up to Kello to decide but I would rather like to get out of this mess.

GH

 

[Rom]

dontknow, sorry if this offended you.

Thanks,
Rom.

 

[briman1970]

It looks to me like a simple miscommunication that went waaaay too far. Correct me if I'm wrong but this is how it seems to have went down...

-Paul sends names for trade.
-Andres no likey.
-Andres asks Paul to send his entire portfolio.
-Paul sends his entire portfolio (English is obviously his second language, so I guess he took this request literally?)
-Andres assumes Paul has sent him a list of names that are all up for trade.
-Paul assumes that Andres will tell him which ones he'll accept.
-Andres assumes it's OK to just post any name(s) from the list sent by Paul.
-Paul tells Andres that he didn't want to trade all the names on his portfolio, especially THAT one, and tells Andres to remove it.
-Andres says he's already posted it and doesn't want to remove it because it'd make him and his site look bad.
-Paul insists.
-Andres removes the name.
-Paul doesn't see that the name has been removed and gets pissed enough to curse Andres out (badly) and threatens to destroy him via the pen, although the pen he is using has a severe problem with grammar and spelling.
-Andres retaliates by posting his take on the situation and Paul's ANGRY email.
-Andres removes n00b.tv just a couple of days later making his site look bad. (joking)

A real Charley Foxtrot, no doubt. I think the feudal post should be edited out, or at least Paul's last name should be removed. Andres may also want to consider using a form submission for accepting names instead of email, just so there will be no future confusion (or frivolous lawsuits).

 

[Archangel]

I like your voal.net
Reminds me of those little creatures that ran around our farm(voles).
Maybe I should offer up another LLL.mobi that has a better acronym list...

I think you should wait it out. I'm just a bit wary of the idea of trading one LLL.mobi for another ATM. But in the next round, if YoG.mobi is still there, you might wanna try it. If ppl choose to keep YoG.mobi twice, then maybe Andres should get a new .mobi -- or maybe he just needs ppl to offer better domains.

 

[briman1970]

I'm afraid that if you believed AmericanHit.com was the best because QVR and F9Y were "meaningless" and that AmericanHit.com was truly the better, I cannot argue with you other than your accusation that the 3 char/letter domains carry no worth.

QVR.org is similar; its limitations are in the ext .org and that there are better QVR extensions in existence (that hurts in that if www.qvr.org became popular, the .com would have a big edge). But it is still a great domain.

QVR.org is a good domain and it was a good competition. I hope you well in your endeavors with it

Thanks for the kind comments Archangel, but the domain is QVJ.org (not quite as good, I'm afraid). I WISH it was QVR.org, which could stand for "Quick Virtual Reality" or "Quality Virtual Real Estate").

 

[Archangel]

Thanks for the kind comments Archangel, but the domain is QVJ.org (not quite as good, I'm afraid). I WISH it was QVR.org, which could stand for "Quick Virtual Reality" or "Quality Virtual Real Estate").

Oh -- my mistake. I'm extremely sleep-deprived and I've been working hard on a book so I guess my mind slipped a bit.

 

[briman1970]

TriGuard.com (plus 4 exts.) - 9 Votes
HotMom.co.uk - 2 Votes
>>> F9Y.com (plus 4 exts.) - 1 Vote
PodcastLab.com - 0 Votes
InvalidSyntax.com - 0 Votes

Pretty good for only 9 hours in. It's early, but I think TriGuard is gonna win this one. If so, I will be putting up some names for trade in the next round.

:kickass:

The Mum vs. Mom comment has made a big impact on my vote BTW. Thanks for your insight Uber. I didn't take that into consideration when I made my first comments about the name. :red:

 

[Erdy]

Hello Andres,

I'm writing to share my thoughts about the fiasco in this round. I think the problem was not making the usual checks. Did you know that triguard.net, triguard.org, triguard.biz and triguard.info were all registered one day before they were offered at OUD?

I think this was an important detail. It means nobody is interested on those domains. They are so uninterested they even don't pay 8 USD for triguard.net. If there had been so many companies interested on that domain we would expect at least one of them would register triguard.net but they didn't.

triguard.net is not even worth 8 USD. So, how much is it worth? Simple. It is worth between zero and 8 USD. Ok. Now we have a price limit for the .net version. As you might know a .net is worth only %10 of the .com. This is according the statistics from actual domain sales. triguard.com is worth 10 times more than triguard.net. Therefore triguard.com's value is between zero and 80 USD.

Now you have a maximum price for triguard.com. I think you should accept any domain that might be worth more than 80 USD.

 

[danielj314]

Adding my voice of support

I am happy to hear some positive comments being expressed about Andres and OUD.

I have been sad to witness the spirit of negativity that has taken hold on this board recently. I had to smile when I read someone implying that I offered NP$ for someone to offer up something for TriGuard.com.

I stand by the quality of the TriGuard set, and think its worth will be proven over time.

I purchased TriGuard.com on auction at GoDaddy. There were many bidders and the final price was in the mid xxx$. I have already beheld firsthand the general interest in the real world for this name with many people people expressing that interest in the form of over 18 bids. Each with cash in hand.

I think it is a great name with great potential. Not only are there several companies that would have an immediate interest in it, it is simply a good name in its own right signifying triple protection--and in this day and age, that is a great concept to communicate.

I think comments here about subjectivity are valid.

Andres has advocated eloquently and well for TriGuard, and I have appreciated that even when public opinion turned against it.

I think Andres has been conducting OUD very well. He is a skilled communicator and seems to handle every situation with good nature, grace, and an undeniable flair.

I was impressed that in my limited dealings with Andres related to our trade, he was very professional, kind, and generous. I think he has the combination of personal attributes and skills that it will take to see OUD through good and bad times and through to a successful conclusion.

Maybe he has some things to learn, but we all do. He seems to me to be very eager to learn from everything that is written here. I have seen that he is willing to accept feedback and adapts accordingly.

So I simply add my voice to the positive chorus of support a few of you have expressed for OUD. I look forward to watching (and maybe even participating) in something that I think has become fun, educational, and entertaining for all of us.

 

[VURG]

I've been thinking about OUD recently. This thread gets a lot more exposure than the site itself. With the red paperclip, the broadness in appeal meant that all sorts of people and media groups would be watching and reporting the site. The limited number of trades meant that the exposure was limited to a small group of only 15 and ultimately quite valuable.

With OUD domain:

Lots more trades -> therefore exposure per trade is less valuable
Limited to domains -> therefore exposure is less valuable as lots of people find domains boring.
No signs of significant non-Namepros interest -> therefore exposure is less valuable as it is limited to one community
Copycat site -> therefore exposure is less valuable

With the paperclip, the exposure was ultimately very valuable and trading a more valuable asset to win a round would be compensated by the value in the exposure.

Personally, I consider the exposure worth hundreds max but not more than $500.

With domains, trading a domain that is worth $500+ more come across as a poor decision and bad exposure for a domain trader.

I guess I'm saying that the difference between OUD and red paperclip is that because of the quality of exposure that red paperclip provided, the trades were WIN/WIN. The early stage of OUD were different but from now on I expect that each round will have a WIN/LOSE or LOSE/WIN outcome.

I also treat domains as a business, not a gambling venture and hence I am not interested in getting involved again unless I see evidence that there is more value in the exposure provided.

 

[RogueWriter]

True. But generally among domainers here, only names like standard LL / LLL, premium keywords have good value. I guess only domainers are following the OUG thing. And we aren't likely to be end-users in 99% cases.

If you can reach the end-user, he would pay more. But OUG doesn't seem to reach a wide audience. Further, such end-users would prefer a safe cash escrow rather than a trade.

I was not against him reaching out to end users via a Sedo sale, I was just angry with his timing. If no submissions survive a filtering process, then sure, try to Sedo the domain. He had 8 domains that were supposed to be accepted, though. My point to him was basically, if you try this stunt on someone who has $50,000 - or more - at stake, it is a whole different level of trouble, and he needs to have some wiggle room written in stone to protect himself. Further, the disclaimer he put up currently might seem funny as all get out to him, and it does reek of 'kiss my grits', but it will do nothing to reassure a serious domain owner that trading xx,xxx or xxx,xxx level domains on this site is a good idea.

 

[Domainate.com]

Andres seemed a bit annoyed when he wrote as he had. I wouldn't blame him (he took a shot at me in there lol) but I think we all pretty much agree that the execution of OUD has been sloppy. Well, we're being given the reigns. Let's see if we can make OUD a success. I'll ideate a bit and post my thoughts soon.

This'll be my last post in this thread. I honestly knew he was going to fail and only became interested when I saw names I formerly owned in the mix like Casino.rw. I don't like the crap he laid out in that post on his site...now he's basically like "you think you can do better, so YOU help me make $1 million!" No thanks, Andres. Good luck! :P

I was not against him reaching out to end users via a Sedo sale, I was just angry with his timing. If no submissions survive a filtering process, then sure, try to Sedo the domain. He had 8 domains that were supposed to be accepted, though. My point to him was basically, if you try this stunt on someone who has $50,000 - or more - at stake, it is a whole different level of trouble, and he needs to have some wiggle room written in stone to protect himself. Further, the disclaimer he put up currently might seem funny as all get out to him, and it does reek of 'kiss my grits', but it will do nothing to reassure a serious domain owner that trading xx,xxx or xxx,xxx level domains on this site is a good idea.

Yea, I personally probably wouldn't deal with this crap if there were seriously valuable names involved. I don't know what putting the names on Sedo auction has to do with extension of time for offers. What happens if the names sell for $10 each and he then accepts a name submitted that's low-mid $xxx? Gee, thanks!

 

[BrandYourself]

Some interesting ideas flying around
My suggestions are as follows :

Turn oud into a multi listing domain trading platform
ie instead of one domain / or package as at present why not have multiple entries from varied traders

I'm convinced the market is there
Set universal rules for trades incl. options to make a cash offer

Essentially not only a trading platform but also an anction system option too

 

[verbster]

Turn oud into a multi listing domain trading platform
ie instead of one domain / or package as at present why not have multiple entries from varied traders

This is a good idea and would solve the subjectivity of values for some domains.

Here's a rough idea (not thought out): list the top 3-5 domains submitted and let people make cash or domain trade offers for any of the 3 -5 domains...hopefully, one or two of the domains would receive some decent offers of trades or cash...then relist the accepted trades and cash for the next round of 3 - 5 domains....attack on multiple fronts instead of forcing one domain all the time.

I know this is sketchy, but I think it could be worked out...almost like an ongoing swap or cash site, with the intent of the site to keep offering up the best it receives....and any cash offers or pledges.

 

[Erdy]

I think the multi domain trading idea is a good one. On the other hand I disagree that the best way is to let Andres rate the domains. The best way is to have a commision of experienced namepros members. I think 3 experienced namepros members should be enough. Andres should choose these people among those who are willing. With 3 members the desicions can be faster. If two out of three say OK then the trade happens.

It goes like this:

1. There are 10 active domains at any given time.

2. There is no time limit for anything. Offers and trades will happen 24/7.

3. People can submit any domain, any time for any of the 10 active names.

4. They can submit the same domain for one or many of teh active domains. So this means I'm willing to trade my domain for number 3,6,7,and 9. There should be small thick boxes during submission.

5. On the website there should be a table with 10 columns. On the top of each column there should be the active domain that is traded at the moment. Underneath is a list of offered names. These are currently considered by the commision. Any rejected domain will drop from that column. The commision should make a desicion within 3 days.

This way OUD will be very active. There will be trades everyday. Even multiple trades might happen the same day. Also there will be 10 different names on offer at any given time.

Edit:
I have changed my mind about one commision reviewing all 10 columns. These should be more than one commision. Let the commisions compete with each other. Lets say columns 1-5 are reviewed by commision-A and 6-10 by commision-B.

 

[Archangel]

Not a bad idea, MarcelProust. In fact, this would be great. My only thought is: What would be in it for the NP'ers or whoever for their effort? A lot of activity is the BEST way OUD could succeed (Come on, the site currently turns stale often. It's seldom updated anymore). If ppl go out of their way daily (maybe hourly) to help Andres make $1mil, what would be in it for those who help? Maybe Andres could exchange a service for their help. A thought: Perhaps the domainers who help would be given exposure for their domains i.e. there could be profiles on OUD for each 'expert' who helps with the decision process. On it, these ppl could post their own domains etc. for sale. I don't think that would cause competition with the domains on offer and I believe this would be sufficient compensation for the commissions that help with Andres' pursuit of a million-dollar domain.

 

[domaindigger]

If Andres acts like this while losing a 1K domain, what will really be interesting is watching him wriggle as he is forced to trade down from a 100K domain to an 80K domain, which is bound to happen a few times on the journey up to 1 mil. I wonder if people will be as understanding then when he screws them out of twenty grand and changes the rules mid round. After all, he IS setting a precedent now, isn't he? That it is okay to modify the rules to his advantage?

Are we seriously seeing this so differently or is one of us not understanding what happened? You say "acts like this" like he backed down from a trade, which would obviously kill his reputation and finish OUD. But he didn't back down from a trade. He was quiet the whole round 14, and then at the end of it received cash offers in Sedo, which changed the whole playing field, so he sent them to auction (again to make things more interesting) and extended the round. He's done this before, I believe. And you say that he modified the rules "to his advantage". Uhm, what would have happened if nobody had offered more than the $160 starting bid on Sedo? Then no domainers would have offered him crap for Round 14, and he would have done a MAJOR trade down, so how is that to his advantage? He took a huge gamble, which I'm still not sure would have paid off. You are distorting the facts.

Plus, I don't see any of the other 7 domainers that participated in this round here complaining. From the *noise* your making, it would seem like there's a huge uproar, but there's only one guy, you, re-hashing the same thing over and over again. And I don't remember anyone here at NP complaining when Andres did similar things in the past (although I could be wrong, I don't fully remember). You're starting to sound like a whiner, IMHO, and its not helping OUD. I don't know if I'm the only one who thinks that or not, but I suspect I'm not. This is nothing personal against you roguewriter, I'm just stating my opinion based on facts.

And yes, I certainly was angry about getting screwed out of a decent chance for a win - not because of the domains as much as the permanent inbound link from a PR 4 or above site. How much do you think that link will be worth in a few months, when it reaches PR5, 6 or even, PR7? But then, I have stated this multiple times.

Uhm, don't you already have a link at the top of OUD when you traded RealitySeris.tv for VoiceTone.mobi? You're complaining because you don't have a second one? Again, it makes you look like a whiner. Who said your domain was going to win the vote anyway?


Anyway guys, Andres screwed up the moment he removed his own domain from the vote. If I remember correctly, he did that to, again, "make things interesting", but it obviously didn't pay off (I knew from the beginning that it was a bad idea). He also made a stupid gamble to send the current domains to auction, but was lucky Sedo canceled it and saved his ass.

But can we reach a consensus of either saying THE END to OUD and putting it behind us or of determining how to move on so that we stop all this unproductive whining? If the consensus is for the latter, then I think he should just re-add his own offer to the vote and continue with business as usual.

What's the CONSENSUS?

 

[rome2ng]

When you say worth 1 million, you mean the domain he wants or the domain he owns?

If its the domain he owns, go ahead, you dont lose anything anyways.

 

[domaindigger]

From what I get, he's starting with oneuglydomain.com and is going to trade it up until he ends up with a domain someone is willing to buy for $1 million. Anyone can offer any domain they own, and visitors to the site will choose which offer he should accept during each trade. What I was thinking, if this is serious, is that those domains he is trading will become popular from the publicity of this alone (if this even takes off), just like each trader and item that traded with the oneredpaperclip guy got a lot of PR (especially the snowglobe guy). So if one of my domains ended up being voted and I ended up with one of his domains, it would get my new domain a lot of publicity.

Does that make sense?

 

[Epic]

When you say worth 1 million, you mean the domain he wants or the domain he owns?

If its the domain he owns, go ahead, you dont lose anything anyways.

He wants to trade his bad domain for a slightly better one, then trade that for a slightly better one, then trade that for a slightly better one, and so on. Eventually he wants to get a million dollar domain.

Interesting idea, but I don't think there's too many domainers who are willing to give into his plan.

 

[rome2ng]

You can give it a try.

Indeed, domains like this will generate much more traffic (due to publicity).

You will also have a surged pagerank as well, mainly because many news sites (with good PR) will have a link to the domain you got saying "blah.com has been traded for blahblah.com".

 

[domaindigger]

CriminalOrigins,

Why do you think many domainers won't be willing to give into his plan? If the experts won't do it, then why would I? I suppose that's kind of what I was asking with my original post.

rome2ng, I didn't think about the pagerank, I guess that's a plus. Maybe even if my domain is not voted, I could still feed off the pagerank if he links to all offers, not just the winning ones.