We have a few results from the first .NYC landrush auctions that closed today on Snapnames.com.
So first the disclaimers.
These numbers are unofficial.
These figures, did not come from the .NYC registry or Neustar the operator of the extension or SnapNames.com which held the auction. All these numbers came from bidders that may have won or lost landrush auctions.
All numbers are rounded off
Here are some of the winning bids according to some of those involved:
CarService.NYC was the highest domain name sale we had reported at $11,500.
Anyone who has spent some time in the city knows that Car Services are a very popular means of transportation especially for those that live outside of Manhattan.
Bitcoin.NYC was the 2nd highest domain sale we had reported to us with a winning big of $11k. I have no idea how Bitcoin has any special value in a .NYC extension but obviously more than 1 person did.
ForRent.NYC is over $9K
Homeinsurance.NYC sold for around $7,250
Facelift.NYC sold for around $6,750
Apartmentsforrent.NYC Around $5,500
Cannabis.NYC sold for around $4K
BTC.NYC sold for around $1,500
In all we know of more than 20 domain names that sold for $1k or more at the landrush auction.
The second of three .NYC land rush auctions rounds based off of the first letter of the domain name, kicks off tomorrow on October 28th and runs until October 31st.
I was THIS close to registering taxiservice.NYC several days back. Maybe I should have. lol.
I am sure there was more then 20, i think just in my 25 something auctions 10 went for 1k plus.
will provide feedback on .London private auctions too when they finish up this week. (though seems these pool.com auctions could last forever..)
Ya i am curious about .london auctions, though 24 hours is retarded. And can literally go forever.
I was wondering about bitcoin too, but today i event to an even hosted by digital.nyc and ran into one of the main guys connected to bitcoin new york. He cracked that puzzle in 2 seconds.
Apparently VCs just started investing into bitcoing start ups in mass, and they are flush with cash.
He said that right now investment into bit coins start ups is bigger then ever been. Hence 11k make sense, since start ups on top of the latest tech stuff more then others.
halloween.nyc went for $1550
Highest one on my list in the first round of .NYC auctions had 18 bidders. It sold for $8750. A very common 4 letter word. Major NYC industry. So much potential. I managed to grab another catchy 4 letter word domain surprisingly cheap in this first round for $56! I let 4 others go for between $100 and $400 each thinking whomever is willing to pay that for them might actually put them to good use, and I have already spread myself thin on how many professional websites I can manage with all these domains. I’m excited for a few coming up in this next round and in the final round. But, overall, I am very happy with the prospective value of my purchases thus far.
Yep,i had few auctions like that, where once it went to 100. I let it go, since its likely end user, and i all for it being developed. Thats why mbrc is annoying, somebody was trying to get artists and likely some end user , but brmc pretty much out bidded them hardcore, it went to 350 and thats it. To me its greedy and just bad taste. I would have let it go for a 100. Since end user will do a lot more with it then i likely will. And the name is not that great commercially anyway.
I am pretty happy with how auction went, i got very nice category for 10$ because other person didn’t show up. But then i had few multi k showdowns too, and some between 500-1k in between.
Motion, I see we are like minded about giving the little guy a break and letting a good domain get put to good use rather than sit idle waiting for someone to buy it. That’s nice to see. I was pretty surprised in general at how many great names were up for grabs even after the landrush period. I thought they would have all been gobbled up by the domain trading powerhouses. So, I guess the process has served its purpose of letting the average local business owner or artist in NYC grab a great place to call home on the web.
Another interesting thing worth noting, I lost around 8 really good domains I had registered during the regular pre-registration phase due to “errors” I wasn’t able to get any details on what those errors were. I think they might have been registered during the landrush period, and somehow I was still able to pre-register them, but then those transactions got reversed when the “errors” were discovered. I guess my point is, this whole process has had a lot of moving parts to get to this stage of the game. And, now that we are seeing some numbers I think the intrinsic value of having a .NYC domain is going to become more clear soon.
Oh i am with you on the abundance of good names after registration, i think nyc area doesnt have too many domainers. Even that BRMC guy, i am thinking is some corporation front. He throws money too easily and bids with no regard.
I had one error like that, 3 days later it got pulled from my account, apparently domain.com was super slow to process it, but the guy who did get it was the one who first requested, hence i cant really say its not fair. It was a really good name too. but for most part my registrar did a good job securing a names.
Numbers right now is still guided by people like BRMC, who pushes up price in every auction he is in. Vice versa, it also shows that people believe in the names, if they are willing to battle it out with the likes of him. .
‘A fool and his money are easily parted’
I don’t think anyone can call high bidders fools until the .nyc market is fully established. In the .com world these are all extremely cheap buys. It remains to be seen how much traction .nyc can get and how widely adopted it will be. But purely based on SEO, all these domains should be worth good money. It’s just a matter of time.
Just consider for example, that a plastic surgeon in Manhattan charges in the neighborhood of $5000 for a typical procedure with a gross margin of 50%.If he gets 4 clients from a website using plasticsurgery.nyc than a $10,000 domain purchase has paid for itself in a few days
if there were to be a market for this less desirable unneeded extension it would short lived and of the “greater FOOL” variety… then as for the rest of all the existing new gTLDs (Lotto tickets) the interest will dwindle to the level of the existing rolling tumbleweeds : .info .tv .biz .mobi etc etc…
fools trying to prey on ever bigger fools… the name of the game.
I will come and revisit this thread in a year.
Can you tell me why you think its unneeded ? Do you think adding blah blah nyc .com is needed? I will give you example why its needed, a bigger brand can get lets say, pizza.nyc and target it completely to new york users, giving it ability to provide a very specific experience for targeted audience. You still think it of as a Lotto ticket, wheres its really more of local .com version. Sure .com still will be used, but .nyc saves space for typing, makes it shorter, and gives more variety to businesses. Just a curiosity question, do you live in new york?
Make sure you set an alarm on your calendar so you don’t forget in 1 year
What you’re not understanding is how crazy the economy in New York City is. If we were talking .toledo you would be right on the money. But we’re talking the capital of the universe here
As nycx said, there is gtlds and then there is THE gtlds. Putting them all in one bracket is like saying all stones are worthless, well there are some diamonds among the stones.
When a gtld has a strong backing of goverment, and in in a huge city that a hub for tech and tourism, calling them fools is more likely shining some light on your self Domo.
Who knows how it will turn out, but at the moment .nyc tld showing no slowing down. And because it is local, any news that will be coming out of .nyc extension, will be picked up by the media. During launch of .nyc it was mentioned in Wall street journal, Forbes, new york times, and pretty much every media in new york. Every time there is something happens, thats big, media will want to pick it up and run with it. its like free PR machine for .nyc .
I really think the value of the .NYC will be enhanced in large part by NYC pride. NYC is a very special city. And, yes .NYC is a local; however, NYC has global reach as a brand in general. It is the world leader in so many areas. “NYC” transcends language and cultural boundaries. Everyone knows what NYC stands for.
Then there’s looking at it from the niche standpoint. New York City as a microcosm has enough self contained people and wealth to produce a tech boom much like the .com boom but at a smaller scale. Think of all the various industry and niche websites that will spawn from this. That means some lucky entrepreneurs entering this arena with the right idea and domain may be able to turn their $200 investment into a million dollar a year online business.
The built in marketing and PR possibilities are endless as more and more of these domains become popular online destinations. It’s sort of like the old field of dreams quote “If you build it they will come.”
So maybe I have really drunk the Kool-Aid on this, but part of what makes this a decent gamble is exactly the point Domo Sapiens brought up. Think of how many fools there are ready to give up their hard earned cash online in NYC. It’s happening right now as we speak. Why not give up your hard earned cash to a local .NYC website instead of a .COM?
I am a web developer and software engineer by trade, so my plan isn’t to squat. It’s to build and make money on doing business online here in the Big Apple.
it’s more than just pride – the nyc metro economy is bigger than some countries
There are many local businesses with millions in revenue, and they all engage in cut-throat competition. Once they realize they need to own their .nyc for SEO, the market will really take off
It’s interesting how many business owners I know haven’t gotten their brand.NYC yet. I have been proactively getting the word out to all my business owner friends. But, then again I know plenty of business owners who still don’t even have a website.
This is true, many businesses operate in lucrative offline networks. But just by googling you can see that the vast majority do have an online presence yet are still not informed about the .nyc tld
I think it will take a year or two to really catch up. Its right name, right place, goverment didnt butcher launch, media is totally on board with it. I haven’t seen one media place say “why do we need one?” which is interesting, because normally you would expect media to be the most critical for sensationalism. Coverage of .nyc happening is brisk.
People who i meet, everyone is at least curious, since .nyc is its own brand. They are still clue less but i also have seen people, react quickly and register their names on a fly. It will get momentum as more and more places using it. Lets not forget digital.nyc , which promotes .nyc better then anything else on a daily basis.
Perhaps .NYC will overtake .London today. Also worth noting that the top ten new gTLDs consists of three city TLDs with .NYC looking to take the number two position among the city TLDs. These city TLDs are also in the top ten fastest growing new gTLDs with .NYC in the lead.
Anything with the backing of a local government will have value, because it makes the it “official” and you’re not taking a chance on some usually unknown company behind it. A big one coming up is .quebec
According to Namestat, .NYC has overtaken .London and is now in the number two position among city TLDs.
namestat.org, interesting site. Although, the leaderboard is very misleading because it claims to be the “Top 10 Biggest Selling gTLDs” with .xyz at the top. This obviously false because hundreds of thousands of .xyz domains didn’t sell at all, they were given away for free at godaddy when users registered a dot com of the same name
Another interesting site is ntldstats.com. According to this site, .London is still ahead of .NYC, but, expect .NYC to overtake .London on that site’s leaderboard in the near term as well.
round 2 was supposed to have started at 1:00 PM Eastern Time
for landrush auctions of domains beginning with letters J-R.
Not sure what’s going on, someone screwed up the auction
Finally started 37 minutes late
I got one of these domains by default since I was the only bidder. I get to pay $10 for the privilege of having registered the same domain as a deadbeat =)
I thought they delayed the auto issuing if the other person doesn’t register with SN in time. It the first set of auctions, I received an email straight away and was given the domain when the other person didn’t register/pre-bid… this time around it looks like I’m the only bidder but not given the name. I thought on registration the other person had to bid or their account setup wasn’t complete?!
Anyways SN told me if I am the only bidder then I have to wait until the end of the auction regardless (but this wasn’t the case with the first set – so much be a change in policy)
To be clear, it hasn’t been officially awarded to me. I also have to wait until the end of the auction period. This is not what the rules state as you have pointed out. If the other bidders are no show the auction is supposed to end. SnapNames is apparently not competent enough to run a legitimate auction.
Here’s a quantitative comparison of site traffic for a premium and established nyc.com against the new digital.nyc. There is only one month of stats to compare; however, the numbers shine a promising light on the potential of .nyc sites to compete directly with existing [keyword][nyc].com sites.
Alexa stats for “nyc.com”
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/nyc.com
Alexa stats for “digital.nyc”
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/digital.nyc
Another interesting comparison to see how NYC sites in general can compare with the USA as a whole using .gov as a control. Notice how the city’s site nyc.gov does better both globally and in the nationally than the main government sites for the USA as a nation!
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/nyc.gov
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/usa.gov
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/whitehouse.gov
nyc.gov is used for many different purposes such as payment for property taxes, traffic tickets, etc., so that maybe the reason why the traffic is higher for nyc.gov as oppose to whitehouse.gov however i am myself a holder of a few .nyc domains and remain hopeful that they will take off.
well if the rules are the domains will not be allocated until after all of the NYC auctions end that will be in mid November
In the first phase, I already received the domain name. Whois updated and everything. This was shortly after the opponent didn’t create a SN account.
In the second phase of auctions, there are no other bids (I think anyone who set up an account was forced to make a first bid) so I think i can assume no other bidders but i’m having to wait it out to see if I’m awarded the name (whereas in the first phase I was notified instantly after the auction ‘started’ that I won!
once the registrar updates, we’ll finally find out who mbrc is
Also it is up to the registry to transfer the domain to you, snapnames doesn’t have them
The registry is waiting for Snapnames to send them the information on the new owner though.
Yes which is sounds like they are not going to do until all the auctions are over which does make sense as there will be people that get more than 1 domain in the set of auctions and then they can push them all at one time
I think this is their new policy. But I already have full control (whois updated) for a domain I won in the first phase. So for some domains (at least from the first phase) some auction winners only had to wait a few days to receive the names.
mm so in the 1st phase if you were the only bidder you got the domain right away now in the second round they are showing the auction with just one bidder but the auction is ongoing, is that what you are saying?
that’s how it is for my auctions, yes
Michael – Almost what I’m saying except I wasn’t given it straight away (it took a few days for the whois to update and for the name to arrive in my registrar account), but I was informed the auction was over and I had won the name immediately after the first phase started.
This is not what has happened in the 2nd phase (in the same case where I am the only bidder/registered SN user in the auction)
wondering who gets all the money from the snapname auction of .nyc domains?
I would assume snapnames which is now owned by Web.com gets a commission for the auctions, the rest goes to Neustar and the City of New York under their deal
LUV.NYC auction just concluded. I lost. Oh well.
Here’s the history if anyone is interested: http://cl.ly/YJjy/img.png
wow – you think it’s worth that much?
The city will auction out love.nyc eventually, that should be worth something
Well, $500 is cheap compared to $10-20K that love.nyc will likely sell for eventually.
LUV is brandable, and everyone know the acronym. and 3 letters. I valued it at around 800-1k
One of the better .nyc letters in my opinion.
Motion
I think love new york or love NYC is pretty heavily trademarked LUV might be a problem, not sure I blame you for not going higher
Good point . Ya, it cant be developed in tourism, maybe something brand-able.
As far as auctions, i saw some big ones. I think Luxury apartments went for 2.5k and same for luxury condos to different users.
ILY.NYC is currently on Sedo auctions. (I Love You)
better then united states, but not an acronym most people heard of , let alone used. Right now it worth nothing, as you can still get similar 3 letter domains all day long for reg fee as its not meaningful acronym.
and although I have no way of knowing, I can’t see the city selling love.nyc
100% agreed, pretty sure they will use it for promotion.