I picked up my paddles after signing the buyer contracts etc., earlier during the day. While I’d listened to several domain auctions online or followed them using the various tools available, today was the first time that I’d actually attended an auction of this kind in person.
Domainfest with SnapNames, which is now part of Oversee.net, are running two live auctions at the event and if today’s action was anything to go by I’d say it was a success. Adam and Frank were trying to live blog the results as they happened, so I won’t go into details on that part of it.
The auction started at 4pm and the room filled up fairly quickly. DomainFest had organised an open bar down the back of the room, so that bidders were well oiled! (I know I was by the time I left!).
What was interesting to watch was the dynamic of the bidding process. Apart from one or two domains that fetched very low prices even the domains with $1 reserves fetched healthy 4 or 5 figure sums. It would be very interesting to see what happens with the names that changed hands in the coming months. Will the new owners develop new and interesting products, services of information portals or are the domains simply going to end up being parked?
Tomorrow afternoon’s auction should be even more interesting, as there are several very high value domains up for grabs, including dude.com, which has a reserve of 1.1 million!
