Back in April we posted about the domain name Power.com hitting the auction block and today the auction went live.
Power.com was registered back in 1992 and has never before made available for sale.
The auction ends on September 22, 2011.
The domain is being brokered by Rokme, Inc. which is conducting the auction (there info is below)
The minimum bid is $2.5 Million dollars.
“”Few domains possess the stature of Power.com. ”
“Like signature real estate, domains such as Power.com attract the attention of the world’s investment and business elite. ”
“These savvy investors and shrewd brand marketers truly understand the long-term value of rare, Tier 1 Internet domains. ”
“Accordingly, registration into the Power.com auction is strictly reserved for those entities and individuals possessing sufficient resources to acquire, brand and develop this unique domain.”
If you have interest in participating in the auction here are the details:
“”The Power.com auction details are presented below. Please read them carefully and thoroughly, especially if you, your company or organization are planning to bid.
If you have any questions that are not answered here or in the Q & A section, please feel free to contact RokMe for clarification and/or further details.
Power.com facts:
- Exclusive: Power.com was hand-registered in 1992 and has never been made available for sale to the public
- Premium: Power.com is a generic, category-defining, 5-character domain, possessing tremendous inherent value
- Brandable: Power.com is uniquely positioned to showcase your world-class industry, corporate or personal brand, product or service
- Global Name Recognition: Power.com instantly communicates undeniable position, status and prestige.
Power.com Auction – 3 Easy Steps:
- Complete the Power.com Registration.
- Select your method of payment and pay the bidder registration fee. Official bid cards will be delivered to you.
- Make your bid(s).
Prospective bidders must register to become Authorized Bidders. Prospective bidders must provide all required information, agree with the Terms and Conditions and have paid the bidder registration fee. Only Authorized Bidders will receive official auction bid cards required to bid in the Power.com auction.
The bidder registration fee is $2,500 USD and is payable via PayPal (cash or credit card) or by wire transfer.
Please consider wisely.
The $2,500 payment is the bidder registration fee. NO amount of the registration fee will be applied to the winning bid and the registration fee is non-refundable, even if you elect not to make a bid.
Once you become an Authorized Bidder you will receive the auction bid cards via bonded courier delivered to the postal address provided during bidder registration.
Register for the Power.com auction””
As far as Rokme a company I never heard of this is what they say about themselves on the site:
“”RokMe is a company headed by long-time domain asset managers that have had their fair share of successfully buying, selling and brokering domains, domain name development, blogging and introducing new and innovative products to the market. That said, we’ve also had our fair share of disappointments. Like many domain pioneers, we worked through the adversity and lean times, learned from our mistakes and are proud of the honesty and integrity with which we have conducted ourselves in this amazing industry. In the school of hard knocks, we’ve learned a few lessons along the way.”
“Because RokMe is relatively unknown in corporate and UHNW circles, we engaged the services of Deloitte & Touche LLP and Pitblado LLC to assist in the auction process. Deloitte & Touche LLP are one of the most respected international audit and consulting firms in the world. Their assignment as facilitator is incorporated to instill the level of comfort to all bidders that the auction is and will be conducted “as advertised”.
Power.com is worth it or more. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to state that this domain should sell for not less than $50 Million dollars!
$2.5M is alotta money mane!
Another botched sale attempt coming here. $2.5million starting bid? $2500 to register to bid? What on earth are these people thinking?
“Please consider wisely.”
what’s to consider?
Forget $50 million Power.com
Now, You can get a lot cheaper to buy gTLD extension, i.Power for only $185000 plus…
Domain name speculation is over my fellows. The maximum power.com will fetch is $9k. That time is over. Will have a .power extension soon, why buy power.com?
“What on earth are these people thinking?”
While no one can read their minds but here are a few speculative guesses:
human stupidity knows no limits
a sucker is born every minute; our chances are very good
who can resist the ease of paypal and 3 easy steps?
the “deloitte” name will distract attention from names like “rokme” and “pitblado”
who reads terms and conditions? our lawyers can easily handle the worst possible scenario
even if the buyer can’t pay for the domain we still got 2.5K of his money
what have we got to lose? let’s try it
You pay 2.5k to bid even if you don’t win they keep your money?
To all the newbies out there stating brand.power for $185k is a better buy, you have to take yourself out of the industry, and put yourself in the shoes of an average web user who defaults to .com. Domain will go in the 4-5M range.
@ Ron
“…To all the newbies out there stating brand.power for $185k is a better buy, you have to take yourself out of the industry, and put yourself in the shoes of an average web user who defaults to .com. Domain will go in the 4-5M range….”
Seriously, you don’t need to buy power.com. There is a logic behind my thought.
If a company in a smart move and innovative enough, the company can think of other branding strategy to create a unique branding. so as to avoid buying $5 million domain names.
All you have to do is hire a creative global brand designer to come out innovative and inventive ideas. Since you can get anything from gTLD for $185000+ , this is great opportunity to create new exciting brand. Such as,
i.i
i.super
i.energy
i.hot
i.power
power.i
power.on
and so on…
So, why do you want to spend power.com for $5 million?
You better off spend $5 million minus $185000 to feed the third world., for the good of humanity point of view.
It’s my logical opinion.
@Stone probably is what they thinking.
I would say the issue here is once you announce a sale process and then the name doesn’t sound it gets “lemonish” pretty quickly. Like social.com for example. “Why didn’t the name sell? It must be overpriced? These guys will be desperate now there is nobody interested!”
Better to start it at a point where it will get a good level of interest interest rather than starting it where very few would ever be likely to go.
Power.com: That domain is a marketeers dream assignment, sports stadiums, team advertising, all & any out of home advertising POWER.com and now think online. This domain is perfect media message for a national – international grid supplier. You will not be considered Power without the .com.
i.power / power.i / okay if apple.com moves into power generation.
For me, this will be something of a benchmark for the future in terms of the brands using the .com as the default brand and just defensively registering dot whatever directly or via speculators
@ emma
“Domain name speculation is over my fellows. The maximum power.com will fetch is $9k. That time is over. Will have a .power extension soon, why buy power.com?”
Emma, how exactly did you arrive at that number? Just wondering because you are coming off kinda clueless.
.COM is prime real estate, and will state that way. All an extension like .power will do is drive more traffic to power.com. These new extensions won’t even hit the market, at best, for 2 1/2 years. That is a best case scenario.
Also, $2500 registration fee to bid. Good luck with that.
Brad
@Snoopy
“…Like social.com for example. “Why didn’t the name sell? It must be overpriced?…”
I think since gTLD news came out, bidders went back to drawing board and rethinking of company branding and possibility of new Global Cyber Brand potentials for their business.
The bidders probably think of other good global extensions that are as good as or better than Social.com with cheaper price.
They may think of .Social with price tag of $185000+
According to smh.com.au, “…Dotcom is old tech – here comes dotwhatever.youlike”.
You can read the latest news from Sydney Morning Herald:
http://www.smh.com.au/small-business/smallbiz-tech/dotcom-is-old-tech–here-comes-dotwhateveryoulike-20110621-1gchi.html
I just want to know how many registered bidders they get. I feel like they are charging $2,500 to simply make it seem more exclusive, oh and then even if it doesn’t sell then they at least make some decent cash even if it doesn’t sell.
Brad
Power.com max it will fetch is 9K, kind of a silly statement when the reserve is $2.5M.
I mean if it was a NR auction you could say its going to sell for $x max but under the circumstances, we will never know if your right or wrong (unless it sells for $2.5M or more)
$2.5M, not gonna happen, someone wants someone else to cover their wasted funds on a stupid idea.
Even during some of our best times the name wouldnt see 7 figs.
By the way it should read ” has never been made available to purchase PUBLICLY ”
I came close to buying it before these yahoos did and they received many more offers over the last 4-5 years I am sure, non at $2.5M LOL
I think the only interested buyers would be companies that made too much money this year and got liquidity
RAYY.com@
What I like is the credibility of the brand & one that takes years to build, I can get a fake at a street market.co
@josh – how much did they pay for it?
@ohg, I cannot share anything but what I was told when my final offer was turned down.
At that time (roughly 4 years ago ) I was told by the owner that she was approached by a company (same company with idiotic idea who made her some great promises and potential to make much more (obviously more than my offer). She did not indicate specifics but I would say quite confidently they didnt pay her even close to 7 figures up front, I recall I exlained to her my offer was cash, their’s was a dream. I suspect and again only a guess that perhaps there was some type of stock option or maybe cash/stock/buy out option. Again only a guess but as far as I gathered it wasnt a straight domain buy at that time.
My fear was she didn’t get anything but a stock option, if she didn’t sale out and how could she if the business model was bust and they clearly were not profitable, she didn’t get much of anything. However in saying that it is possible she is still a share holder in the name and will benefit from a large sale, I have no idea, just guessing.
End of day it may work out better for her if thats the case and that companys debt and creditors don’t eat up the millions they need????
the right auction to start a poll about its final price 🙂
Looking at whois it appears that the original owners company is still the registrant ( that is not to say the company didnt buy her Inc but if they did they naturally would have changed the registrant name to their startups)
Any way the admin name still reflects the woman I spoke with as well from 4 years ago so she seems to still have a share in the name, how much who knows, like I said if she didnt incur any debts and she gets her share of the sale free from creditors, she may do well in the end, I hope for her any ways.
If power.com is unconcerned by .power, that’s largely because there’ll be no community support for that particular TLD.
tldwatch.com puts possible launch at Jan 2013?
Alternative energy is a current, and even bigger, future industry, especially in America. I think the seller(s) is aiming to ride that wave. It is a good name, and valuable. Brandability is excellent. The comment about selling for 9k is absolutely moronic. However, 2.5 million at this moment in time may be very difficult. And a public auction is not the proper format for selling the domain imo.
This will sell. Utility companies have big bucks, and there will always be strong demand for utilities so having this domain makes sense.
Just think of the tens of millions they spend each quarter on advertising, for under $3MM they can buy a great permanent advertising space to acquire new customers.
And the utility companies aren’t going to care about pony’ing up $2,500 to register to bid.
IMO, Power.com is more valuable than Social.com.
@ M. Menius
“And a public auction is not the proper format for selling the domain imo.”
The auction is not “public” per se. The first part of the auction is a sealed bid auction whereby all bids are held in trust by Deloitte & Touche LLP and all opened at the same time. Only RokMe, its official suppliers and the winning bidder will know the result.
Public access, private transaction.
Cheers,
Posted on:
http://power.com/the-power-com-blog/
Google has been looking at power generation and supply for quite some time. http://x.co/GoogPower.
guess they’ll be glad of power.google then
I don’t think the 2500 thing is such a bad idea, if it’s in lieu of a buyers premium on the backend. It makes sense to weed out the massive amount of bullshitters and ‘hubris bidding’ that occurs in domain auctions.
Anyone who is serious about placing a 2.5mm bid isn’t going to hesitate to pay a 0.1% front-side premium to play.