So you’ve finally come up with that perfect business idea only to find out that the name… and all similar names have been taken. Held hostage for thousands more than you want to pay, you’re forced to come up with an alternate plan. It happens everyday, and it will continue to happen more and more as individuals and companies continue to stock up on internet real estate.

Can you do anything about it? Not really… get creative, that’s my best advice. Start negotiations low and keep your fingers crossed. Check domain expiration dates and be ready to put them on backorder in hopes that one might fall into your lap.

I am currently finding myself in this situation. I’m frustrated and mad that I can’t come up with an alternative and I can’t afford the current prices. But that is the beauty of the domain market… it is a market full of enterprise, brokers, squatters, and hours full of domain searches. Welcome to domaining.

On a side note, I want to mention an AWESOME iPhone app called DomainTyper that searches for .com, .net, and .org extensions AS YOU TYPE. It is a very quick and easy way to search for available domains, and it is of course FREE. They also have a great website that does the same thing: http://domaintyper.com/

Maybe it was the fact that their soccer team came up short against Germany, or perhaps it was the fact that they don’t want to pay $100,000 to own the domain extension “.Turkey”…  but Turkish hackers kidnapped the ICANN.com website today. They placed the message:

“You think that you control the domains but you don’t! Everybody knows wrong. We control the domains including ICANN! Don’t you believe us? haha (Lovable Turkish hackers group)”

Long story short… looks like Turkish men make better hackers than soccer players. Something tells us that we might be seeing the “NetDevilz” group in the news again in our future. While we don’t condone hacking, we did kind of have to chuckle a bit since we’re semi disgusted with yesterday’s ICANN announcement.

We still don’t know the whole skinny… all we really know is what we’ve read on CNN. But we’ve got to think that existing domain investors can not be happy about the latest news coming out of the Paris ICANN conference. As the values of their portfolios will surely drop as additional domain names/extensions become available within the industry.

While the rules may become more relaxed, you’ve got to wonder how many new issues and fiascos these new rules will create… You think there are copyright infringements now, just wait until you can go out and buy “ThisDomain.Microsoft”. We’re sure ICANN and the registrars will create a way to manage/prevent these things, but like we said in our last post, this brings dilution to the domain market. Bryan Glick of Computing Magazine is quoted in the article as saying “All the meaningful words and meaningful names in the English language have been bought up already”… we have to disagree. That is why there is an entire resale market of domain names out there. That is why there are additional domain extensions, that is why companies are forced to get creative and think outside the box. Diluting the domain name market will just make it harder for users to really find what they’re looking for when they’re on the web.

Relaxing these rules will bring a lot of questions to the domain community. Questions about fairness, questions about security, questions about legality and copyright… Nothing that the domain industry hasn’t seen before… but this step could be a huge shift in domain name ownership. For the big money guys out there, ready to jump into it all… get ready, you’re about to become even more rich.

We haven’t posted much this week… mainly because we haven’t been too enthused with the current auctions. Except for Bido which had some sweet action on CerealBox.com today for almost three grand. We personally think someone overpaid for that domain, but then again, you never know, a domain is what you make of it. And furthermore, a domain is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. For us, we’ll just leave our laptop closed in the morning and stick to the back of our standard Lucky Charms.

We caught an interesting article today on CNN about ICANN possibly opening up A LOT of extensions to domain names. You can read it here. We’re not exactly sure what to think about this… besides the fact that it will muddle the market more than it already is… swell (note: insert sarcasm here).

Finally, as a treat for not posting much this week, we leave you with the best site in the world. “BestSiteInTheWorld.com” that is… which is currently on auction for 9 more days, and we put in the initial bid for $15. Who wouldn’t want to own the best site in the world for fifteen bucks?

Bido.com, a new “one-a-day” domain auction site, launches its first official auction today. Congratulations to them! We picture it as the “Woot” of domaining. And we love Woot. Their first official site on auction is DiscountImages.com which we think will sell at around $1200. It could be higher just based on it being their first auction.

Bido.com is affiliated with DNZoom.com which is a domain name aggregation tool. It allows various API’s to connect with various registrars to help you manage your domains in one location. We’ve tested the tool and have mixed reviews about it, but we think they’re on the right track, and definately suggest you try it for yourself to see if you like it. Here is a nice interview with Sean Stafford about Bido.com and DNZoom.com.

Update: Only four bidders participated in Bido.com’s first ever auction: Federer, Sid, Homey, and TheMadHat. They combined for 20 bids and a final sales price of $911. Congrats to the winner we think that was a very reasonable price!

The DomainNameNews.com site is running a daily game right now where they ask trivia questions about domains, and then raffle off a copy of the book - ”The Domain Game, How People Get Rich From Internet Domains by David Kesmodel” to the correct guessers. We’ve enjoyed playing the game over the past several days. They’re already on Day 4, and we don’t know how many more days they’ll go, but it is worth passing along to our readers…

Photo By lucianvenutian

Currently there are four bids and a $40 dollar price tag on this domain name which could be a pretty cool father’s day present for the upcoming holiday. We wanted to post about it today because we feel that blogging has become one of the leading forms of communication on the web today. Parenting blogs specifically have become not only a form of light reading entertainment, but also a form of parental guidance where many parents learn from other parent’s advice, issues, and experience.

So not only are we informing you that there is a great domain name up for bid, we’re also going to pass along some awesome parenting blogs that we recommend:

1. Cry It Out: Adventures of a Stay At Home Dad
2. Creative Type Dad
3. Dooce
4. The Poop
5. Momma Said
6. Rocks In My Dryer
7. Woulda Coulda Shoulda
8. Mom 101
9. Free Stuff 4 Kids
10. Daddy Types

And we encourage you to leave us comments if you have other great parenting blogs that you would recommend!
Update: This domain went for $85, and we hope that a daddy somewhere will start filling it up with some great content soon!

We’re a member of TDNAM and the majority of things we discuss here on this blog involve the domain name aftermarket auctions on their site. Other sources of info come from other blogs, Snapnames.com, Ebay.com, Sedo.com, and a few other sources. Unfortunately, we’ve noticed that several of our “watched” items are getting deleted immediately after auction where we can’t see the final price of the item. We have emailed TDNam about this functionality, and they have confirmed that it is by design. We hope this design changes. For now, we’ll have to restrict our post price reporting / updates to domains that we bid on, or distinctly watch to the very end. Our apologies if we don’t get all of these items updated with final prices. Hopefully TDNam will reconsider their watch list functionality. Currently, we do not have final pricing on “IBuyIPhones.com” and “FreightSpecialists.com.”

We came across “ModernDomainer.com” today. While we found the site informative, we also found it funny that the favorite icon on the site is still set to the Joomla default. None-the-less, we did find their 4 publications in “.pdf” format to be informative, educational, and entertaining. We signed up for a free 3 month subscription. Here are the previous issues:

• Issue 1
• Issue 2
• Issue 3
• Issue 4

Thanks ModernDomainer.com!

Photo By Claudecf

We took a day off today from domain watching, but we wanted to briefly blog about a common scam that occurs to new domain name buyers. The scam occurs when someone contacts you offering you a substantial amount of money for one of your domains. You, of course, jump for joy since you just paid $20 bucks for the name, shout “SOLD!” The buyer then asks that you purchase a “certified appraisal”… just to make sure he/she isn’t getting a lopsided business deal. This is typically corresponded via email, and the email suggests using certain domain appraisal services. THIS is the scam. There is no real intent to purchase your domain. They simply want you to pay for an appraisal. The suggested links point to their appraisal business. They might call this “creative” advertising… We call it what it is… a scam. Many times, they don’t even mention appraisal in their first contact via email… you may even negotiate the price a bit… then they’ll reel you in with the appraisal request. Don’t fall for it.

If someone really wants your domain, and they want an appraisal, then let them pay for the appraisal. Furthermore, if you desire an appraisal yourself, use a reputable domain appraisal from someone you trust or someone that is well known. For example, “GoDaddy.com”, “Sedo.com”, “Moniker.com”, “Afternic.com”, and “DomainAppraisal.org” all offer appraisal services and are well known within the domain name industry. Beware of “other” domain name services, promising “certified” appraisals.

We simply want to make you aware that this scam is out there, and if you buy domain names long enough, you will come across it. So good luck in your future buying and selling, and here’s wishing you lots of success in getting “legitimate” offers for your great domain names!