2009/01/02

Domain Name News

Innovative Mystery Domain Auction Site Launches

Posted: 01 Jan 2009 12:34 PM CST

John Motson, the domainer behind DnXpert.com and the ebook Domaining Manifesto has concocted a new domain auction site with a twist that should get people talking. The recipe? Take 1 high value domain, mix in a little Bido.com-type buzz, a dash of Million Dollar Home Page ingenuity and a dash of entrepreneurial spirit and you get MysteryDomainAuction.com (updated note: this is now NOT an affiliate link).

Motson’s Mystery Domain Auction is auctioning off one mystery domain name valued at $10,000 over the course of 100 days. The mystery domain will be revealed on day 50. Bidding starts at .01 and Motson has a goal to reach a total take of $1,000,000.

$1 million for a $10,000 domain ? You heard me right. The trick here is that the domain will sell to 1 person for $10,000 whatever the final price is on the last day, but everyone else having paid in their bids prior in an all-pay auction format means that the total sum will be $1 million before Motson even reaches a bid of $150. Pretty smart.

The accumulating auction process is explained on the sites FAQ page:

. . .the auction bid amount is incremented by $0.01 every time a new bid is placed (*). Because this is an all pay auction, the bids accumulate into a bulk total which by the time bidding reaches $147 will have passed $1,000,000.

Below is a projection of the minimum value accumulated as a result of bids reaching various amounts.
High bid Minimum accumulated value
$0.10 -> $0.55
$1 -> $50.50
$10 -> $5005
$20 -> $20,010
$30 -> $45,015
$40 -> $80,020
$50 -> $125,025
$147 -> $1,080,523

Each bidder also receives a link on the site in the “past bids” section . We tossed in .64 and by the time we got this written up the auction was at .85 . By the looks of it the links can be used for any sort of promotion and current links appear to be targeted to just about anything except adult sites. This is a great idea and John’s creativity will likely be greatly rewarded. I predict a slew of copy-cats coming on the heels of this as well. Hopefully for John 100 days is a long enough lead on any potential competitors.

Good luck bidders ! Check it out at MysteryDomainAuciton.com

UPDATE : Just realized, if the auction reaches that $147 mark that means over 14,000 bids will have come in for the mystery name. He’s got a long way to go.

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