Here’s the domains I was able to catch today on the drop:

flunkys.com
lushy.net
wobbly.us
shortened.us
motley.us

It suprises me that Directi captured: shes.net today. Awesome! I am going to re-visit my Directi API drop catching scripts & see if I can make some magic.

I forgot to display the drop times the pending deletes I will chase today will drop:

flunkys.com 1:01pm
lushy.net 2:38pm
shes.net 2:11pm
wobbly.us 1:06pm
shortened.us 1:04pm
motley.us 1:05pm

I will be ready to catch as many as I can.. The times above are in CST (Central USA) Time. Chicago time zone.I believe the drops will happen at these times – minus -6:00 GMT & UTC time would be at: 19:00 (7pm UTC).  I would also like to add that the above pending deletes will drop in a window of 2 hours total from the drop order.

Here’s a list of pending delete.us – Domains that will expire & are USA cities

whiting.us
stringer.us
jeffers.us
conroy.us
pavillion.us
halecenter.us
longbarn.us

I’m not sure I will chase any of the expiring .us cities, but who knows – if I may get lucky with a premium sooner or later again if a real premium drops soon.

Here’s my drop list for tomorrow of pending delete domains I will be chasing..

flunkys.com
lushy.net
shes.net
wobbly.us
shortened.us
motley.us

Hope I can grab some of these drops!

Last night, I pushed out more tweaks to DNKO.COM.

1.) DNKO now shows the full sales history. Since the first sold domains to the latest, you can view the full list by clicking the sales history link at the top:

I know the sales aren’t the best & that it will take time for DNKO  to “mature”. However, the sales history will be an easy way for visitors to view the sales going on over there. Plus it helps to add the appropriate reserves to your domains (if you plan to auction them @ dnko).

2.) Another tweak added is the capability to host $1 reserve auctions – with an eBay style bidding mechanish. Basically offering a hidden reserve for the seller, who would not be forced to sell if his or her reserve is not met. It should help drive up the bids to see what the bidders are offering to pay. Also, with this system, if the seller’s reserve is met, he is forced to sell the domain to the highest bidder.

3.) More wording around the site to explain how the timer works. The DNKO 60 second auctions are meant to filter domains. The ones that noone wants to buy will last only 60 seconds. If the domain is good & bids come in, the timer will be reset back to 60 seconds. So technically an auction could last a while – depending on the reserve & bids, resetting the timer back to 60 seconds over & over again until bidding is done.

4.) The Prebid link was changed to: “Prebid & Vote”. Your votes at DNKO will only change the positions of the domains. The voting is not meant to vote domains to auction, but instead the placement of each. Mostly all domains submitted (other than trademark & adult) domains make it to the DNKO auctions. After being approved, you can vote on the position they are auctioned.

5.) Bidder certification. Bidders must now become certified to bid.  By default, all users become certified to bid & sell domains. However, if you fail to complete a single transaction, Your account will be flagged & you will be penalized with bad trader feedback. Credit card or PayPal authorization. Your thoughts are welcome in improving this system.

More tweaks & changes to come. Most importantly, DNKO needs advertisement & promotion. I am not going to sit here & ask you to spam the forums in hopes of advertising the auctions. I would recommend you don’t do that! It seems like domain auction competitors are also facing the same issue. DNKO is free – pretty much I am paying for everything out of pocket. I am not in a hurry & understand it will take months and years to help the auction site mature.

Yeah, you read / heard right. If you are terrible at web design, you need to throw in the towel.  Recently, I tried to “design” up an end user report. First off, “End User Reports” don’t exist yet. Second off, I have a lot of info that plain out looks too crammed. Third, I am color blind, which helps me make some of the coolest designs – or some of the worst clashed color junk.

I am giving up with this report. For now, it will be all text only – separated by dashes & symbols displaying the useful info.

I was hoping to be able to add a nice logo EndUserGenie.com Slogan <connecting domain owners with end users>. Then I tried to create a header / footer layout with 2 tables 300×300px in the middle. Then no footer & 4 300px boxes below the header. Uggh, Other than wasting 8+ hours on it in the past 2 days, I am back to the chipping block.

I may hire someone to do the design for me if it doesn’t “click” in my mind & I pull it off. But in reality, time is money & money is time. If I had paid someone the $30 or whatever it would cost to manipulate the data – I could be investing my time & talent into more drop catching technology.

I’ve already experienced these failures in the past. I sometimes get lucky & design something really cool – but probably fail & end up hiring someone after all.

Something to keep in mind too is that a professional web designer has more creativity & tactics. He or she may view your project in a different & bring it to life for you. Hope that happens for EndUserGenie asap.

I was chasing these drops today:

folding.us
intrigue.us
compassed.com
orlean.net
cultivations.net

Last minute, I also added JMM.US to my drop chasing. I added the above domains to my Dynadot API script. I added JMM.US to a Dynadot “front-end” script.

JMM.US was quickly grabbed by Snapnames. Go figure, I guess the demand for premium LLL.US domains is still out there.

I grabbed 50% of my drop list. I was able to secure these pending domains into my Dynadot accounts:

cultivations.net
orlean.net
intrigue.us

I noticed that someone grabbed folding.us at UDOMAINNAME.COM LLC. If I’m not mistaken, it looks like a Snapnames backorder. I am curious if anyone had backordered Intrigue.us today.

I will be going after these drops today:

folding.us (will drop around 1:06 PM CST)
intrigue.us (will drop before 1:09 PM CST)
compassed.com (will drop around 1:20 PM CST)
orlean.net (will drop at the very end approx 2:55PM CST)
cultivations.net  (will drop approx 1:22 PM into the drop cycle).

We’ll seee what I can grab & what got backordered.

Ok, so this post is a bit to brag about the enom drop catching tool I made.. lol.

But it is true, that you can use it to drop catch ccTld’s successfully. Since most other drop catchers suffer difficulties trying to remember when the drops happen & worse off, rely on other domainers for their drop lists :S.

The following method can help you catch an expiring CCTld right into your enom account.

CCTLD’s do not have query restrictions “yet” on the amount of queries you can send off. So using multiple instances of my software along with your sorted expring domain lists will be a great success!

Have fun chasing CCTLD’s. It’s the new wave of the future & premium drop catching.

The Domain Appraisal – Both Sides Of The Coin.

Everyone is well aware of the domain appraisal “scam” where you can fall victim if you are a domain owner. Basically what happens is a person, or group of people will do bulk whois lookups. Then they harvest a simple list of:

Domain | eMail in whois

expron.com | <my email>
So on..

Then they use bulk mailers to send you emails that sound lik ethey are interested in your domain name. They then offer to get your domain appraised. They will list out 2 or so appraisal services & price. Usually it will ask for an appraisal at sedo.com <price> or <their website> <lower price>. If you really really want to sell your domain, you could very easily fall victim.

Blah Blah, you all have heard that story..

Here’s my story on the coin flip of the domain appraisal scam.

Back in 2008, I was searching dictionary domain words that were up & running sites in .com & .net. Long story short, I found that when I inquired about certain domains, I would get an appraisal. Some LL.com domains would hand me a PDF appraisal for $250,000 – $750,000. Most were from real appriasal companies. I did my homework & found that these companies cater to high end domains etc..

So my journey continued. Finally I hit a soft sale. It’s my terminology for something that I felt was do-able & withing my budget. In other words, move fast & buy this domain!

The domain in question was Delete<.>net. The owner, Jim from California had originally registered the domain back in 1996. He was an ISP provider & knew everything about computer network backbones. He lacked however the knowledge of domaining.

Things were going great.. He asked me to make him an offer. Being a domainer myself, I offered high $xxx. He quickly got excited & I almost closed the deal. He asked to “think” about it overnight. I said no problems & awaited his email.

The next day, his friend got into his head & now the minimum cash sale for delete<.>net jumped up to $1,500 min, preferably $2,500. Now I was trying to stand ground on my $850 – $999 offer. But in a heartbeat, I was snuffed as he surfed the web & try to educate himself if the sale was worth it. I had no leverage, nothing.

So now, I had to contact him. I had to contact him a couple times. After a while, Jim replies.. I am getting a godaddy appraisal & it will be ready in 48 hours.

The appraisal comes in & it’s estimating the domain Delete<.>net is worth $17,290.00

Darn, there went all my hope. I was lucky to be able to harness the opportunity I had opened. The seller was expecting $17K for his domain. The best I could do was broker the domain. I aligned the sale with Kellie from Name.com. She paid Mid $x,xxx. It was a private sale & my Commision was mid $xxx

So I guess everyone got what they wanted. Except me, had I secured the domain for $900 or so as originally planned, I could have easily flipped it & kept mid $x,xxx for free. So in this story, the godaddy appraisal killed me. It would be nice to think that the domain was worth seventeen thousand, but it’s not. It’s also my mistake for the low offer.

A couple things that stick out is that at the time, I wasn’t really active at the forums. And the offers I got from forum people even those with high post counts was ridiculous.

I got remarks at the forums like:

If it was .com, it would be worth a lot more! <ps – .net is 2nd best>.
If it was a happy domain like: Smile.net, Laugh.net, happy.net.. I would be interested.
The domain is not worth anything. I offer from $20 – $1,000 24 hour time capsule.
The domain will never sell for more than $500.

Guess I proved them wrong

It was worth it to me as well as I continue to get in good with Name.com, developing their API stuff & tools for their domain registrations. Also, Jim is a good ISP resource for me – If I would ever need help from a veteran.

Just be careful in these appraisals as it seems to inflate what the seller “thinks” his domain is worth. Until you try to sell, he/she won’t know.

I also chased: EBS.TV the other night. I got beat out by Pollin, the owner of Ahead.tv.

No biggie as I was drop catching this expiring .TV for a friend. It’s just nice when a triple premium letters .TV domain drops & doesn’t require the hefty “premium” charges from ENOM.

EBS.TV is still a non premium & would have cost me $21.99 or whatever Dynadot is charging had I snagged it. If I caught it, the domain would never enter into the “premium” pricing category – because ENOM would have lost control of it. Once registered by Dynadot, the enom premium fees can never apply to the domain again. Furthermore, Dynadot has a set price, which doesn’t include premium fees.

I’ll post here about the next LLL.TV I catch without premium fees