Regarding ireport.com – I would argue $750k was Ricks price, $25k was Greg’s price. The only thing to determine these values was the buyer and seller and the willingness of each to walk away. Some have a much greater walk-away threshhold.

An open and free market place, where no exclusions exist is exactly what we all need to happen to fairly price domain names. Your insistence that it is impossible, doesnt smell right. This sounds like an argument the ole boys club would make, dont get me wrong I am not accusing you of being one.

Until the current auction system opens up and really solicits and encourages madison avenue and all others to participate. We as domain owners will suffer manipulatively low valuations that the current club members are now enjoying.

I also understand that because you believe in your stated convictions above, that an open and free market place is folly, and it is follyto believe that the current auction system comes close to being a fair pricing system. You probably would have been forced into selling Ireport.com for 25,000$. That is a shame, and what does that tell us all about the current system in place?

An open free market where no restrictions exists on acceptance is unrealistic for many reasons but the 2 most obvious reasons being…1) massive supply of domains (in fact, there are still unreg’d domains that are much much better than some people’s “gems”) and 2) the unwillingness of the seller to list at the prices that this supply create.

Unless your domain has type-in traffic or you have developed a traffic source and hopefully add monetization, there is no verifiable or accountable economic/financial numbers in which to create a value. In such case, the name relies on brandability or future development – hard work.

Additionally, there are only so many companies who will ever create a mega-brand. Even Digg, twitter, etc are not mega-brands.

The sale of ireport.com and all others is a game of patience and brilliance and art. Had I owned that name, it would have sold for probably $25,000 even knowing it was used at CNN. Why? because Rick is a better seller of premium domains – guaranteed.

Gotta close. Need to work.

You make a great point about the subjective and highly unpredictable art of valuing domains that the marketplace or autions exclude from being eligible for auction.
Take Ireport.com , just imagine if Rick Schwartz a year ago , before big sale, entered it on an auction format with a reserve price of 200k and auction Pooh Bahs rejected it , and by the way in my opinion they would have, how in the world would it sell when it is witheld from the marketplace.
How many fine names never reach the gavel? This cherry picking goes on constantly. I contend that an open and free marketing system for names would be far superior in establishing true market values of our cyber assets(domain Addresses)

Until an open and free marketplace exists, we are all blowing in the wind.

We all check DNjournal each week and I know we say “what the heck” at some of the names and “what a deal” at others. It is that “what the heck” time and again that makes us all think we have gold – me included.

I still believe that low or no reserve auctions attract low or no value domains and therefore attract low valuations. Economics never listen to politics. My last position is Auction reserve sqweeze plays= low or no reserve names which ultimately yield low auction values= Lower mean values, which means we all lose, unless you happen to be a buyer?

I already put my two cents in… basically, domain auctions have to become theme-oriented and pound the end user industries through publications and market-specific advertising to really be fair to the domain SELLERS.

Otherwise, domainers like myself and many others who have mid-range domains are going to be forced to sell to other domainers for way less than the domains are worth. This is a “market yield” fact, but that “market” is controlled by the top domain producers, including Moniker, Snapnames, Aftermarket.com, Afternic and Sedo, to name a few. That’s not to disparage any of the above mentioned auction producers, it’s just point out a logical marketing fact:

“If you don’t use a Duck Call, you aren’t getting any webbed feet and feathers at your pond”

So, my request again to the auction producers is:

THEME AUCTIONS, MARKETING, AND SOME EFFORT TO BRING REAL VALUE TO MID-RANGE DOMAINS WITH INFORMATION IN NEWS RELEASES

Invest a few bucks, people.

I am sure we would all have a nice chuckle at some valuations we owners put on our “gold”. In the end, there are only 3 things that matter…1) type in traffic, 2) brandable, or 3) use it for SEO. Otherwise, just go out at get any domain at reg fee – marketing principles only matters after the fact if your domain fails to meet any of these 3 (NO, I did not say all of these 3). If I missed any, please add commentors…