Let’s Face It; Sedo.com Generic .Me Auction, It Was A Bust

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The Sedo.com Generic .Me domain name auction that concluded yesterday was, well there is no other way to say it, a bust.

Out of the 190 domain names for sale only 8 domain names sold and the vast majority never even got a bid.

The auction was run in conjunction with Brands-and-Jingles whose principal Mark Kychma told had to say:

“The result are very disappointing – Brands-and-Jingles is regularly selling .ME names in the range $5k-$50k.”

“This auction failed to recognize the value of some great names like implement.me or stereotype.me. ”

“I guess we just didn’t manage to get the [right] buyers for some yet unknown reasons.”

Here are the final bids from yesterday’s auction:

 

Domain Name Price Bidders
recall.me 999 1
shared.me 999 1
tagged.me 999 2
compact.me 900 5
knows.me 800 3
assistant.me 650 1
absolute.me 620 4
debrief.me 600 1
follows.me 600 1
restrict.me 600 1
sharpen.me 600 1
webpoker.me 600 3
substitute.me 599 2
booze.me 575 2
clouded.me 555 2
listed.me 555 1
psychologist.me 550 2
backuping.me 525 1
interesting.me 520 2
combat.me 500 1
comfy.me 500 1
donating.me 500 1
excited.me 500 1
healthify.me 500 1
impulse.me 500 1
intercept.me 500 1
weapon.me 500 1
chic.me 499 10
deactivate.me 499 2
vocal.me 499 9
wifi4.me 499 1
webify.me 400 5
solicitor.me 350 1
keyboard.me 349 2
bcc.me 333 3
digs.me 330 3
captcha.me 240 4
favours.me 240 3
century.me 200 3
flavour.me 200 2
unwind.me 175 1
bengal.me 160 3
seenby.me 150 3
splendid.me 150 3
taxadvice.me 150 1
usual.me 150 2
n-y.me 130 4
recharging.me 123 2
cracked.me 120 1
healthcover.me 120 2
maximise.me 120 2
number1.me 111 1
numberone.me 111 1
decrease.me 110 2
savor.me 110 2
curvy.me 101 1
callback.me 100 1
discounted.me 100 1
dislike.me 100 1
fitting.me 100 1
helpless.me 100 1
induce.me 100 1
offshoring.me 100 1
sexbomb.me 100 1
tested.me 100 1
they.me 100 1
t-shirts.me 100 1
3000.me 0 0
3so.me 0 0
asiangirl.me 0 0
balancing.me 0 0
bikini4.me 0 0
bikinis4.me 0 0
breastfeed.me 0 0
bugfree.me 0 0
catalyse.me 0 0
confess2.me 0 0
cryptic.me 0 0
deblock.me 0 0
decent.me 0 0
decoded.me 0 0
detour.me 0 0
digify.me 0 0
dignify.me 0 0
dildo4.me 0 0
diplomatic.me 0 0
diverge.me 0 0
donate2.me 0 0
drastic.me 0 0
dried.me 0 0
ebout.me 0 0
ecoach.me 0 0
ematch.me 0 0
estyle.me 0 0
explainto.me 0 0
fascinating.me 0 0
findit4.me 0 0
gallery4.me 0 0
gigantic.me 0 0
give2.me 0 0
hairspray.me 0 0
healthyfood4.me 0 0
heroic.me 0 0
implement.me 0 0
insideout.me 0 0
intricate.me 0 0
ironic.me 0 0
isabout.me 0 0
is-about.me 0 0
isjust.me 0 0
is-just.me 0 0
is-like.me 0 0
isreally.me 0 0
is-really.me 0 0
issimply.me 0 0
is-simply.me 0 0
istruly.me 0 0
is-truly.me 0 0
its-just.me 0 0
iview.me 0 0
jackpot4.me 0 0
kisser.me 0 0
livesex4.me 0 0
lowcost4.me 0 0
mandate.me 0 0
matches.me 0 0
medieval.me 0 0
meetsexy.me 0 0
mere.me 0 0
merely.me 0 0
millenium.me 0 0
mixi.me 0 0
mpv.me 0 0
nails4.me 0 0
number-1.me 0 0
number-one.me 0 0
nutrify.me 0 0
oligarch.me 0 0
outfitting.me 0 0
padlock.me 0 0
painted.me 0 0
penthouse4.me 0 0
present4.me 0 0
prevented.me 0 0
print4.me 0 0
probiotic.me 0 0
protects.me 0 0
rearrange.me 0 0
rehearse.me 0 0
resupply.me 0 0
riskfree.me 0 0
robust.me 0 0
routing.me 0 0
scaffold.me 0 0
scary.me 0 0
scripting.me 0 0
sexcity.me 0 0
sextoy4.me 0 0
smoothen.me 0 0
sovereign.me 0 0
spotter.me 0 0
stainfree.me 0 0
stateof.me 0 0
stereotype.me 0 0
stubborn.me 0 0
submerge.me 0 0
super-cool.me 0 0
supermall.me 0 0
super-model.me 0 0
super-star.me 0 0
surprise4.me 0 0
taxadvice4.me 0 0
teen4.me 0 0
teens4.me 0 0
transsexual.me 0 0
ultrathin.me 0 0
umatch.me 0 0
unrivaled.me 0 0
unrivalled.me 0 0
unseen.me 0 0
unwired.me 0 0
upload2.me 0 0
usedcar4.me 0 0
utterly.me 0 0
voip4.me 0 0
voipfor.me 0 0
whispered.me 0 0
whisperer.me 0 0
whispers.me 0 0
xblog.me 0 0

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

  1. BrianWick says

    Could be an indication that these type of non.com’s only sell to end users – and not speculators – food for thought for those thinking there will be a secondary market for all the new non.com’s like .shop, .realestate, .homes, …

  2. Average Domainer says

    The secondary market is dead. I only buy cheap – no way would I pay more than $50 for a premium .me

  3. Acro says

    Let’s face it, the spammy methods of promoting this sale of third and fourth tier keywords in a ccTLD were responsible for the results.

    If you don’t know what I’m talking about, google ‘Marysa Lykhas’.

  4. Mr.T says

    Personally I think the names were really poor. Too many crappy words not going well with .ME, too many hyphens, too many numbers etc.

    Compare that to the .Me registry auctions over the years. A little look back in time, here are the results from the first .ME auction:

    rock.me $12,000
    pay.me $11,501
    test.me $11,100
    join.me $10,099
    pick.me $10,099
    bet.me $10,099
    book.me $9,900
    print.me $9,100
    add.me $8,600
    remember.me $7,600
    download.me $5,100
    message.me $4,250
    film.me $4,250
    drink.me $4,000
    support.me $3,970
    order.me $3,550
    ring.me $3,502
    tell.me $3,500
    compare.me $3,300
    power.me $2,950
    locate.me $2,750
    market.me $2,750
    discount.me $2,650
    reward.me $2,150
    manage.me $2,000

    That’s what I call premium domains at bargain prices!

  5. Johnnie says

    It’s just an indication that if you don’t put good names up (regardless of extension), don’t expect much. He has better ones it looks like – insure, racing, irish, german, democrat, republican etc. That would have been more of a “premium” auction, not names with dashes and numbers, something you might get away with in a .com but not another extension. You can hand reg much better names.

  6. Brad Mugford says

    The quality of domains in this auction was marginal at best.

    It is mainly odd tense verbs and lesser quality adjectives and nouns.

    The buyers are there for top quality verbs without a doubt.

    Brad

  10. DomNics says

    Sedo have beaten the .me drum so hard and so often it is pitiful. They have usurped many a decent single austion by distracting bidders with this rather narrowly focussed auction.

    Obviously they have shares in the company or are getting a big kickback!

    PLEASE stop them already SEDO!
    Try a few other ccTLD auctions (which is after all what .me is – Montenegro) and you will be pleasantly surprised….

  14. Mike Mann says

    I have a hundred thousand great .Coms for sale for $350 each. So what is the point of ALT TLD auctions at all before the best and cheapest “buy now” premium .Com domains are all gone? or any auctions for anything other than the very top names? as determined by consensus of professionals and not random domain pickers.

  15. Jing.ly says

    Brands-and-Jingles put forward a well priced portfolio. Those of lower quality were priced accordingly. Many names were put at the nominal prices.

    The real mystery is that names like implement.me didn’t receive a single bid at all. Then names like interesting.me (with $999 reserve) did not sell while interest.me was sold for $80k few weeks ago.

    There were quite few other anomalies in the auction. Otherwise, the composition was about third of verb+me or other jingly form of verbed/verbing+me. One third of adjectives+me – which go quite well too.

    E.g., two years ago trully.me went for five figures via Sedo.

    Some 15 names were adult oriented, like the rest of the Internet.

    ***2.me and ***4.me actual.ly go well. There are many services using such names.

    Maybe the agency should stick with the proven concept of selling brands to the end users. That worked for years.

  18. Ms Domainer says

    *

    The truth of the matter: if “ordinary” domainers, ones without an “in,” had submitted such poor quality domains, we would have been laughed out of town.

    My advice to Sedo: stop pandering to your friends and concentrate on selling top-tier names, whatever the TLD.

    BTW, in May, I sold a top tier .me domain for $XXXX, without any marketing help from Sedo–that’s because the domain sold itself.

    *

  19. Snoopy says

    ““This auction failed to recognize the value of some great names like implement.me or stereotype.me. ””

    These aren’t even reg fee names.

  20. Garry Epperson says

    Looks like they were trying to dump their crap and they thought nobody would know the difference.

  21. Gazzip says

    “food for thought for those thinking there will be a secondary market for all the new non.com’s like .shop, .realestate, .homes, ”

    It can be hard enough trying to sell decent .coms to end-users never mind trying to sell random .whatevers

    I just contacted an American branding company with 20 years experience that are using a .net for their business to see if they wanted to buy the same domain in .com for about $1,500 as I no longer intend to use it.

    His Answer: No Thanks 😉

  22. BrianWick says

    BillW –
    “Very few brandables or “ear catching” combos.”

    So you think:
    StuffItInto.Me
    EmptyItInto.Me
    Stroke.Me
    Spank.Me
    BillOfGoods.Me
    Bankrupt.Me
    MaxOutMyCreditCards.Me

    Would be more “ear catching” to a speculator (oops domain investor) mortgaging himself into bankruptcy.

    Not point fingures here – just stating (R)eality – all the money in non.com’s is in the registry – not the suckers stroked into trying to find the 1 in a thousand that has any secondary market.
    Bri

  23. M. Menius says

    “implement” and “stereotype” are not prime keywords. That these were passed should be no surprise to anyone.

    “This auction failed to recognize the value of some great names like implement.me or stereotype.me. ”

  24. owen frager says

    To be call-to-action names- where end user demand would be they need to be verbs like Mr T’s list
    Second you need to target end users which means selling ad agencies
    Third if you are brands and jingles- where’s the Jingles- that would make a compelling package to and end user
    EVEN if you could suggest a few songs that could be used in a commercial to emphasize the keyword
    Think Stanley steamer keeps carpet cleaner 1-800-steamer
    Think 800#s- .me is like the best 800 #s 1-800-date-me

  25. Dude says

    It’s summertime. People are on vacation, having fun, and not every potential buyer is tuned into the day in and day out of the domain industry, including marginal .me auctions at Sedo. And…it’s hard to see the value in many of the names on the list.

  26. Jp says

    .me auctions are getting to be like American idol finding the top talent in America, time after time, like it will never run our or diminish in quality. Except for American Idol new talent is being born all the time.

  27. dmpartners says

    .com Folks that’s it anything else is a freaking waste of .me’s time The next big wave will be 3D.com’s in about 12- 24 months. The new extensions are a joke as is .me . you . it . that Idiotic idea.

  30. Grim says

    Well, at least a few people made enough profit to pay part of their apartment rent, this month.

  31. RAYY says

    @dmpartners

    “…The next big wave will be 3D.com’s in about 12- 24 months…”

    Is 3D really coming back in near future? and why?

    I realise that I have average of 35 – 55 whois monthly search on many of my 3D domain names recently. I just can’t figure out why I have so many whois search result for my 3D domains……

  32. BillW says

    @Brian Wick- don’t think you quite got it…

    StuffItInto.Me (worthless)
    EmptyItInto.Me (worthless)
    Stroke.Me (better, with some imagination some interesting possiblities)
    Spank.Me (good one, nice potential for adult fetish site)
    BillOfGoods.Me(worthless)
    Bankrupt.Me (marginal)
    MaxOutMyCreditCards.Me (worthless)

    Come to think of it….the best possiblities are one word adult terms that can work well paired with .me. Seems the registry has reserved the best ones though.

  33. DN Conference says

    @ Jeff Schneider, your incessant presence in these comments lowers the credibility of this blog.

    This once was (and for the most part, still is) a place to get pretty good commentary and discussion on the domain name space. Even the fringe players were almost always pretty insightful. Over 2012, it’s turned into a kiddie pool.

    I don’t know if there’s anything Michael can do to remedy it or if it’s just reflective of the overall state of the industry (and the sort of people who now join in). All I know is that every time I see a Jeff Schneider post, it makes me long for the good old days before people like that were here.

  34. Overpriced says

    Maybe people realize that dot me are overpriced junk (IMO). People who keep telling others that dot me are on the verge of huge sales are serving up junk as well (IMO). Most would not purchase the hyphenated duds in dot com rather than dot me.

  35. James says

    The reason they did not sell was there was no really good DOT ME names on this auction.

    I and others would have bid if there had been some really Premium ME domains on the auction.

  36. www.tl says

    @Mike Mann

    Not everything is about .com. There are some marketers
    out there who prefer other TLD’s, like .me, because they
    enable you to have high potential marketing statements
    & brands such as help.me.

    I’m not knocking .com, i’m just saying that things have
    evolved a ‘lil bit since 1999!.. 🙂

  37. BrianWick says

    “I’m not knocking .com, i’m just saying that things have evolved a ‘lil bit since 1999!.. :)”

    Yes – these new registries will make decent money – and in doing so will make generic, intuitive and geographic .com’s even more desireable

  38. Harry LaCurve says

    @MIKE MANN “I have a hundred thousand great .Coms for sale for $350 each. So what is the point of ALT TLD auctions at all before the best and cheapest “buy now” premium .Com domains are all gone? or any auctions for anything other than the very top names?”

    OKAY WORLD! Everybody please buy Mike Mann’s amazing .com domains before you do anything else. Once purchased you may get on with business hhaa don’t make me laugh.

    The .com is a gon(na). Retro status, but not in a good way.

  39. www.tl says

    @BrianWick

    “Yes – these new registries will make decent money – and in doing so will make generic, intuitive and geographic .com’s even more desireable”

    Well, Brian, I don’t doubt that this is the hope, particularly among
    .com owners, but it would be interesting to see a fact or two to help
    back that claim up!

    Personally, I believe that the ‘.anything’ scheme will make domain
    hacks, as are so often found in the ‘.me’ TLD, more mainstream (and
    valuable) but I have no figs to back that up …yet 🙂

    My other prediction is that the gTLD’s will ‘revise’ the commonly
    -perceived values of 2 word .com’s, e.g. bostonlawyer.com, before
    dying an unnatural death in what may be seen to be little more than
    a ‘busted flush’…

    The likes of Google, and a few others, will ‘make’ the gTLD work but
    the upcomers who ‘bet the farm’ on this, and really needed it to pay
    off, will lose out to a high degree I fear.

  42. Mr.T says

    Funny thing is, quite a few of the hundred thousand domains Mr Mann refers to as PREMIUM, CHEAP, BUY NOW domains, are nothing more than what some refer to as pigeon shit. That´s why he sells them, well, CHEAP!

    It´s not all about .com anymore. Times change and so does the internet, so does branding and so does the mindset of the average Joe. Just wait and see..

  43. BrianWick says

    It is amazing how much people know about “Times Changing” with the Internet – but, like Mr T, cannot identify themselves. Comical actually.
    Is hiding behind a rock or running for the hills part of “Times Changing” as well ?

  44. www.tl says

    Mark, let me know who is buying full/soft hacks at $50K,
    will you?

    I have ri.sk currently for sale, and I can make it more than
    worth your while, if you can find me a buyer 🙂

  45. BrianWick says

    I had so many offers on Ci.gs years ago that I finally let it drop 🙂

    In fact hacks are worth so much that Min.us bought Minus.com from me for $115K

    Come on guys – that kind of hack garbage is worthless and bush league.

  46. www.tl says

    @BrianWick

    Oh, of course, the only domains that are worth anything
    are the ones that you’re holding, or have sold..! Silly me,
    I sometimes forget how insecure domainers can be.. lol.

  48. www.tl says

    “Clearly I have mademy point”

    Yes, you have. In fact i’m going to grab me some
    prime .com’s right now!!!

  50. www.tl says

    Desperation and bitterness will always find a way,
    won’t it Brian! Hehe.. Please don’t reply anymore
    ‘though, as we can declare you the “Bitterness King”
    quite easily…

  51. BrianWick says

    “Please don’t reply anymore” –
    If me deciding to have a little fun with a bottom feeder hack – who has obviously made some wrong turns – gets me some kind of award – then I greatfully accept.

  53. www.tl says

    “gets me some kind of award – then I greatfully accept.”

    It does, so commemorate your new award with a jaunty song,
    and feel intense pride in your heart…

    Oh, and whoever is helping you to read and spell today, might
    want to know that “greatfully” is spelled “gratefully”.. 🙂

  54. BrianWick says

    As the sayin goes – when you are (or your) backed against the wall – change subject matter and correct the spelling – good god loser

  55. Irish.Me says

    Sedo’s Great Names has just finished. Out of 228, about 30 met the reserve prices and the total take is about 30k. This is like 10% of all names and about 10% of what one would expect from Sedo’s events.

    It is either the summer or something fundamentally wrong with the market/marketing.

  57. ri.sk says

    The glory days of Great Domains are long gone i’m afraid.
    It’s a shame, as GD really were a powerhouse in the late
    90’s, but now they’re like a dollar store, and the GD “experts”
    know as much about domains as a rock at the bottom of
    the ocean…

  58. Johnnie says

    “Sedo’s Great Names has just finished. Out of 228, about 30 met the reserve prices and the total take is about 30k. This is like 10% of all names and about 10% of what one would expect from Sedo’s events.

    It is either the summer or something fundamentally wrong with the market/marketing.”

    No, the problem is Sedo. Whoever they have picking the names for these auctions, needs to be removed, they’ve been doing a horrible job for awhile now. With the amount of domains people are submitting, they should be pick nothing but winners, at least a high percentage.