Stop The Presses: Rick Latona Auction Stopped After 33 Domains Due To Online Bidding Problems
2010 January 22
The RickLatona.com action was stopped 33 domains into the auction after the online auction software crashed.
The online system seem to crash just a couple of domain into the auction and never got working properly.
Rick Latona bravely took the stage after the auction for Concreteblocks.com sold for $2,000 and announced that he was stopping the auction out of fairness to his sellers and would resume the auction at 10am PST tomorrow.
IMHO It took a lot of guts for Rick to stand up and admit his system failed and stop the auction but I think he did the right thing.
All domains that sold up until the break are final.
Here are all the sales up to the break which totaled just over $90K.
| $50,000 | GoFish.com |
| $20,000 | SEU.com |
| $5,000 | PostalCodes.com |
| $3,000 | Motivating.com |
| $2,300 | EngineeringDegrees.com |
| $2,002 | Sunburns.com |
| $2,000 | TrainingBra.com |
| $2,000 | ConcreteBlocks.com |
| $1,100 | QuitGambling.org |
| $1,000 | iSupplies.com and iSupplies.net |
| $1,000 | MarineCorps.org |
| $600 | LeadershipSeminar.com |
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That can’t have been an easy decision to make, but Rick made the right call to postpone the rest of the auction until Saturday morning.
Let’s all wish Rick and his team the best of luck getting the technical bugs ironed out. Live auctions like these are important for our industry, and Rick and his team have done a great job to date.
Good luck to all the buyers and sellers.
Wow……that’s a hard break for Rick. He’s tried so hard getting things organized.
He did not deserve this.
man that stinks, hmmm…
Bill
Not sure, but they may have go back to proxybid for now.
We will wait for the announcement
UPDATE
RickLatona.com has confirmed that tomorrow live auction will resume with online bidding using proxybid.com
The auction will start at 10am PST where it left off with the 34th domain name, RealEstate.co.za
Bargains. It’s a great time to have $$$ to invest.
That sucks that this had to happen. I just got home and was interested in seeing the results from the auction, to find this.
Lot’s of changes… going to proxybid.com, Saturday auction, new bidders will have to sign up, bids transferred etc. but I wish them the best of luck and I’m sure they will have a busy night.
I wish it would of just run smooth but hope for the best in the end!
I’m really surprised. Didn’t the TRAFFIC NYC auction last year have problems too, where an auctioneer didn’t make it to the show because of flight problems and they fumbled through with a replacement found on location?
I feel the pressure for Rick and the domain sellers/buyers and TRAFFIC. Hey, I produced shows for 25 years, and the saying goes “Don’t let all the little brush fires turn into one big forest fire”… but it looks like Rick is taking control, so we should all support his efforts to get things back on track. Stay focused and it will all turn out alright. All domainers should support TRAFFIC through this…
Can’t believe you donkeys still pay to go to these shows, they have second rate speakers which have nothing to do with the industry and the auction system after 4 YEARS still doesn’t work.
Total joke. Go home Rick(s), Amature hour all around.
Mark,
When I read your comment on DNW, I figured you had a different opinion than many of the major domainers which is “ok”.
When I see you posted here the exact same wording as your other posting, it is clear you have an agenda.
Mark starts off “You donkeys” as if we’ve done something wrong, jumped over the corral and he’s got the noble task of rounding us burros back again. Reality is that mark would shet his pants and piss his diaper if he had to organize his closet let alone a live event with outside bidders.
Bozo doesn’t like Rick so instead of just saying so, he belittles the entire effort as if that is the reason he dislikes Rick. I think Rick may have bought a domain from Mark and turned it for 10x the price so Mark is a bit asshurt.
No sweat mark may be you can be asked to speak at a lunch room near you sometime. Rick will compete well in the future.
This has to be a tough pill to swallow. Rick’s newsletter blast last night about this difficulty situation was pretty courageous. Getting something as complex as an online auction fixed, during these overnight hours, is a task I do not envy. The coding is challenging enough when there’s plenty of time to do it!
Anyway, my very best to Rick and all the Latona team.
That did take a lot of courage to pull the plug, and was the right thing to do. I worked for years in the field of performance management of distributed systems. Spending “Hundreds of hours” testing a distributed or web based software system is *nothing* in this business, and would usually be described as a superficial test. Once a system goes into production the bugs crawl out of every crack in the system.
The problem of matching a performance lab test to production within specified tolerance of observed production metrics is “NP-Complete.”
Hello,
While I agree that it took a lot of guts for Rick to step in and admit the system isn’t up to par and things needed to be fixed. I don’t think that decision to postpone truly helps the sellers in the auction. All the buyers that were online made time for that auction last night. Domainers are busy people with personal lives and other appointments. I actually think it would have been better to delay 30 mins and continue with auction then. Also, that was the night of the party…I’ve been to enough TRAFFIC shows to know the parties go late and people sleep in. So live auction attendees are groggy and rushing to the room, instead of a bit tipsy and ready to bid!!
With that said, I feel an auction with such value and high dollar amounts, there should be a team of people ready to troubleshoot these types of cases. Don’t spare any expense on something this major!! So as the auction runs this morning…mostly all domains have been passed on so far! Still a smart move?
Respectfully,
Soroosch
Great thoughts Soroosch.:
“Also, that was the night of the party…I’ve been to enough TRAFFIC shows to know the parties go late and people sleep in. So live auction attendees are groggy and rushing to the room, instead of a bit tipsy and ready to bid!!”
The auction lost the “sizzle”. There is a big difference between an auction the night of the party, and an auction *after* a big party night and early in the morning…
Rick and his excellent team made the best decision they could, having to choose from several difficult options. I think they did a remarkable job considering the challenges and complexities of coordinating an event like this. It’s easy to sit back in the cheap seats and complain about the way it was handled, but these guys stepped up and made the best of an extremely difficult situation. I was a seller in the auction and I think they handled it very well.