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. (c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com NameDrive is introducing 6 new innovative templates.

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