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January 10th, 2008 by 
Jay Westerdal
Today is Auction Day. A few last minute changes that I wish to let everyone know about, they are mostly intuitive changes to the interface but I just wanted to cover them so that everyone is aware the legend has changes and we have made things easier to understand. Take a deep breath and relax, If you have already learned the older harder interface you should pick it up new interface rather quickly. The color coding chart has changed a bit and their are count down timers on most of the individual lots. These show people the estimated closing time and help with people multitasking. 
We encourage people to get their bids in early and not to wait until the last moment. We have a 30 second timer on every Lot that is closing, if any bid is received in the final 30 seconds the timer will be reset. There will be no sniping domains, you will have to wait that 30 seconds and hope no one else bids in that time period. If you bid in the last 2 seconds and your computer lags, don’t blame us, the timer always resets to 30 seconds, get your bids in as early as you can in that 30 second final period.
Live Auction Page:
http://www.domaintools.com/live-auction/bid.html
Auctioneer Follow Status:
The most important thing to be aware of is your Follow Status. You will being with this status Enabled. Which means if the auctioneer is looking at a lot, you will also be magically shown that lot as well. The auctioneer is the only one that can lower the gavel, so if you want to watch what the auctioneer is closing keep this status enabled. If you want to duke it out ahead of the auctioneer on a particular domain then you may want to disable this status by unclicking the checkbox. You will not be pulled to where the auctioneer is if you do uncheck it. We have color coded everything as well, the auctioneer’s movements can be tracked with the Yellow message boxes all over the screen. Anything the auctioneer does or instructs will be Yellow.
Getting eligible to Bid:
We have a BIG yellow auctioneer message at the top of the screen, it tells people if they are not eligible to bid. If you want to be eligible, get this taken care of well in advance of the auction beginning. Having a free DomainTools account and a Credit Card on file with a $1 verification purchased with it will ensure you are eligible to bid. PLEASE NOTE: We do not accept Paypal for this purpose. If you have any problems with this process, please call us at 206.838.9035.
Screen Shot:
Lots with Bids
In this picture we see that Grampa.com
has some bids on it because it has a darker blue color. All domains in the auction with are still open will be blue. Dark Blue for lots with bids and Light Blue for lots with no bids yet. When the auctioneer is looking at the lot it will turn Yellow and when the auctioneer closes the Lot, it will turn Red. No more bids are allowed once the auctioneer has closed a Lot.
The Biggest Change:
The first and big change is the new estimated closing count down timer next to each lot in the auction. This will give people the ability to multi-task and check in on the auction as it progresses deeper into the auction. We have an estimated closing time next to each Lot. Checking back on this web page will let people know how close they are to the auctioneer closing the particular Lot.
Legend has been updated
The Legend is very straight forward now, if you remember the last one, forget it! All blue things are open lots that have not closed yet, if the lot is Yellow the auctioneer is on it and it will be closing soon. If the Lot is red, it is already closed and someone has won the domain(s) in that lot. The Orange color is reserved for the bidder. This is the area of the screen where the bidders should be bidding and watching the price going up. We hope all the changes make everything easier to follow. I want to hear feedback on the layout in the comments below, we are always working on this interface to make this the most intuitive live online auction interface.
Video Feed:
We have opted not to show a video feed for this auction because we have no floor bidders present for this live auction. We will have our video feed put back on the page for the DomainTools’ auction at the April Domain Roundtable conference hosted in San Francisco (If you have no signed up yet, Early Bird discount is now open).
Next Auction:
The next auction will be in February, it will also be an entirely online Live auction format. We will begin accepting domains for this auction at the conclusion of this auction.
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Posted in DomainTools Auction |
21 Comments »
January 10th, 2008 at 2:50 am
IMPORTANT:
Don’t login just before bidding, act NOW!
DomainTools.com
don’t had their best idea when they decided to force members to change access password for the begining of the year.
So if you still not logged this year, probably you will be surprised to have to setup a new password and do an email validation (this takes time).
So act now or the time you change the password you may lost this domain you wanted to purchase.
Good luck to all!
January 10th, 2008 at 3:06 am
Best of luck to the buyers and sellers in this auction… I will be spectating just for fun
Mark Fulton
DotSauce Magazine
http://www.DotSauce.com
January 10th, 2008 at 3:36 am
Good luck everyone!
January 10th, 2008 at 3:59 am
Cybertonic – VERY good post. This is a new change and EVERYONE should be made aware of it well before the auction.
A few days ago I was extremely surpised to hear Jay say
“It is always nice to shake things up a little. We also changed the encryption scheme on passwords too so it was necessary. Not really that blog worth”
I am new posting to these arenas but we have been in this industry for over 10 years and finally one could say coming out of the closet. You know me very well cyber.
Changing passwords a few days before such a thinly timed auction is only opening you up for many questions and complaints – when all could be saved with a 30 second post.
I think it’s fair to say anytime a password reset is required a formal post is made so people can see (1) the request is legit and feel comfortable with the reset and (2) become aware of ALL the steps they need to complete before bidding.
People – change your password now!
January 10th, 2008 at 5:21 am
Jay – For all your RSS subscribers like me, it might be best to include a link to the auction in each of your new posts.
Goog luck!
Doc
January 10th, 2008 at 6:16 am
Don’t complaint StockDoctor because for SITE readers, that’s the SAME!
You have to click the DomainTools link at top of the page and once redirected click the large text ads they are showing in the main page(ad added thanks to my previous complaints about the lack of self advertising).
…
A lot will think I am allways complaining, but it’s only because I do not understand why these rich companies running live auctions are not more serious regarding the marketing.
Without doing your max to attract bidders domains can only be sold at reserve. Advertising is NOT a loss!
…
Well, this week to try to help Jay we had the courtesy to broadcast at no charge a large leaderboard in the ad spaces we have at DNForum.com
and NamePros.com
advertising his live auction (today you cannnot miss the flashy ad).
We also added a text banner ad at Domaining.com
For the last time:
Jay, Monte, Tim, … and now Lawrence, all these people that run live auctions, do the max for the marketing of your events and not the min, our domains deserve this extra promotion.
January 10th, 2008 at 7:22 am
This is my first auction as a seller and I was wondering if this is normal having virtually no bids on domains with just five or six hours left in the auction?
Do all bidders wait until the last hour or less until the lot they are interested in closes?
Do folks with previous seller experinece anticipate some decent activity later today?
Jim K
January 10th, 2008 at 8:13 am
hi greeting My Dear Sir DomainTools ,
would there be also your march auction
cheers ThANKye , 2w
January 10th, 2008 at 8:14 am
>>>> would there be also your march auction
sorry i mean : :::::
““` would there be also your march auction ???? “”"”
cheers ThANKye , 2w
January 10th, 2008 at 8:55 am
The earlier notice for this auction said it would start at 11:00 am PST (Pacific Standard Time). When I checked the new auction interface at 8:45 am, it said that the first lot would close in 1 hour, 50 min. That would make it 10:35 am. Please confirm when the gavel will go down on the first lot.
Good luck to all!
= TiKi =
UPDATE BY JAY: Gavel will go down at 11:00 AM PST. We are still working on the timers a bit, just refresh and you will see it says 11:00am on the first one.
January 10th, 2008 at 9:10 am
We hereby authorize Domain Tools to add all of the domains in our account to today’s auction, as long as they are also added to the official list of domains being advertised as auction lots 100 or above.
If all of our domains are included, we also authorize Domain Tools to ingnore ALL reserve prices stated in our submissions.
In doing so we ackowledge that we understand the following:
a) Less than 90 minutes remain till the beginning of the auction at the time of this post;
b) Only 3 of the 170+ domains have bids on the at the present time;
c) There has been criticism regarding perceived insufficient advertising of the auction;
d) There has been criticism regarding the decision to reset account passwords within 10 days of the auction;
e) This is the first purely online auction by Domain Tools on such a scale;
f) The auction uses software that has undergone significant changes after the last major auction based on it.
We confirm that we accept all of the risks inherent in the above, and while we have complete confidence in Domain Tools we understand they cannot be held liable for any of those risks. We are happy to proceed at our own risk.
RightNames
January 10th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Jay, I must say your wording is a bit confussing of when the auction starts or stops… The count down clearly states “DomainTools live auction ends in approx…. timer count down. When really the auction has not even started. Just the Pre-Bidding has started from my understanding.
It should say, The Auction Starts In… Then have the count down clock. (not auction ends in) A sidebar, saying you can Pre-Bid up until the domain is on the block is fine, but the word Ending seems like ALL the auctions will be ending at the end of the countdown clock.
UPDATE BY JAY: Each auction lot has its own count down timer.
January 10th, 2008 at 11:11 am
THIS IS NOT WORKING PROPERLY, I keep getting disconnected
January 10th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Yikes! The flashing banner at the top of the auction interface says “DomainTools Live Auction closing NOW!” IMHO it should say “DT Live Auction underway NOW!”
The real-time interface is awesome! Hope to see more bidding action soon …
= TiKi =
January 10th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
its probably on my end jay but the system keeps reverting back to the current item when im trying to bid on a future item, then i have to recheck that it hasnt reloaded the current item to make sure i dont bid on the wrong name, and by then the system beeps and goes back to the current item. otherwise its a nice setup, good luck and ill try to better understand it a little sooner. see you next auction.
UPDATE BY JAY: Sounds like the “Always follow auctioneer” box is checked. I will contact you offline and follow up.
January 10th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
$35,ooo in total winning bids (inclusive of after auction bids)
January 13th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
If there will be a live auction in FEB pleaase look at my domains
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