Home Blog

Vote for Beanstalk Challenge People’s Choice Awards

0

Rick Schwartz’s Beanstalk Challenge brings together entrepreneurs, web developers, and domain investors to build businesses on valuable domain names from Rick’s portfolio, without having to purchase the domain names. The idea is to give talented people an opportunity to build a business on an exceptional domain name without a substantial acquisition cost. The are nearly 100 domain names in this challenge with dozens of builders from around the world participating.

I’ve enjoyed following Rick’s Beanstalk Challenge posts on X, seeing the different domain names and website choices of the builders. Some businesses are fairly obvious while others are using the domain names in a way I would never have even considered. Watching some of the websites that were launched also motivated me to launch a couple of my own websites, and it quickly became easy to see why it’s a pretty big thrill to launch and grow a website. It’s addictive.

6 Figure .Bot Sale Reported on Spaceship

0

Namecheap and Spaceship Founder (and former CEO) Richard Kirkendall shared that the Open.Bot domain name was sold for $111,000 via the Spaceship Sellerhub. In announcing the sale, he asked if this is the highest public price paid for a .Bot domain name:

Pending Delete Schedule Change Has Been a Challenge

0

For many years, I’ve had a pretty standard morning routine for my business. I take time first thing in the morning to review upcoming auctions at the expiry and drop catching platforms. I use tools like Dropping.pro and ExpiredDomains.net to identify targets of interest before placing bids or backorders. When I’m at home, I take my time and this can go for an hour or two, but I can speed it up when necessary.

Last month, the bidding deadline for pending delete domain names was changed from 18:00 UTC to 12:00 UTC. This six hour time difference has posed a bit of a challenge for me, and it has changed my morning routine in some ways.

Bret Miller Takes on a Growing Role at ATM Holdings

It gets me excited when one of my kids notices something unique about a domain name and shares that with me. I can’t imagine they’ll go on to become domain investors, but it would be great if they remain knowledgable about domain names as they get older and benefit from using them wisely. It’s fun to talk to my kids about my business.

With that in mind, I enjoyed reading Andrew Miller’s update about his son, Bret Miller, in his Random Sunday Thoughts post on X yesterday:

Nominations Open for 2027 Lonnie Borck Memorial Award

0

Nominations are now open for the 2027 Lonnie Borck Memorial Award, which is presented annually by the Internet Commerce Association (ICA). The award will be presented at the ICA Meeting in Las Vegas this January. This will be the tenth anniversary of the award.

The Lonnie Borck Memorial Award was created in memory of Lonnie Borck, a successful and well-liked member of the domain name investment community who passed away in 2016. Lonnie was also a close friend of mine. According to the ICA, “the Award honors those who make an exceptional contribution to fostering a sense of community within the domain name industry.”

I was fortunate to receive the award last year.

Right of the Dot Holding NamesCon Auction

1

Right of the Dot (ROTD) will be holding the domain name auction at the NamesCon conference next month. The live auction will take place on November 11 at 4pm (eastern) at Ice Palace Studios in Miami. Auction bidders will be able to participate in person at the venue or they can place their bidding online.

The auction pre-bidding is now open at bid.rotd.com, and ROTD is continuing to add domain names to the auction inventory. At the moment, there are more than 300 domain names listed for sale. Some of the highlighted domain names include Borrow.com, Fare.com, Beg.com, HomeService.com, Edinburgh.com, and CapeTown.com. I understand that early bidding activity will help ROTD determine which domain names are selected for the live portion of the auction.