Here's the The Lowdown
from DN Journal,
updated daily
to
fill you in on the latest buzz going around the domain name industry.
The Lowdown is
compiled by DN Journal Editor & Publisher Ron
Jackson.
Misadventures
in Brick & Mortar Land and WhyPark Charity Auction
Opens on New Latonas.com Platform
I'm
back after four days
of visiting family members in frigidcentral Ohio
where I grew up. It was 15 degrees (with a
wind chill that made it feel like 5 degrees) when
we arrived there Thursday evening. That really made me
appreciate the 83 degrees we had here in Tampa,
Florida this afternoon on my first day back home
following the trek north.
The
chilly weather in Ohio and doing some shopping in an
actual store there (rather than online) did make it feel a
little more like Christmas but the novelty quickly
wore off. My wife, daughter and I had piled up a cart full
of stuff in a department store but when we went to the
checkout line it stretched all the way to the back of
the store! It was literally the longest line I
have ever seen in my life. To save money on payroll, the
store decided to open only a few cash registers. We left hundreds of dollars
worth of stuff in the cart and walked out rather than wait
over an hour for them to take our money.
I
saw several other people who wanted to buy carts
full of merchandise do the same thing. Today I was back on
Amazon instead, ticking off the final items on my
gift list, certain that brick and mortar retail is beyond
hope.
There
are certainly more important things than shopping
at this time of year though and the folks at WhyPark.com
obviously haven't forgotten that. Today they
opened a fundraising charity auction on a
new platform provided by Latonas.com.
The event will conclude Friday (Dec.
18)
at 3pm (U.S. Eastern time). The person who
places the single highest bid in the auction will
get to name the charity that all of the funds go
to - a twist that will add some fun and excitement
to the event.
The
charity auction also gives everyone an early peak
at the new Latona's Domain Brokerage and
Auction Housewebsite.
Owner Rick Latona opened this beta
version of the site to accommodate the WhyPark
auction while simultaneously testing their
systems. In a post
about the new auction site on his blog
today,
Latona wrote, "What we want to be is nothing
less than the Christies or Sotheby’s
of intellectual property. Your names deserve a
classy representative and this is what we are
trying to accomplish."
I
think the Latonas.com site is conveying the image the
company wants to get get across. It has an appealing
upscale look that will put domains placed on the site in
an unusually attractive environment. It will be very
interesting to see how this new platform develops in the
weeks ahead.
While
we are on the subject of auctions, I'll remind you that
the latest monthly Moniker SnapNames Showcase
Auction ends tomorrow (Tuesday, Dec. 15)
at 3:15pm (U.S. Eastern time). This auction is
featuring geo and local search
domains.
Two
other specialty auctions featuring one and
two-character .biz domains will also be ending
later this week. Sedo
is offering six one character domains in listings
that close Thursday (Dec. 17) at 12 noon
(U.S. Eastern time). Those are X.biz, L.biz,
N.biz, Q.biz, Y.biz and 3.biz.
Meanwhile,
the first phase of the TwoDotBiz
two-character auctions being run by Pool.com
will also be closing Thursday. There are
more than 200 domain names still available in this
first phase including DR.biz and 88.biz.
The next phase of the auction with another set of
two-character domains will open on January 4,
2010.
We need your help to keep giving domainers The
Lowdown, so please email [email protected]with any interesting information you might have. If possible,
include the source of your information so we can check it out (for
example a URL if you read it in a forum or on a site
elsewhere).
