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Bido.com's
first charity domain auction
raised
$2,120 this afternoon for the Hacienda
de los Milagros (House
of Miracles) animal rescue shelter in Arizona.
The shelter is in danger of closing as donations have dried
up in the wake of the current economic downturn
(Arizona has been one of the hardest hit states in the
U.S.). In addition to the auction proceds, Bido's Sahar
Sarid told us domainers had also made $5,000
in direct donations to the Hacienda.
Veteran
domainer Donna Mahony, who lives near the
shelter, sounded the alarm and it was very good to see
the domain community rally behind this effort. The
winning bidder will receive a lot of approximately 100
animal related domain names (plus some nice extras) that
were given to the cause by a number of generous
donors. Even though the auction is over you can
still help by making a donation
directly to the Hacienda.
In
another innovative auction event, |
Photo
from the
Hacienda de los Milagros |
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DomainConsultant.com's
Domain Madness live online domain auction (powered
by Aftermarket.com)
was staged Tuesday and televised on the web from the
Kingpin Suite at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas.
21 domains were sold for a total of $136,320,
with top sale honors going to Loco.com at $55,500.
Those were respectable results for a debut effort and
more importantly the DC team came up with a very
interesting new concept for domain auctions that I can
see growing into a real force.
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Mike
Fiol (left) and Sevan Derderian
hosted
the live webcast of the Domain Madness
auction |
They
got off on the right foot by assembling a
catalog of decent domain names at attractive
prices then, to build interest in the
auction, they paired it with a timely contest
(drafting off college basketball's March Madness
theme) that gave entrants a chance to win $1,000.
For
the auction itself, in what I think was a master stroke,
they set up the live webcast from a hot party
location to attract viewers (more than 200 were online
throughout most of |
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the
bidding). Domain veterans Mike Fiol and Sevan
Derderian hosted the show and they both have
appealing senses of humor that kept people
engaged.
By
adding some extra show biz pizzazz to the
webcast I could see future events attracting
even more viewers as well as more domainers who
would want to make the trip to the show location
to have some fun and be part of everything going
on behind the scenes. It's a fresh idea and they
have lots of room to expand it from here. Well
done.
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One other
note today - organizers of this month's GeoDomain
Expo (coming up April 23-25
in San Diego) have posted the
first draft of the show agenda on the conference
website. I'm impressed with
the speakers and topics they have lined
up. The seminar subjects are very timely
and they will help the domain developers
this show is geared to continue to build
their properties into thriving
businesses.
I'm looking
forward to being there,
participating |
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on a couple
of the panels and hosting the GeoDomain
Awards dinner on the closing night. You
can still register
for the show (which has one of the
lowest fees in the industry). I
have yet to meet anyone who has attended
a GeoDomain Expo that didn't feel like
they got more than their money's
worth from being there and I'm sure
this one will continue that tradition.
(Posted April
1, 2009) |
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