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?

 

[Erdy]

Last round I voted to keep the .im's but looking it now I think YouthCollege.com would have been a better choice. At least we could move on then.
This round I'm not going to vote for the .im's no matter how bad names are offered.

 

[Alex]

Last round I voted for YouthCollege.com, not because it was my domain, but because I thought that we need to move on fast, before the domains expire. And it was not that bad, I got a $150 offer for it, that I did not accepted.

I wait for .com to be submitted this round, OUD definitely has to move on. I hope to see a good domain, at least in the low $xxx range.

Alex

 

[tristanperry]

I think that YouthCollege.com should have won also... however in the round before that, I feel that the eBoyfriend portfolio would have benefit OUD more than the .im set that one it.

Anywhoo, hopefully OUD will get back on track soon. I've got some good quality LLLL.com names that I may offer up over the next few rounds if some better domains are up for trade

Personally I'd hope that Andres will consider restricting the domains that can be offered to maybe just the 5-6 biggest TLDs or something; I think it's safest that way.

 

[Archangel]

I think that YouthCollege.com should have won also... however in the round before that, I feel that the eBoyfriend portfolio would have benefit OUD more than the .im set that one it.

Anywhoo, hopefully OUD will get back on track soon. I've got some good quality LLLL.com names that I may offer up over the next few rounds if some better domains are up for trade

Personally I'd hope that Andres will consider restricting the domains that can be offered to maybe just the 5-6 biggest TLDs or something; I think it's safest that way.

Because all ext have vastly different values and sometimes all we have to look at is speculation, the more obscure an ext, the harder it would be to pin a value on. It's a bad idea listing a .im on here, more so a .name.

I would be willing to put the eBoyfriend set back on here for this round if Andres would accept it (and if I can find a quick buyer). With expiration coming soon, I kinda doubt I'd find a buyer, though.

 

[briman1970]

It'll be interesting to see what happens from this point. The offering period is over and there are only four domains to compete against the .im set (if you count the .name). If the .im names win again, at least one renewal must be made by Andres since InstantMessage.im is due for deletion in only four days.

Andres should go ahead and renew all the names if the .im set wins again. I think he'd start to see some real nice offers come in if he did that. Of course, that's just IMHO.

EDIT: InstantMessage.im is not due for deletion. Brits display their dates as dd/mm/yyyy NOT mm/dd/yyyy. Sorry. :red:

 

[tristanperry]

My e-mail to Andres:

Hey Andres,
Really sorry, however I just sold Gnawing.org and Draining.org without thinking about things... hence I'll have to retract these two offers from OUD. Many apologies!

However Gluing.org is still up for trade/offer

Also, I'm throwing into the trade (as a set):

LBXS.COM, KEHJ.COM, QEJY.COM

Due to my e-mail problems, please reply in receipt of this

Thanks and best regards,
Tristan

So now we've got a .name, .org and LLLL.com set up for offer

EDIT:

Expiration dates are:

OnlineCasino.im 06/07/2007 23:59:59
OnlinePoker.im 07/07/2007 23:59:59
InstantMessage.im 05/07/2007 23:59:59
Wifi.im 06/07/2007 23:59:59

However that's in DD/MM/YYYY format, so there is a little while left before expiration

 

[Erdy]

I didn't know about expiry dates being so close. If you add to that the huge renewal fees the current situation is a disaster.

Before the last voting he should have mentioned these facts. He should have said, "look people, these names are expiring on that date and it will cost that much money to renew them. Consider these details when you are voting."

We voters can not check every detail. We simply look to the list and pick a name that looks good.

It appears that Andres holds the org and info versions of OUD as well. Maybe he should throw in one of them and start over, hopefully this time talking more about facts and keeping a neutral approach.

 

[tristanperry]

"We voters can not check every detail. We simply look to the list and pick a name that looks good."

- it is the buyer's (or trader's) job to check these things. Things like the domain expiration dates should be checked before any transaction goes ahead IMHO - this is one of the major details that needs to be checked.

 

[akcampbell]

Good idea but the wheels have come off big time. To ratchet up value Andres has to focus on the disparity between the theoretical value of a domain and the emotive and unique value.

With a bunch of domain nuts playing the game and deciding on the best offer to accept it's all about the theoretical valuation which minimises the scope for boosting inherent value. The range of theoretical valuations amongst enthusiasts is too narrow to make any real progress.

I think you could turn a nothing domain into $1m but you'd have to do it privately by buying and selling rather than swapping, and work round the clock on research, price negotiation, and marketing.

 

[tristanperry]

The voting stage is up

And Andres has quickly mentioned that the .im's expiration dates weren't MM/DD/YYYY - they are DD/MM/YYYY - I've edited my post accordingly

 

[briman1970]

Expiration dates are:

OnlineCasino.im 06/07/2007 23:59:59
OnlinePoker.im 07/07/2007 23:59:59
InstantMessage.im 05/07/2007 23:59:59
Wifi.im 06/07/2007 23:59:59

However that's in DD/MM/YYYY format, so there is a little while left before expiration

Oops... I forgot about that. :red: I will go now to edit my post.

 

[Ben42]

Wow, we really need to get rid of these .im's but not with those domains.

 

[Alex]

I voted for the set of LLLL's because we really need to move on. Another week would not bring any new domains. The .im set was already voted once, and time is money (I mean resources). If this round other offers did not come, I doubt next round it would.

Alex

 

[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

 

[Erdy]

The poll is here.

I'm really not sure what to do now. The LLLL.com's aren't worth more than 30 USD.

 

[RJ]

This is a really tough spot, for OUD, for Andres, and for voters.

We have several .IM's with only about a month left before renewal versus a trio of three letter domains worth only about $50 maybe. The .IM's are nice keywords and should be worth something to someone, but time is not on their side. $80.00 renewal fees on each, right? This might be the best offer that's going to come. There's no clear winner to vote for here.

Whatever happens, I hope the journey continues. Even if it means starting over with three ugly .com's.

 

[Andres Kello]

I'm replying to the posts from the veto vote thread here so we keep the discussion in this main thread.

Next round when the vote will occur, just keep in mind to hide the vote results till people vote, so that it should not influence the process. I think there is an option that you can check.

I didn't see that option, but if it's there, I'll definitely use it next voting round.

The population of the Isle of Man is 75,000 and this figure will never rise above 100,000 in the next 10-15 years. Somehow I don't think that there will ever be a significant market for online casinos with such a small population (that is always limited by the tiny size of the island). I would also bet that a significant proportion of the population do not even know that the .im extension exists.

What does the population of the Isle of Man have to do with the potential market size of an ONLINE Casino operating out of the Isle of Man? The .im in the domain is just to identify that the online casino is based in and regulated by the Isle of Man, which is a trustworthy, secure, and gambling-friendly jurisdiction, and such a casino can provide services to anyone in the world.

If you had your own forum, you would have just as much transparency, more so since you would have control of who signs up for your forum or not.

The problem is I wouldn't have anywhere near the amount of traffic (and quality!) that NamePros has at this point in time.

Sure, fine by me.

Big thanks, RJ! :tu:


Cheers guys!
Andres

 

[TOXX]

I'm replying to the posts from the veto vote thread here so we keep the discussion in this main thread.

I didn't see that option, but if it's there, I'll definitely use it next voting round.

What does the population of the Isle of Man have to do with the potential market size of an ONLINE Casino operating out of the Isle of Man? The .im in the domain is just to identify that the online casino is based in and regulated by the Isle of Man, which is a trustworthy, secure, and gambling-friendly jurisdiction, and such a casino can provide services to anyone in the world.

The problem is I wouldn't have anywhere near the amount of traffic (and quality!) that NamePros has at this point in time.

Big thanks, RJ! :tu:


Cheers guys!
Andres

Hi Andres, overall I congratulate you on your very novel idea!

 

[tristanperry]

Itch.mobi has been offered up - personally, I love this name, and I think that it'll really help to bring OUD forward (if it wins and gets into next round) Quite a generous/nice offer!

 

[Travis]

Itch.mobi has been offered up - personally, I love this name, and I think that it'll really help to bring OUD forward (if it wins and gets into next round) Quite a generous/nice offer!

It's a decent name, but not really something you could use for a website. I also don't think it is worth more than the current domain names by quite a bit.

 

[RogueWriter]

The problem is I wouldn't have anywhere near the amount of traffic (and quality!) that NamePros has at this point in time.

And you won't - ever - if you depend on someone else's site for surfer loyalty. s'all I'm saying, I do wish you success either way.

 

[dontknow]

I think that the whole process of trading up
to a million just takes too much time. People's
attention spans can't be stretched for months,
years, decades. Relying on people to cough up
top notch names for a lower valued domain and
a link on the page is a bit of a stumbling block.
Many people want something for nothing,
and you can't rely on a few generous
souls to carry this thing along...
I do hope it succeeds however.

 

[Archangel]

Itch.mobi has been offered up - personally, I love this name, and I think that it'll really help to bring OUD forward (if it wins and gets into next round) Quite a generous/nice offer!

I see no real development potential in it. But it looks nice, still

 

[Brujah]

Round 16 time is up. Any guesses which set of names will continue to Round 17?

 

[SJM211]

I'm guessing the .ims will win again as the others are pretty awful. I'd like to get involved again but don't want to trade for a set of domains I don't want - the $160 might have been better spent on a decent domain to offer up for trade rather than the renewing two of the .ims..