DomainTools Blog

Oversee.net announced today that they have acquired Moniker but the terms of the transaction were not disclosed, however it was believed to be around $26 Million dollar transaction. Monte Cahn has agreed to a multi-year commitment with Oversee by continuing to run Moniker.

Oversee also acquired SnapNames in May of 2007 for around $35 Million. Oversee will leverage the two divisions’ capabilities by adding Moniker’s live auction and back-office services to SnapNames Live.

The first demonstration of the integration will be at DOMAINfest Global later this month, where SnapNames Live will lead and conduct the auction, with Moniker providing valuation and escrow services. More integrated services are planned, including:

• Deepening Moniker’s continuing commitment to its auction partners through the use of the SnapNames Live technology in Moniker-managed auctions
• The addition of DomainSponsor as an available option in Moniker’s TrafficClub monetization service
• Availability of Moniker’s registrar services for SnapNames and DomainSponsor customers
• Inclusion of traffic and monetization history as data for domain name auctions
• A complete set of Domain Asset Management services that offer domain owners all the tools necessary to profitably manage their domains

Commenting on the transaction, Moniker CEO Cahn said, “Oversee’s advanced technology platform and strong financial resources give us the capability to focus on further expanding our market opportunity. This is a dynamic industry, and our collaboration with SnapNames puts Oversee well ahead of any competitor. This is a tremendous opportunity for Oversee and Moniker.”

“We are delighted that Monte Cahn and his team of experienced professionals are becoming part of the Oversee family, Our primary objective, as a company, is to continue adding and developing capabilities that offer customers a greater breadth of products and services. Moniker is widely respected by industry players and has a reputation for knowledge, security, and professionalism.” said Lawrence Ng, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Oversee.

Personally I am glad to hear that SnapNames will be including traffic and monetization history into their auction service. This is a move in the right direction and DomainTools is also seeking expand on what we already do in the Auction space by providing this data. We will work with all leading parking companies to make the history and stats available when domains are being purchased at auction. I am working on an open standard for sharing this information along with secure authorization procedures for access to that data. I believe the next evolution for our industry will be more visibility into the domain history and monetization performance.

A lot of people have been emailing me or telling me directly that they had a very deep fear that there was shill bidding going on at the Moniker New York Domain Auction. I asked them to explain why they thought this was the case. It is an extremely serious claim because not only would it be unethical it would be very illegal. I caution anyone from making that claim and would tell them to be careful. Why would someone want to shill bid all the big ticket domains in the auction? There really is not a good reason that I can think of to do that. Perhaps a joker that knew the reserves and thought it would be cute to bid below the reserve. However Monte Cahn is a smart man and I am sure he would spot that so it would be dangerous for a joker to do something illegal like that and be permanently banned from the conferences and auctions. That person would be treated extremely bad by domainers in this close knit industry. I know moniker video taped the entire thing, perhaps they can run the tapes and see who the high bidders were that never got domains. I know that if my reserve was $5 Million and someone bid $4.5 Million I might be convinced to meet them in the middle or lower my reserve on the spot. Everyone knows each other and people talk, something like this would not be a good idea to do infront of a room full of extremely smart people. So therefor I have to dismiss the theory as highly unlikely. But the data is very compelling just on its own. We can see that every $5 million dollar reserve domain got a $4.5MM bid. There was an astonishing $54,222,500 amount bid on domains that did not sell because the reserve price was too high.

Monte, if you can look into all this data and respond in the comments that would be great.

Seniors.com
Paul Sloan of Business 2.0 read my earlier post about the high priced domains which I thought would not sell in the upcoming auction and chose one domain out of the list, Seniors.com. His post Seniors.com for $1 million? C’mon was about how that one domain looked over priced. Paul was shocked when it sold for $1.8MM and so was I. It is rare to see a retail buyer join the wholesale auctions and bid on a domain. The $1.8 Million dollar bid must have been from a retail bidder. I asked who bid on the domain because I wanted to interview the new owner and see what his plans were for it. I was told the bid was by a “left bid” or a phone order bidder and that it was not someone in the room. I guess I can wait until the whois updates and see the owner show up or I can check out the new website when it launches. It would make sense if it was Senior Exchange Inc. who is the owner of Senior.com. I will update you if I can interview the company that bought the domain.

Domains that did not sell: