Neustar, the .biz registry along with Sedo.com have partnered to release and auction off one and two character .biz domain names on Sept. 23 – Sept 30. One or two character domains are quite rare, and undoubtedly the upcoming .biz auction will be watched by the entire domain industry to see how high (or low) these go. Industry leaders see this as a way for .biz to try and make a splash and gain some notoriety before the gTLD rollout next year.
Certain names have been reserved through RFP (request for proposals). One of the single character domains that has been acquired already is ‘O.biz‘ which will be used as an additional retail site for the giant Overstock.com. O.biz will have the same look and feel that Overstock.com has and will be mainly utilized to sell bulk merchandise to customers and businesses alike. O.biz will be officially be launched on October 31st.
I feel that by landing a corporate giant like Overstock.com to model a one character .biz domain may have a really positive impact on the auctions taking place later this month. CEO of Overstock.com Patrick Byrne said this about the extension and O.biz:
“The .biz extension is appealing to growing, innovative businesses. Our goal is to have O.biz help small to medium size businesses save money by leveraging the purchasing power of Overstock.com.”
