{"id":1615,"date":"2011-04-09T21:24:07","date_gmt":"2011-04-10T01:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acro.net\/blog\/?p=1615"},"modified":"2011-04-09T22:33:09","modified_gmt":"2011-04-10T02:33:09","slug":"dont-pay-the-ferryman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acro.net\/blog\/dont-pay-the-ferryman\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t pay the Ferryman"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite songs from the 80’s is “Don’t pay the ferryman<\/strong><\/a>” by Chris de Burgh. The song refrain goes like this:<\/p>\n

Don’t pay the ferryman<\/em><\/p>\n

Don’t even fix a price<\/em><\/p>\n

Don’t pay the ferryman<\/em><\/p>\n

Until he gets you to the other side<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Today, Rick Schwartz announced in his newsletter how a new TRAFFIC auction formula “will shake things up.”<\/p>\n

In essence, Rick is introducing flat fee pricing for any domain to be auctioned at TRAFFIC, unless it has gone through some yet-to-be-specified approval process by industry giants Sedo and Afternic.<\/p>\n

Exactly how these domain lists by Sedo and Afternic will be formulated, using what type of criteria and who would approve which portion of those lists is yet to be seen. I foresee a lot of behind-the-scenes “networking” – in the byzantine sense of the word<\/em> – in order to have domains approved so that no flat fee is charged.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, TRAFFIC currently displays the banner of an apparent member of the Domain Elite<\/strong><\/a> at web sites such as Domaining.com – the motto is “Because Poverty (still) sucks”.<\/p>\n

I see some conflict between the motto and the new flat pricing for auctions.<\/p>\n

In 2008 – my first TRAFFIC conference<\/em> – I submitted a handful of domains, none of which was sold at the auction, despite setting low reserves at that time. Subsequently, I was fortunate to sell one of them – 360.org<\/strong><\/a> – for $25,500 on Sedo, all while nobody was willing to spend mid four figures for it at the TRAFFIC floor auction.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong.<\/p>\n

TRAFFIC is still great for networking and for forging new relationships, although a lot of the same attendants and domain “icons” tend to make the event essentially a club meeting.<\/p>\n

However, the ability to send some domains to auction at no pre-cost has been a definite reason in order to also attend the TRAFFIC conference, perhaps to further promote those domains. With the introduction of the flat fee for domains with a minimum asking price of $5,000 one wonders why this is done at a time that the economy is bad and domain capital is low.<\/p>\n

At the same time, smaller, daily networking events introduced by DomainFest appear to have bitten down on the conference market, at an affordable attendance fee.<\/p>\n

The Holy Grail of every conference-sponsored domain auction, is the elusive end-user, preferably one loaded with investors’ money. If these investors flocked en masse<\/em> to TRAFFIC, then the flat fee would be justified.<\/p>\n

I would still like to pay the domain ferryman his fees, *after* he delivers my domain to the other side.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite songs from the 80’s is “Don’t pay the ferryman” by Chris de Burgh. The song refrain goes like this: Don’t pay the ferryman Don’t even fix a price Don’t pay the ferryman Until he gets you to the other side Today, Rick Schwartz announced in his newsletter how a new TRAFFIC […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-domains","entry"],"yoast_head":"\nDon't pay the Ferryman - Acro.net - A Domain Investing Blog by Theo Develegas<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acro.net\/blog\/dont-pay-the-ferryman\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Don't pay the Ferryman - Acro.net - A Domain Investing Blog by Theo Develegas\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of my favorite songs from the 80’s is “Don’t pay the ferryman” by Chris de Burgh. 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