I just received notice from someone attending the Live DomainFest auction in Barcelona that the auction for today has been cancelled due to technical issues and rescheduled for next week.
We wrote earlier that SnapNames.com the remote bidding system has been down for hours and Moniker.com is also down.
While we await some official word I’m told the domain name auction will be held next Wednesday at the same time 10am EST.
Unfortunately for me, I will be traveling to Singapore and will miss the auction unless I can catch it aboard the flight.
UPDATE 1:
Just received this email from Oversee:
“””
Due to a technical issue, the Moniker Live auction in Barcelona slated for today will not be conducted as scheduled.
Our tech team is working to identify and resolve the problem as soon as possible.
Moniker and SnapNames very much regret the inconvenience this has caused our customers.
The difficult decision was made in order to protect the integrity of our auctions for both buyers and sellers.
I will have an update for you as soon as possible regarding the auction inventory and rescheduled auction activity”
We will keep you updated
So either folks will have to go back to Barcelona next week to bid “live” or it really won’t be a Live Auction after all…
It will just be another domainer auction with end user pricing.
Why don’t they hold the auction tomorrow?
At least they got their hefty data.com commission before auction start.
This is it for moniker sadly. Don’t think anyone will want to use it again after what has happened lately with the company and service they provide.
They’re back up! Here is the link again to the cataglog:
http://domainauctions.moniker.com/viewCatalog?id=209
Wow you got to love that!
“The difficult decision was made in order to protect the integrity of our auctions for both buyers and sellers.”
How long was Halvarez on the rampage and how many top guys at snapnames knew about it all along?
At least it gives them an excuse (and to save face) why no buyers came. The real reason is that the reserves are off the scale. Even if social.com had a 100k reserve, i doubt they would get any bidders. The only ones that will show up will be the shill bidders in hope that a deal can be done after the auction.
Even if social.com had a 100k reserve, i doubt they would get any bidders.
—
LOL.
No.
Ricks
Think your way off base on this one.
They definitely had technical difficulties as snapnames was down so they just postponed it as they should have.
There are some quality names at reasonable reserves that will sell
Monikers old theme song:
We Are The Champions – by Queen
Monkiers new theme song:
I Don’t Care Anymore – by Phil Collins
Hey MB, I didn’t mean to say they did this on purpose. Just to say they can give this as an excuse to the sellers and the domain community why some names didn’t sell at the conclusion of the auction.
For social.com, which is definitely the “prize” name they are marketing, I would certainly say 100k is a bit high let alone 5 million. Back in late 2004, almost 10 years after the owner registered the name, he readily admits that the appraisals he has received were under 100k. This was after some of the “social media” and dating sites have already been developed such as friendster, myspace, and facebook.
The fact that social media is huge, doesn’t equate to social.com being now worth 6 figures. In fact, maybe a bit less. Facebook has a lock in this space. Friendster couldn’t even survive and I am not sure how many people still use myspace. Some have suggested that you could set up a simple aggregator that would combine the different social media sites. Unfort, the actual idea is very easy, and you don’t need a generic domain for it. In fact, a catchy domain name for a few hundred dollars and a LOT of adverstising dollars would get you on your way.
I believe the auction hopes that a deal will be done far higher than a 5 figure valuation after the auction is complete. (if the reserve is 5 million, it must be worth at least 7 figures!) Unfort, the people in this space are very wise and won’t bite. I understand you need one person to believe its worth 7 figures to make the sale, but i don’t think you will find one person at 6 figures.
http://www.namepros.com/domain-appraisals/45705-social-com.html
Ricks
No need to apologize, you have your opinion and I have mine and all opinions are welcome here.
You certainly don’t have to agree with me.
While I have no problem criticizing or calling out companies at times I also try to see all sides and be fair.
So to be fair I think that DomainFest with the sale of Data.com yesterday for a price much closer to the $5M top range than the $1.5M lower range, is already a success.
Social.com could sell for $5M, not to a domainer but to a company with a market cap in the billions like salesforce.com that bought data.com.
Namepros.com is a great forum for domainers to discuss issues but its not a place your going to find CEO of public or private companies with a Billion dollar valuation.
While Facebook has a huge market share of the social space there are a lot of other players in and coming in not just in the US but all around the world and they are not folding up shop, giving up or allowing Facebook to be the only player in the social space
Beyond Social.com, there are other domains in the auction that will sell.
You know the overall domain industry is better off when these high profile auctions are successful so I take no pleasure in seeing it having to be called off due to snap being down.
I think they had nice momentum with the Data.com sale yesterday going into the auction today and its really too bad they had to postpone it (although that was the right thing to do)
No big deal. All they have to do is use the versisgn metric doohickey grab a hundred new registrations, acution em off and delete any that don’t sell. Hows that for maintaining the INTEGRITY of the auction for buyers and sellers. Oversee should forever here after be prohibited from using the word INTEGRITY in any correspondence related to their business. Integrity, thats a laugh