4th of July is over and I hope you enjoyed yours as much as I did. Mine was spent in the backyard at home with my wonderful girlfriend and our families. We had lots of BBQ, soda, water balloons and a slip n slide (back is a little sore from the slip n slide, they forgot to tell me I’m almost 30 :)). We watched a fireworks show too, even though the rain put a little damper on that.
Well, the Moniker/Snapnames live .US auction is taking place right now and I thought you should know about it, see auction.
Lately, there has been lots of heated discussion on blogs/forums about .US and it’s presence, usage and value in the United States. Today, I want to take note of some of the pricing differences between recent .com sales and current bids on domains in the Moniker/Snap .US auction. To start off, I see that Therapists.us has a bid of $1,230. Therapists.com was sold in May by Moniker/Oversee for $50,000. This means that if the auction for Therapists.us closed today it would have fetched roughly 2% of the .com price. There are two huge .us domains in the auction without any bids yet. Candy.us and Slots.us. Combined, the .com version of these domains sold for over $8.5 million, Candy.com sold last year for $3m and Slots.com this year for $5.5m. Candy.us is priced at $14,120 which is less than .005% of what the .com sold for and Slots.us is priced about 1% of what the .com sold for at $58,830. Anyone think there will be bids on either?
Although some will claim this auction as a success.. I am telling you right now unless some real bidding goes on in the next couple of days, this auction is another flop for .US. Sure, Moniker/Snap were trying to be cool and squeeze in a .US auction right around the 4th of July. They have some excellent names in the auction, lots of which start at under $1,000. I don’t know about you but I would be quite dissapointed if I had some of these names in this auction and they sold for the starting bid, ie.. FluShots.us ($300), Missing.us ($300), Wanted.us ($300), Summit.us ($300), Intervention.us ($300). Below is the current list of .us auctions that are live with bids.
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now.us
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$1,100
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2
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2 d 3 h 37 m
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abs.us
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$350
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2
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2 d 3 h 37 m
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|||
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giant.us
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$400
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2
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2 d 3 h 37 m
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|||
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scooters.us
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$550
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2
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2 d 3 h 37 m
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|||
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therapists.us
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$1,230
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1
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2 d 3 h 37 m
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airlinetickets.us
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$615
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1
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2 d 3 h 37 m
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psychics.us
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$615
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1
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2 d 3 h 37 m
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|||
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eagle.us
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$505
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1
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2 d 3 h 37 m
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|||
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recalls.us
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$505
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1
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2 d 3 h 37 m
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|||
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amo.us
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$325
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1
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2 d 3 h 37 m
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collegeeducation.us
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$325
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1
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2 d 3 h 37 m
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login.us
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$325
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1
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2 d 3 h 37 m
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weightlosspills.us
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$325
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1
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2 d 3 h 37 m
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wirelessprinters.us
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$325
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1
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I don’t have any names in this auction but for the sellers I hope there is much more bidding near the conclusion. For the last couple years I have been a strong .us supporter and still have a handful of ‘good’ .us domain names that I would price in the $x,xxx range. Looking at the most recent .us sales and the current auction prices, it looks like now is not the time for .US investors to let go of their product.
The .US name space has the potential to be second only to .com. It is the sleeping giant. Just look at some of the other country codes like .de and .co.uk. Their aftermarket thrives compared to .US.
Is there something that those cctdl’s have done that the administrator of .US have not done? Is there an example to be followed?
Someday, the US will know .US exists.
Someday, auctions will attract plenty of end users.
Steve, I too hope that one day US citizens will know that .us exists. It’s sad in the United States, less than 10% of the people (non domainers) that I have personally polled actually knew that about .us!
Some I asked thought the purpose of .US was for the government use. I can’t blame them for being confused since I know for a fact that sectors of the state governments use domains like http://www.acronym-etc.state.co.us. (Colorado’s example). These domains end in .us, so for thousands of state employees their only ‘connection’ with a domain ending in .us comes from using it at work.
They have everything that .com has to offer except for any substantial direct navigation traffic…..and that just like other extensions is the death knell for these.
I agree it is a sleeping giant, but it’s anyone’s guess as to when the giant will awake…..if ever.
Maybe it will awaken when the US media embraces .US. Until mainstream advertising ‘informs the masses’ about .us… seems like it will be a far, far second to .com.
Slots.us would be a great buy IF the US would allow online gambling like in the UK. Probably not going to happen here though.
Whatever the outcome of this particular auction, it does not really mean anything for the .us extension in particular. The domain market is so tight with money and flush with many other names for sale in all kinds of extensions. With most all the big fish in the little domainer pond constantly preaching “CNO”, “alternative” extensions like .us don’t get the respect they deserve. It only targets the largest consumer market in the world. Yes, .com is tough ingrained competition, but the keywords available in .us should be very tempting morsels for those that can look beyond the .com entrees.
These domain venue auctions (whether live and/or online) are not helping selling prices at the moment. Other than a single $xxx,xxx .com name that sold, the recent .CA focused auction was a bust. Seems like every week we have another Sedo – Great Domains, Moniker, etc auction. A couple years ago an auction was special event to be followed, now they are often missed or easily forgotten.
There are some nice usable names in there though especially for end users who still don’t really know about .us, don’t care, or just won’t show up. If it’s just domainers bidding on these I wouldn’t expect the prices to move much on more than 1 or 2 names.
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@ Will
“Slots.us would be a great buy IF the US would allow online gambling like in the UK. Probably not going to happen here though.”
I Hadn’t thought of this angle.. yea online gambling regulations can’t be good for any .us gambling domains.
“These domain venue auctions (whether live and/or online) are not helping selling prices at the moment. Other than a single $xxx,xxx .com name that sold, the recent .CA focused auction was a bust. Seems like every week we have another Sedo – Great Domains, Moniker, etc auction. A couple years ago an auction was special event to be followed, now they are often missed or easily forgotten.”
I agree that auctions are being abused by registrars that try to milk the aftermarket with specialty auction after specialty auction, followed by TRAFFIC, Domainfest, etc..etc..etc.. never ending auction wheel these days…. /offtopic rant
The .US aftermarket is pretty sad compared to most other extensions, but there are still sharks swimming those waters because that just means the market is rife with opportunities. The recent spat of “landrush” drops this last month or so has proven that there are a number of people who realize that developing .US exact match keywords can be quite lucrative. Domainer to domainer sales aren’t going to get you very far though in the .US market in the near term and that means don’t expect a lot of competition bidding up these names.
Over the last month I’ve gotten significantly better names than some on the list via snapnames drops and godaddy auctions for a lot less than the min bid of $300 at the showcase auction. That said, there are some great deals for some of the names listed so I wouldn’t be surprised to see several people trying to sneak in the last 5 minutes (me included). And as an investor in the extension, it benefits me long term to see high end names sell well, but for now I don’t mind picking up one and two word names with > 100k exact match searches per month for less than $100.
Mike and all… If you need some .us to dev or resell..
there’s lots posted as Discoveries and Available for
Reg. Fee over on DropGrabs.com
I don’t consider this spam — I don’t own the domains…
just making you all (my co-workers) aware they are there
along with .com .net .org .info .biz .us .tv .mobi
~Patricia – DomainBELL
@Andrew – I somewhat agree that the market right now is ‘rife with opportunities’. I too have been keeping my eyes peeled for great .us investments that cost me less than $100, they are out there..especially right now.
@Patricia – Thanks for the heads up! ps.. I would probably NEVER assume you were spamming my blog. 🙂
15 names now at auction.. Therapists.us still has the high bid followed by now.us at $1100. https://www.snapnames.com/store/extended.action?ig=564#store;storeName=extended