Epik Auctions Nets $47K in Name Auction

The Epik.com Developer’s Conference Auction was held today, and for a first event showing the Epik.com event is off to a respectable start.The auction sum was almost $48K in total for eleven domain names. The big tipoff moneychanger was $17,500 for ComputerTips.com. Pillows.net had a soft landing at $16,000. TacticalKnife.net cut up at $3,000. Next up was Beachbags.net. for a respectable chunk of change for a dot-net, bagged at $2500.

Then Camcorder-Microphones, long but useful, was picked up by a $2,000 bid. BeerCoolers.net iced out at $1500. Exercise mat.net was rolled up at $1,200. KidsChairs.net sat down for $1250. CottonThread.com was strung up at $1100. ClothingRack.net racked up about $1,000, followed by DVDStand.com which stood for a thrifty $700.

The Epik Developer’s Conference in Seattle continues, flavored by strategic speakers marketing their domain and site development profit models. While some domain market watchers speculated this was a poor showing, some industry veterans commented that “for an initial event auction to turn close to $48K is more than a modest success”. Epik.com’s 1st conference continues through today.

Italy.Net Sells For $52,000

Those who might say the geo market and the dot net market are all washed up can celebrate the sale of Italy.net , co brokered by a career domainer with Andrew Rosener (of Mediaoptions com). Italy.net had been listed at $75,000 at MO in early July …and had also been a lot entry in Latona’s live Milan TRAFFIC auction in April. The dot-net for geo names and proper country and city names remains vibrant, even into the dot-net and beyond. The short .net vends for $52 at a price point good for both buyer and seller.

Pool Skim for Names Tuesday July 13th

It’s Tuesday the thirteenth of  July at Pool.com and more mouth watering domain deals are dropping and deleting. Directory titan searchyourarea.com continues at auction, as does boysbasketball.net. Typo names ludacis.com and ripurl mature (for ludacris ans ripcurl). Companyinvestors.com shines with appeal.

The name heycutie.com is a great dating site name, and money and financial site names are coming up with the big bids in the varsity Pool lane. Bestmoneysite.com starts volley of money names. Moneyanswers.net and moneyforpayments.com bring the dollar sign into the domain game. Eleventhhourwiki.com is a surprising but intriguing name with unique development promise.

Deleting from the Pool pack are names like advertisewizard.com, a sure fire affiliate attractor. Crimefilm.com digs a noir niche ditch. The realty winner name findnewhouse.com should see competitive bidding. Bettingpoint.com makes a nice gambling site name. The shorty name on offer at Pool.com auction of 5rn.com could be a nursing directory. Forumdomains.com is an exciting name for both listing names notching traffic for same.

Metal.com sold for 165,000 dollars

It is interesting to see a six figure domain sale at Sedo domain marketplace and the domain being sold is Metal.com. Metal.com is sold for $165,000 and the domain would be a great acquisition if the buyer is an end user.

The domain has been registered since 1995 and currently it is at Godaddy. The price is fair price for both the buyer and seller, in my opinion. When I looked at the stats for the keyword, I found out that there are around 1 million exact searches per month for the keyword in Google and it is not surprising the domain is going for a six figure.

Paypal Suspends Personal Accts India

PayPal, an eBay company, has suspended personal payments to and from India and transfers to local banks in the country. Domainers using Indian talent to produce SEO or content products may be stalled making payments or getting paid for services. PayPal is used in India by many to receive payment for services such as software development and freelance writing.

Customers can still make commercial payments to India, but merchants cannot withdraw funds in rupees at local Indian banks, it added. This will convolute many existing partnerships and vendor arrangements with domainers and their clients. But Paypal cites the difficulty resolving payment issues and identity problems with an Indian originating vendor or client.

The India Paypal personal banking services online and between Indian merchant branches function online in a critical capacity for international commerce. Paypal operations for personal accounts using Paypal have been suspended while the company works with its “business partners and other stakeholders to address questions they have about the service.” 

PayPal said it is trying to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and that it was sorry for the inconvenience that it may cause its customers in India and around the world. A number of bloggers and Web sites have reported that the company has reversed and returned payments to senders.

PayPal executives in the region were not available for comment on specific reasons why the service was discontinued. Allegations of international identity theft and questionable transactions will cause Paypal to review banking traffic between Indian members and clients, as well as other global banking transaction originators.

The move by PayPal may be linked to new Indian government rules aimed at preventing money laundering, according to an analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity. Last November, the Indian government introduced rules requiring financial institutions and other intermediaries to verify the identity of clients carrying out international money transfers.

PayPal’s user agreement says it does not guarantee any user’s identity because verifying identity of an indian individual is virtually impossible with current Paypal resources.  PayPal does reserve the right to validate customers’ identities, including asking for documents.

PayPal is used in India by many to receive payment for services such as software development and freelance writing. But the exchange of international services in Russia and China may depend on these issues.

Swype.com sold for $25,000 Did Swype Inc acquire it?

Recently Swype.com was sold for $25,000 at the Sedo domain market place and it was quite a good domain sale for a non-dictionary word domain.

When I checked the whois info of Swype.com , the admin and tech details include an email with @swypeinc.com and most likely it was acquired by Swype Inc which is based in Seattle, US.

When I checked trademark database, Swype is still trademarked and it is live.

Any way, it was a good domain sale for a non-dictionary word .com domain.

Mint.com makes a mint at market

Four letter dot com Mint.com speared the minty market of domains. Money doesn’t grow on trees, but Intuit, Inc agreed to purchase personal finance websiteMint.com and the domain name Mint.com for $170 million. Intuit, Inc. products include QuickBooks, TurboTax and Quicken. An intuitive choice?

Domain Thief Jailed

Talk about setting the bar too high. A New Jersey man arrested for hijacking a 6-figure domain name is today cooling his heels upstate. This arrest follows a trend since 2006 when a group that included domain industry pioneer Marc Ostrofsky and former Justice Department prosecutor Albert Angel got their name stolen.(P2P.com). As Dnjournal specifies, Note to crook: Re-read your Robbery 101 text book – stealing from federal prosecutors is NEVER a good idea.

StimulusMoney.com Sale March 19

StimulusMoney.com is scheduled for auction!
Details: Domain Name without content
Reserve price range: 1 – 499 USD
Auction starts on: Mar/19/09 01:00 PM EST
Estimated end time: Mar/26/09 01:00 PM EST

Stimulus names

Any word regarding the market on stimulus package related names, state by state stimulus reporting and consumer watch? The earmark caution on the stimulus grants is a note to follow up. I predict there could be very good traffic from state by state and industry stimulus spending sites.

Anybody out there doing a blog or stimulus domain name sweep?

I checked my native California stimulus packages and earmark review. A lot of construction and recycling, municipal “pork” and programs. A lot of data to scraope for the right blog…..Stimulus jobs update…..