Domain News & A Chat With SnapNames
Q: Yo, yo, yo, welcome to Domain Masters. This is Monte Cahn, your host. Got another great show lined up tonight, have Ron Jackson from DN Journal. We're gonna recap what's going on since the beginning of the year and our last conversation a few weeks ago. There's been a lot of exciting sales and news in the industry. And I have Kjel from Snap Names on, we're gonna talked about the expired name market, some of the opportunities and issues people are having with their expired name drop back services, talk about the new TF service that's catching a lot of names, and we'll cover a lot of the issues.
Definitely log into the chat room, the lounge and post your questions up, we'll try and get them answered for you, and look forward to having a great show tonight. We're gonna break for a couple commercials, be back with Ron Jackson and do a little recap about what's gonna on in the domain industry, and be back to you in a couple minutes.
Hello, welcome back to the show. Again, this is Monte Cahn, your host. I have Ron Jackson on the line, the editor, chief, owner, operator of DN Journal. Ron, welcome.
RJ: Thank you, Monte, glad to be with you again.
Q: It's been a few weeks, actually several weeks. When's the last time we had you on?
RJ: It's probably been little over a month now.
Q: Yeah, definitely. So I know a lot has been going on in the domain name industries, particularly in the sales market. I thought it would be a good idea to recap things, see where we are year-to-date. We're rolling into the middle of March now, and there's been some significant announcements and sales. What's the buzz on the street?
RJ: Well, of course, we get out of the gate very quickly in 2005, and it really--it just have never let up, it just gets, you know, every week there's major sales, big stories. You never have to look any further back then the current week to find something that, you know, will really open your eyes. Just this week, the number one sale that we've reported was GospelMusic.com, which went for $150,000, and that ranks among the best for sales that we've seen so far this year, in fact, ties for number three with GED.com, both of those [inaudible] at that $150K mark. And another remarkable sale this week was Lottery.org, which went for over $66,000, and the amazing thing about that is it's obviously a great keyword, but in dot-org, the highest price that we have ever had reported at DN Journal, dating back to the Fall of 2003, when we started our reporting, was a little bit over $16,000, so all of a sudden in one leap, we've gone four times higher than anything we've ever had reported to us in that extension before. And I think that's just an indication of how broad, you know, the success has been in the domain market over the past about year and a half now. Obviously, the dot-coms are going crazy, but you have to have a pretty solid bank role to play at the upper levels of the dot-com market, so that's spreading out to a lot of the other extensions. There are also a number of good dot-net sales this week, which we haven't always seen a lot of at high levels, but those are coming along just fine, as well.
Q: Yeah, definitely. And I guess it was last week, or maybe it was two weeks ago, Local.com, which actually was--which actually had a little business behind it, but still, a $700,000 purchase of a domain name, and definitely right into the local search market, I guess.
RJ: That was just two weeks ago, and that is the largest sale that we've had to-date, and there was a site associated with them, as you said, but the buyers said that they're going to scrap the content that is on there, they said that $700,000 was just for the domain name alone, and that they're gonna bring their own new content to the site, so, you know, that's pretty amazing when you look at it. Those are the kinds of figures that just keep bringing new blood into the market.
Q: Yeah, and we definitely, at Moniker and Domain Systems, see a big upswing in a lot of the domain sales, as well. Obviously, we weren't able to report a lot of them, but we've had five six-figure sales in the last two weeks, as well, that have been quite significant, and definitely seeing a lot of the, you know, online community, corporate online community recognize again have valuable it is, again, to have a good brand and identity, that's for sure.
RJ: One thing that I've noticed in--well, first noticed it last year was getting phone calls from venture capital companies that were starting to sniff around in this industry, once that Marchex deal happened at $164 million, that has just opened the flood gates, and a week doesn't pass now that we don't have someone from an investment bank or a VC company call and want information on what's going. The interesting thing about it is they really don't--I won't say this about all of them, but many of them really don't understand the industry at all, it has flown under the radar for so long, they really don't know what's going on, but when they saw Marchex spend that kind of money, they know something's going on, and they're trying to get a handle on it. So a lot of people with the great portfolios or news sources or anyone really involved in the business is getting these contacts as those VC people try to get a handle on what's going on, and that portends to me as a flood of money that's going to come in to this market over the next year or so.
Q: Yeah, I totally agree with you. When we were at SES a couple of weeks ago, I saw more VCs stopping by our booth and asking questions about domain names and the domain name market than I ever have probably in all the years that we've been in business. And going to shows and they're definitely on the bandwagon, they're trying to educate themselves around domain name, you know, traffic aggregation, traffic monetization, they're looking to getting into the market in a big way, for sure.
RJ: And what will be interesting historically to see when we look back on it, a lot of people looked at Marchex spending that kind of money, and it was on what was an unknown quantity that the financial markets when they laid that money down. And a lot of people thought wow, that's just an insane amount of money, but the funny thing could be that you could look back at year or two from now and say that they got a steal, because you may have now ten VC companies come in that have got enormous war chests, who may have spent, you know, more money than that and in the long run, Marchex may have walked off with a bargain.
Q: Oh, I would say so. I mean, as we said in previous weeks, that particular purchase was one of probably many that are gonna occur, probably not the first one that's gonna occur this year, and it's definitely for the domain community, and good for the online presence for both the companies that buy it and also the online advertisers that are depending on visitors, natural typing visitors to see their ads and their products, so it's a natural progression. And they--you know, those domain names, when you own the traffic, it is key, it's key to your success on the web, and when you're in control of that traffic, and so a lot of the domain community knows that and recognizes it, and as long as there's fair market values placed on those domain names, there will be sales and transactions done.
RJ: Right.
Q: That's for sure.
RJ: Another trend that I've spotted since I talked to you last was that most of the--we see more high-dollar sales now than we've ever seen. Looking at five-figure sales, for example, when we do a top ten chart every week, going into this year, it was a rarity to have every single name on that chart be in the five-figure range, starting right around the time I last spoke with you, every single week, every name on the chart hit it, and not only everyone on the chart, but maybe four or five more off the chart, which just shows you now how deep this is going. I saw a few comments from people this week who are saying I can't believe people are spending this much money on a particular name, but it's just like there's almost a buying panic going on, some people that aren't well educated are probably spending too much money on some names, but people who know what they're doing are still getting some pretty decent deals.
Q: Right. And I think that, you know, if you have some of that money at your disposal that--like the real estate market, it's in the long-term if you're thinking long-term, it's gonna be a good investment. Yeah, some people might be overpaying now for some of those domain names, I still think that there's some people underpaying for some of those domain names, but in the long-run, and if you're in it for the long haul, regardless of whether you're buying it as a speculative call and somebody else is gonna buy it from you, I do believe that you will get a return on that investment. More and more people are getting on the web every single day, the industry's booming, in terms of number of registrations, even new registrations, we're gonna talk to the Snap folks about the Snap Back services and the expired name market, it's still vibrant and growing, a lot of the--as a matter of fact, a lot of the top names on your list are through their bidding process and they've been getting a lot of the high bids.
RJ: Well, I'll--I'd like to say this, take this opportunity just as an individual to say how happy I am to see Snap Names back in the game. They were the long-time leader, a pioneer, that whole field, and as every one who's been playing for a while knows, they got caught in a situation where the industry model changed, I think it was around the Summer of '04 when competitors started moving to an auction format, and Snap Names decided for quite a long time to stay with that set price model that they have, where you would pay I think it was $69 and that was it, whoever got the first slot got the name. The problem, of course, was that others running auctions were generating far more money and started taking partners away and that sort of thing, but Snap Names has a lot of friends that they earned, because I've always felt they're one of the top customer service companies in the industry. I've always been extremely well taken care of there, and so, you know, they were trying to do a good thing for their customers at their own expense, as it turned out. They eventually, of course, made some exclusive arrangements with the Network Solutions, and now are right back where they were years ago, on top of the game, and as you say every week, they've got a number of great sales on the chart, and they're lining up more and more new exclusive arrangements. I know they just brought in ItsYourDomain this past week, BulkRegister is with them, but they're innovating, just the way that they did years ago. And in the kind of industry that we're in where the changes happen so quickly, if you don't innovate, you're gonna be exterminated.
Q: Yeah, definitely. And we're gonna cover a lot of this stuff with Snap. You know, there's some resentment out there from some of their positionings and alignment with the VeriSign Group and then Network Solutions, but, you know, in the long run, as long as we're making--you know, providing a fair market and allowing people to buy domain names based off of values compared to other bidders, and they are putting a lot of things in place to eliminate shill bidding and, you know, artificial inflated bid prices, and that's the good part of the game. The bad part or the challenging part is to help domainers get their names out of the some of the fly by night registrars, they capture their names and some of the things that we do to help out. And we're gonna talk to them a lot about that, because it's a big challenge once you capture these names, getting them all organized, getting them all consolidated, finding out where they all are, you know, whose got actual people at registrars to help you get those names out, and get them unlocked and get them into your secured registrar and so we're gonna go through some of that stuff tonight and help people out.
RJ: It's interesting that you bring that up, because I'm going through that, actually just solved a problem today that was giving me just that kind of headache, you know, that was a monster problem all of last year, and we wrote an editorial about that. When you go into a drop catching service, they've got alignments with multiple registrars and some of those are just essentially shill operations with no customer service at all, and as you mentioned, getting your names out of there can be terrible. November of last year, ICANN set a new policy which made it easier to get names out of registrars which opened up, you know, another issue that you're well familiar with, which is the security of your domain names. That solved some of the problem with many registrars in getting names out, it got a little bit easier, but even today, as I learned this week, there's still some of those operations out there that feel like they don't have to abide by the rules. I had a particular registrar with names I had acquired through Pool.com last spring, and this registrar's up in Canada, and they had applied locks to the domains. Everyone's familiar with an unlocked lock that you have at most registrars that you can control through an interface, well they put a second lock on it, beyond that one, that lock was in the interface and was not locked, but then they had one they called their own lock, and it was grayed out, so the option could not be changed, you were stuck there. And obviously, you can't transfer a domain out as long as they have it locked.
Q: Right.
RJ: And my solution to that was to file a complaint with ICANN, and within a very short period of time, I never did hear from customer service at this particular registrar, which is a name I don't think anyone would recognize, but they did go in and unlock those domains, but only under that pressure. And I finally was able to put in a transfer order today, but I--you know, if you're--old timers know it, if you're new to this industry, I can't emphasize that enough, you know, find yourself a good registrar that's a name registrar with a good reputation that you're comfortable with, because it's just not worth the headaches to deal with the others.
Q: Yeah, definitely. And we [inaudible] service if you're having any additional problems, Ron, we can help you out, as well, because we have relationships both with Pool and with Snap, and also [inaudible] ClubDrop [ph] and NameWinner, we can actually get those names out of basically anywhere, it just takes a couple e-mails to my counterparts at each of those main ownership registrars, the people that actually control that stuff, or through Snap or Pool directly, and I can help basically anybody get any name out, just e-mail me, and we can help that out. What's going on in the other extension markets, like the dot-info, dot-biz? What are you seeing in some of those sales? Anything happening in the country codes?
RJ: It's been very interesting there, as well. Again, it's a situation where this rising tide is lifting all boats. It just happened this week that on our new extension chart dot-info swept the chart, they took all eight positions, which is very unusual, because it's been a very competitive market this year, particularly dot-biz has made quite a move this year, they were really out of the race last year. But so far in 2005, looking at sales at our entry level on our year-to-date chart, which in the new TLDs is $1,200, at this particular point dot-info's had 21 of those, but dot-biz isn't far behind with 16. Last year, dot-info had it in a runaway. This week, we had four four-figure sales in dot-info, lead by Snowboard.info at $2,640, and then we saw a couple of three letter dot-info's were next, DGA.info at $2,046, and LSD.info at $1,000. We had some lower--
Q: Who would be going there?
RJ: I'm sorry, what's that again? [Laughter]
Q: Who would be going to LSD.info?
RJ: That I believe the seller told me that it was a German company, and that it was in fact related to the hallucinogenic drug, but I can't remember what the purpose of the site was, but there was definitely a relationship to that.
Q: Yeah, definitely. And there was a big announcement today, as well, regarding dot-eu. Have you got yourself, you know, familiar with that announcement and what's gonna be happening with that?
RJ: Well, I did see the announcement that--and it looks like it'll be coming along this year. My personal--the way I personally approach those things in terms of country codes, I pretty much stick just with my own, because I've always believed in investing in what I really understand, and what I know, so pretty much my interest is in dot-US. It does seem like a lot of Europeans have an interest in that extension. I'm wondering about how that will be received, though, because there are already some very strong country code extensions throughout Europe in dot-DE, dot-FR's pretty well accepted in France, dot-CO, dot-UK obviously. So that's gonna be an interesting story to follow, and I know I'm sure a lot of speculators are gonna jump in an play that game, but personally, I'm gonna watch it with interest, but I think as an investor, I'll be on the sidelines on that one.
Q: Yeah. They plan on having between May and June a list of authorized, you know, sellers to be able to, you know, sell the extension, the dot-eu extension, and, of course, everybody will be lining up out of the gates for the single-word-dot-eu names. And I think for, you know, the European Union, it should be interesting to see how it takes off, it's gonna be--you know, because the country codes in each individual company are, you know, especially in Europe, a lot of them are popular, like de.couk. It'll be interesting to see how everyone covers themselves in this dot-eu extension, that's for sure.
RJ: You just never know how these new introductions are going to play out. There was a lot of excitement around dot-cn when that came out, among speculators, yet I haven't seen that pay off too well. There's been very, very few sales reported in it, and again you're dealing if you're--and if you're in the English language, you're dealing with a totally foreign language. That's what I'm talking about not understanding what you're buying, if you don't know what the Chinese market is looking for, don't even understand the language, that's really tough to succeed that way. So when dot-in in India just opened, I kind of stayed away from that, too, but I know some people have had much more success with that than speculators had in dot-cn, so there's more of an English speaking market over there, also very internet savvy market. And I know one fellow in particular who's already gotten tens of thousands of dollars back, he told me his entire investment on it, a portfolio of about 500 domains, from selling just a handful of them. So, you know, that one kind of surprised me, so you just really never know how they're gonna be accepted until the players get out there on the field and you see, you know, what people think of them.
Q: Yeah, definitely, and for those of you that are interested, dot-eu extensions or domain names I believe going out for about $50 or 38 euros, $50 per year is the annual registration and renewal rate. That's what they're predicting anyway.
RJ: One thing I should also since this is new since I last spoke to you, we have a new year-to-date leader on our new extension chart, and that's a dot-us, Industry.us, sold last week for $17,000, which tops Cellphones.us, which you sold--
Q: Yup.
RJ: --at Moniker, that's the number two sale this year, $12,250. So even though we see more global TLDs, info and biz on our year-to-date chart, overall dot-us has two of the top three sale so far this year, so--
Q: Yeah, I might have another one that's gonna top them all, called Freesex.us.
RJ: No kidding.
Q: How about that!
RJ: That's a good one. I like the price, too.
Q: It's a good name and a good price.
RJ: Yeah, absolutely.
Q: So it'll probably take the top for a little while until somebody else has something that's a little bit better on that. But we had that up for sale and have a lot of interested parties on it.
RJ: Great.
Q: One of the things I wanted to ask you was the other, you know, what else you're hearing in the industry, what's the buzz going on outside maybe the domain name sales market, and some of the other more regulatory issues. Anything that you're hearing about?
RJ: Well, I think the biggest issue in the past week or two is the--what's going on with the dot-pro registry. I don't know if you've been following that, but it's opened up a controversy on both sides. A single registrar, which was EnCirca, came up with a plan which allowed them to basically circumvent the registry rules on dot-pro, which were extremely strict. You had to have verified licenses, and I mean, it's so complicated that it would take a half hour to go through all the restrictions that covered that. Basically, what they did is offer a system where they remain the registrant, you can register any second level name that you want, the second level is not previously opened, before you can only get third level that would be like eng.pro, law.pro and some, but now you can go out and get something like auto.pro if it were available. But the problem is that that's not the agreement that registry pro, the registry for that extension made with ICANN, so there's a lot of people saying that that's breaking the ICANN agreement, other people like it because it opened up some nice keywords from them in dot-pro, but we've--you know, there may be another shoe that's gonna drop, ICANN's asking a lot of questions about it, and there's a conversation going on between them and EnCirca [ph], who came up with the idea. I might turn that on you, I hate to catch you off guard here, but as a registrar, I'm wondering what you feel about a registrar finding a loophole, and it could very well be legal under the language, but I'm wondering what you think about that situation.
Q: Well, I mean, obviously, Tom Barrett [ph], who created this scenario is a pretty smart guy, and dot-pro, to be honest with you, is a struggling extension.
RJ: That's right.
Q: It wasn't very well accepted, it was totally over, in my opinion, a very overpriced extension, and didn't have any presence, really, in the marketplace. And for those of you that don't know what dot-pro was aimed for, was for the professional community, what they call the professional community, doctors and lawyers, to have this extension. It would come with certain certifications and certificates to cover that extension. And they really never took off, so I think from one side, it makes the offering a little bit more palatable from a financial standpoint. I mean, after all, there are other extensions that are gaining value because people are being creative. I mean, look what--it's not the same, but it's a little bit similar to what the folks from CCNik [ph] are doing.
RJ: Right.
Q: Which is using third-level domain names, like uk-com, as part of the base domain name in having that second-level or third-level domain name as part of their domain name, and actually, a lot of the search engines like it and a lot of people are registering some of those domain names and feeding them into the search engines, and Google likes that particular string. So it's working out pretty well. I didn't have a judgment either way, all--as bureaucratic as I can is there will probably come up with a ruling of--that will probably not be what most people like.
RJ: Let me ask you this, EnCirca, and with this idea having exclusive on that now, do you think that other registrars will copy the system they came up with, or do you think they'll sit on the sidelines until they see how this is gonna shake out with ICANN?
Q: Oh, I think that there will be some that copy a similar, you know, opportunity and take advantage of those things. I mean, it's such--you know, we all--the registrar community works in such high constraints, and we have to follow certain guidelines and rules, and, you know, it's hard--it makes it hard for those that are not running professional businesses, obviously, not to compete, and when we do all compete with each other, it's--I think it's good to be a little bit innovative. And so I really don't have anything really against it, and I do think there's gonna be other creative ways to offer domain names, you know, using existing extensions like that.
RJ: One complaint that I've seen is from some people who went to ICANN and bid on a different extension, and they proposed some of the same things that dot-pro did, that they're doing--that EnCirca's doing now, but they're application was rejected, ICANN said you could do that. So--
Q: Which extension is that?
RJ: --dot-pro got accepted by saying they were going to do a certain thing, but now they're not. So you can understand there's some bitterness on that side, from the innovation side, I can see--I think again, I said that earlier in the program, that you've got to innovate to survive in this business, and the point that made is definitely true. I think someone had looked up in Google and there was somewhere like under 20 dot-pro live websites, something really insane, it just wasn't going. So, and, you know, this is the thing where there's strong arguments on both sides of the issue, so it'll be very interesting to watch it play out.
Q: Yeah, and it might be an item of discussion at the upcoming ICANN meeting in Argentina, and I'm sure that it'll be discussed amongst the registrar, you know, gathering their constituency that everyone belongs to, or at least the key registrars do. And, you know, I think that if it's available to the other registrars to be able to share in some of that market, it's something that will be accepted.
RJ: Right.
Q: And I like the fact that you can still be innovative and still work within the roles, like we do for security and other things that give us key advantages, and if you can be innovative yet, you know, not break the rules and stay on line and provide the best quality of service and support and security and protect peoples assets, I think it's a good thing, you know, overall.
RJ: Right, I agree.
Q: I definitely do. So what do you see upcoming in the near future, and you hear anything on the street on what's about to happen, any large transactions about to give way?
RJ: Well, there's a rumor of Marchex doing another major acquisition. I spoke with the seller, if indeed these were sold, involved and he prefers to stay under the radar at the moment, so I don't want to say anything public ally about. A lot of people in the industry are aware of it, they saw a really nice group of domains that had Who Is information change to Marchex's servers. An odd thing about it is that at last check, the sellers name was still in the registrant field, though all the other fields had switched to Marchex, so I don't know if that's just--I don't know if they're test driving some traffic or if it was just something that was delayed for some reason. That deal looks to be worth, I've seen by some people who really know how to evaluate this stuff, to be worth about $3 to $5 million, if indeed, you know, that happens, and I can't say definitively that it did, because of this situation in the Who Is, but it effected a large group of very high profile, very high traffic domains.
Q: Well--
RJ: So it looks like Marchex is still on the prowl.
Q: Oh, definitely. And there will be other companies doing the same thing, that's for sure. So that's a good sign, that it's--that there's still some good group packages together that's gonna go--that they're gonna go on the marketplace. You know, in the past, it was very hard to sell a group of domain names, and I think this is--it's one of the--when people contact us from a domain sales standpoint, they--a lot of the similar domain names or groups of domain names, they want an easy way to be able to sell the whole thing at once and feel that if you take one particular domain name that are like the others out of the mix, it's gonna hurt the--you know, hurt the value of the portfolio. And although the ultimate search inventory were a group of a lot of different domain names, it's still, you know, under the same general rule of thumb, that I think it will be easier to sell portfolios of names these days, based off of the precedence that's just been set by Marchex and some of the others, that's for sure.
RJ: Yeah, absolutely. Because now you got that--the deep pockets in the game that--I mean, we always had a lot of people in the industry that have done extremely well, but they generally are--the just want to go and hand pick or cherry pick certain names. But there, even our most successful guys usually didn't have $150 million sitting in the bank like some of these new corporations have that are just entering the space for the first time.
Q: Yeah, and especially those that are able to get it through public funds on the market.
[Laughter]
RJ: Yeah, that makes a huge difference.
Q: Yeah, huge difference, that's for sure. Well Ron, it was a pleasure having you on this week. I like tapping into you and getting into your head a little bit about what's going on in the industry and it's good to take a pulse about what's going on. Again, you're on probably the best online domain rich media content site for domain names, and if anybody hasn't visited DNJournal.com, please go there. It is a wealth of information, great articles, good cover stories every single month. And what kind of cover story are you working on for next month, by the way?
RJ: Well, right now, we just published a story here a couple of weeks ago, on Adam Dick, whom you had on as a guest not too long ago, who runs DNForum.com, and Adam's pretty much playing the PPC game these days, and I'm talking with some people about an article on the development side of things, which is another avenue you can take if you don't have PPC quality domains. So that's--we haven't got it set in stone yet, but that's the primary topic that we're kicking around for next month.
Q: Cool, and that'll be out at what, the--
RJ: Sometime the first week of April, we try to get our new cover stories out, or always have during the first week of each month.
Q: All right, great. Well, Ron, I really appreciate your time today, and catching up on the industry. Stay tuned, we're gonna break for another couple commercials, and have Kjel on from Snap, and we're gonna go over what's going on in the expired name market. Be back to you in a couple minutes.
Welcome back to the show. Thanks for Ron Jackson for spending the time with us tonight, going over what's going on in the domain industry. I have another great guest on tonight, Kjel Holmberg, from Snap Names. There's been a lot of interest in having someone on from the expired name market, and think I have one of the top companies and one of the top folks to talk about it.
Hey, Kjel, welcome to the show.
KH: Thanks for having me, Monte. Glad I could join you.
Q: Yeah, me, too. I know that you and I have never met or even have spoken before, by why don't you tell us a little bit about your role with Snap Names and kinda what brought you to their organization, and then we'll get into the nitty gritty of some of your services and how to help those that are using your services.
KH: Oh, sure, sure. Well, my official title at Snap Names is Manager of Business Development. That doesn't really encompass everything that I do, though. I, in addition to seeking for new partnerships for Snap Names and managing the partnerships we have, I also feel with a lot of customer issues, as well as doing some technical trouble shooting, I found my way to Snap Names kinda by accident. I've been here since we opened the doors.
Q: Oh, really?
KH: And--
Q: And when was that?
KH: Would've been June of 2000.
Q: Oh, wow, okay, great.
KH: And I came to Snap Names just out of law school and have never left.
Q: Oh, so you came in from law school, so you really didn't have any experience outside the Internet market prior to that?
KH: You know, I had experience with domain name law, but never as an end-user, never as what people have come to know as a domainer. So, no, I was really new to the domain name market when I started.
Q: Wow. And did you know folks at Snap and that's why you got--or did you do kind of an internship or you just came right on board with a position they had open, or--
KH: You know, I started doing strictly sales and customer service for them, and just kinda grew into the position. I unfortunately didn't know anyone here when I started, and just turned out this it was a correct fit. I was lucky to find these guys.
Q: Yeah, definitely. And back then, the suite of services and offering is quite different than it is today, I bet.
KH: You know, when we started, Snap Names was much more focused on the legal market. We didn't realize necessarily that the true market for our services were domain name professionals. We viewed ourselves almost more as a trademark protection company at that time.
Q: Oh, interesting. And so tell me a little bit about how the company evolved from a trademark company into this expired name capture, or name reservation market as it used to be called, and now into what it is today.
KH: Right. Well, we started offering our Snap Back Domain Name Back Order in December of 2000, and we thought that the market was going to be people purchasing the Back Order to protect domain names that they already owned, and we viewed the acquisition aspect of Snap Back as kinda an after thought at that point. We learned very quickly that the people who bought our services weren't necessarily trademark holders, but they, instead, utilized us for the domain acquisition aspect of the Snap Back, and by spring of 2001, we had realized that that was the direction we should go. I mean, of course, we still welcome business from trademark holders and anyone in the legal area, but our bread and butter really is servicing domain name professionals.
Q: Right. Well, I mean, certainly the buckets filled up in the department, from a money standpoint, that's for sure. And even the drop in expired name market has evolved quite a bit, even over the last couple years now. I want to get into your products and services and, you know, the new service, the new TF service that you guys offer and how folks can really, you know, utilize the service to get names and brands they really want for whatever purposes they want. And I'd actually like everybody to walk away with a couple tips and tricks, you know, from the inside of Snap that can really help them, you know, put a reservation on the domain name and have a good degree of confidence that they're gonna get what they need, and perhaps you can help us through that. And then also, the biggest problem that people are having, which is how do you get those names out of registrars that they don't want them to reside at, and what can assistance you guys can provide to get that. So let's talk about TF a little bit, and what it means and how it varies and what's different about it than the expired name, you know, service from when a name is going pending delete.
KH: Certainly, certainly. Well, as a lot of people will probably be aware, Snap Names and Network Solutions, toward the end of the summer, began a system of dealing with expired names that was different than anything that we've done before. In the past, when the domain name expired, it had always gone to deletion; the registry had let go if it, and then Snap Names and the other people in our business would fight for the names. Beginning this summer, before Network Solutions will delete a name that has expired, they check with Snap Names to see if we have a back order on the name. If we do have a back order, instead of deleting the name, they allow us to process it and either give it to a Snap Name's customer, if we have only one back order on the name, or if more than one customer wants the name, we run our short option, and give the name to the winner. As you can imagine, this is quite a change from the prior service, you--because the domain name doesn't go through the registry deletion process. There no longer is the redemption grace period, names no longer go into the pending delete status. Instead, they are transferred to the new owner at Network Solutions, there's no new creation date, for instance, the transfer is instantaneous, there's no--instantaneous--
Q: So there's no--
KH: --[inaudible].
Q: --it carries the former creation date from the previous registration, because it really doesn't drop, it's not a re-registration basically?
KH: Right, right.
Q: Okay. So it--
KH: Exactly. [Inaudible].
Q: --carries the existing creation date, which is important to some people, because they want that, a long life domain, which has varying degrees of importance, depending on what you do with domain names in our particular market.
KH: Right, right. And we have found that customers prefer this transfer fulfillment, prefer it vastly more so than they did the acquisition of domains via the old system.
Q: Well, of course, because--
KH: [Inaudible]
Q: --because you're catching names before they actually go to deletion and you're having the first chance to get them before they get to that stage.
KH: Well, that's part of it. Another aspect of it that customers like is the certainty involved. If a name is expiring in Network Solutions, customers can be 100% certain that the name will be acquired at Net Solve [ph]. They won't be at a registrar they've never heard of or perhaps wouldn't want to use, and that aspect of transfer fulfillment is one that we found people really, really appreciate.
Q: Yeah, definitely. And now the other side of this coin, which is a controversy in the registrar community is--and it's been posed to you guys before and those that are also gonna be offering similar services, and that is where does the registrar draw the line in terms of when they own the domain name or have the right to own the domain name and use it in that manner? In other words, if it's still registered under a registrant and they haven't paid for the renewal and it is expired, is it the registrars right, do they have the right to then take possession of the domain name, offer it to a secondary market like this, and then change ownership, take in funds and monetize that?
KH: I'll bet. That's an interesting question, and one that we deal with all the time. As an example, let me describe what Network Solutions does and then maybe we can go into a little bit more detail. Network Solutions, when a name is not renewed, will take no action on the name for 35 days past the expiration date. For 35 days past the expiration date, the owner still has the ability to renew the name if they desire to. The name doesn't resolve in this period and the Who Is hasn't been changed. The thought being that if the previous owner still wants the name, making it not resolved and changing the Who Is is probably the best way to notify them that we need to renew it now. Admitted, the RGP period provided by the registry is not provided to the registrars at NSI, but their names delete. That is a decision that was made that some people do find controversial, but from a practical standpoint, we see very, very few complaints that--resulting from the system that they have in place.
Q: Right. And speaking as a registrar, you know, I'll put this out on the table so that everybody understands what actually happens here. When your name expires, we pay for it, the day it expires. That means we have to pay for it at the registry, and in a sense, we're paying it on your behalf. And different registrars have different rules on when they delete domain names. We have some registrars that delete names a couple days after expiration or put it up for deletion a couple days after expiration. They don't want to have their money floating, especially if you're not in a decent financial position, you don't want to have your money floating out there if you have thousands of names that are deleted that you've paid for at the registry that go on to what's called Auto Renew. If anybody ever does a registry look up on a domain name and they see that it's renewed at the registry and they look down in the Who Is record, you'll see that it's still expired at the registrar. That is because the registry auto renews domain names at the day that they're expired, because they withdraw funds from the registrar account. We pay on that behalf. When and if that registration is renewed within 45 days and paid for by the customer, then we as a registrar are reimbursed for that registration and then everything's fine and good. So the issue here is--or the opportunity for Snap and others and the registrars that participate with them are that at some point, at some reasonable point, and that varies depending on what you call reasonable, but in our case, it would be somewhere at the 30-day mark, just as it is with Network Solutions. You've been given 14 or 15 renewal notices, you've been called, I mean, we call our customers, we do everything we possibly can to say, “Hey, your name's expired, renew it,” and if it is not renewed, it technically is paid for and owned by the registrar, and therefore, that's the stance that the registrars are taking, and therefore, there's a way to monetize that and get some of that money back.
KH: Right. I mean, it's undeniable that the potential for abuse does exist. I mean, if an unscrupulous registrar was to do something like this, I mean, I can see a situation where an unscrupulous registrar could not send out renewal notices, and attempt to monetize a name that the registrant had actually intended to renew. That's not how we do business.
Q: Right.
KH: That's not how people we do business with do business.
Q: And to be quite honest, the registrars would not be in business if they did business that way, either.
KH: No.
Q: Because then you--
KH: I agree.
Q: Everybody would be worried about their names being hijacked, you know, being, you know, purposely, you know, taken for this purpose, and that's certainly not the purpose of it. But--
KH: Right.
Q: --that is a perception that's out on the market, and there is that gray area of when you call that name, the registrars, to be able to do that and when you don't, and then the other side of it is, do you share that revenue with your customer even though they didn't pay for the domain name and let it expire like that. And that's a whole other side of the coin, because, you know, are they entitled to any of that revenue, but, you know, and who makes the call on how much and all that. So your system actually gives the ability for the registrar to do that, to be flexible in that area, to let the registrant or the former registrant participate in that, and also if a registrar chooses not to for whatever reason then they don't.
KH: Right, right. I mean, we have no desire to interfere with the registrar's relationship with their customer. I mean, they've--if they want to give that former registrant a cut of the proceeds, that's completely up to them. It's not a decision that Snap Name's will make.
Q: Right, right. Now, there's dot-com and dot-net, and people are asking on the chat room about other extensions. What's going on with dot-biz, dot-us, dot-info? Are there TF services yet for these extensions, and give a little bit of idea what is available in this market and what you cover for all country codes and all extensions and where you're going with that in the future?
KH: You know, today on the TF side, very little available, actually. I mean, right now, it's just com and net domain names. Of course, we have--
Q: Why is that? Or why is org not included in that?
KH: Well, the reason that com and net were focused on is really two-fold. First off, com and net represent the vast majority of the business we do, and secondly, there are some differences between how the registries handle domain names, that--kind of decided for us that com and net would be the easiest thing to do off the bat. I will say that we are in the process of deploying a TF system for org and info, I can't give a timeline for that right now, but it is coming down the pike.
Q: Right. Well, because they share the same type of EPP[ph] protocol?
KH: Exactly.
Q: And then dot-biz, what about dot-biz and dot-us and their extensions, because they share a similar protocol also?
KH: You know, I would think that dot-biz and dot-us are probably a little bit further out. We see a lot more value in the expiring info and org names than biz and us at the moment.
Q: And why do you say that?
KH: I think the org and the info registries a little bit more developed and in watching the prices--well, it runs an excellent site, for example, and in watching the prices paid for domain names, it appears that org and info really are more lucrative for us at the moment.
Q: Right, right. And actually, we see that, too, in a lot of the after market sales stuff, as well. And what about some of the country code extensions, are you even able to provide that short-term, long-term?
KH: Well, you know, that's an interesting question. Each country code, of course, handles transfers and deletions and renewals in a different way. COUK, for instance, makes transferring a domain name from one party to another, arguably a lot more difficult than it needs to be.
Q: Right.
KH: I believe there's about a $50 fee to do a transfer from one party to another.
Q: It's also done by paper, by the way.
KH: Right, and it involves actually getting away from the computer and finding something. So because of that, I mean, we're--I mean, with the current UK system in place, I don't see a practical way for us to do a transfer fulfillment on those names, and--
Q: What about DE, which is a very popular extension, in Europe?
KH: You know, DE is something that we are examining right now. Again, it is--I mean, it would be quite a plum, I mean, DE is second only to dot-com in popularity in the world. Again, though, there's the DENIK [ph] regulations that have to be dealt with and that--frankly, DE is an area that I would love for us to more involved in, and I'm a little ashamed that we're not.
Q: Right, right. So getting back to the TF service, which is--just so everybody understands the process, if you do--okay, so if you're the only one that's interested in a name that's dropping at one of the registrars--by the way, what are--who are the registrars that are on board on TF with Snap right now?
KH: The registrars that we've announced to the public and that we have on board right now are Network Solutions, Bulk Register, Its Your Domain, DirectDie [ph] and Domain Site. Then we also have several other deals in place that aren't to the point yet where we can announce them.
Q: Right, right. Okay, so the good news on this is that the largest registrar that loses the most names by--because of several reasons, is actually part of the service, so--
KH: Right.
Q: --as they're losing more names than anyone else, which is an aside, they get to share in a lot of the monetization on why the names are leaving their system. And so that's the largest registrar with the most domain loses and the most domain deletions, because it had the most domain names in it, and obviously, Bulk Register, I think, is a top five registrar, and they have a good selection of domain names that are, you know, on that, market, too.
KH: You know, Bulk and NSI have been around for so long, and register the names for so many early adopters in this space, that it's my feeling that the names that delete from those two registrars are probably proportionally more valuable than the deletes that come out of other registrars.
Q: Right.
KH: I don't necessarily have numbers to back this up, but it's--
Q: Well, you're probably--you're process of elimination's probably true, because a lot of the older companies that had old--I mean, unfortunately, it's because of some bad reasons, you know, there's a lot of old contacts on domain names that don't have valid e-mail addresses, that don't have--that they're not able to contact anymore. And so there's some pretty good names that actually drop and delete because people didn't update the records. That's the bad side of the problem with the losing company for those domain names, and the upside for those that are putting in those reservations for them.
KH: Right.
Q: On the other hand, those that are smart with their domain names and actually monetize them don't delete them, so they would never become available for the open market, and those are some of the reasons why some registrars, like ourselves, don't hardly delete, you know, don't actually have names expire, you know, for the most part, because people are utilizing those domain names, making money on them and those names would never come up for expiration, because they keep those inventories for reasons, and so some registrars focus on those types of clientele that understand that side of the market. So I think you're in a good situation, where you're picking up a lot of, you know, business from registrars that are--have some of the legacy systems that have some of the older domain names, because those were some of the first registrars that were in place, and there's definitely some opportunity there for the open market. I guess you would agree with that?
KH: Oh, I agree with that, absolutely. And, you know, not to say that it's not worth while for other registrars to get in on this, I mean, today, if a registrar has domains that are deleting, I mean, every name that they hit the delete button for is possibly one that we could sell for them.
Q: Exactly, exactly.
KH: So I mean, it's--yeah. I think that even for the smallest registrars, if they are deleting any names at all, it's probably worth looking into some sort of a TF system.
Q: Well, there is a food for thought that says--or a philosophy that says if a name's ever been registered previously, it's gotta be worth something, or had to worth something to somebody for a reason, and so that is a good sign, period. If any name is actually up for expiration, it means it's been registered before, and somebody felt it was important to register to begin with, so it could have been for a personal site, it could have been an active site, it could have been, you know, used as a forwarding site, it could've been used for a number of different things. They could have inherent traffic, lots of links back and forth from that site and have a lot of inherent value that people don't really know by just looking at it.
KH: Yes. Yeah, I mean the mechanisms that people use to value domain names, I like to pretend that I understand them, but I know that I don't. I mean, I understand the basic methods, but for the domain auctions that we see, occasionally I see valuations that are just incomprehensible to me.
Q: Right. Well--
KH: You know--
Q: --trust me, they're being acquired and sucked up because there are some other valuable information on those particular domain names.
[Laughter]
Q: We know that for a fact. Now, so once somebody acquires the domain name, if there's no other bidders, that person would win the domain name for what fee?
KH: Our minimum bid right now is $60.
Q: Okay, so $60 would win the domain name. And there's been a lot of question then about what happens then at that point. It goes into a Snap account at that particular registrar and then changes ownership, and does the renewal year come with it, like it does on a new registration? How is that all handled?
KH: Well, there's two mechanisms, the transfer fulfillment and then the older style where we acquire the name via a network of registrars. In transfer fulfillment, we will--I mean, the name will be in a Snap Names holding account and then we will literally transfer it to the new owner, coming an internal registrar transfer.
Q: And does the year come with it?
KH: [Inaudible]
Q: Who's responsible for paying for the renewal year?
KH: Oh, there will be an additional year added when the registrar renews it.
Q: So Snap grabs it for the customer, it's in the customer's account, the registrar then has to renew it so it doesn't get deleted again, or it doesn't go to actually be deleted, it doesn't end up on their delete list, so the registrar's responsibility is to renew it at that time once it's been reserved, correct?
KH: Correct.
Q: Okay, I just want to make sure that everybody understands the process.
KH: Right, now--
Q: Because--
KH: --in the even that it's a domain name where we have acquired it when it actually drops, when we're acquired it using registrars threads, at that point we--Snap Names doesn't actually put the name into a Snap Names account, we register it and then directly apply the customer's information to it.
Q: Well, because it's actually a new registration at that point, and then--
KH: Right, right.
Q: --a new year comes in--
KH: New creation date, new registration.
Q: Right, because it's actually a deleted domain name that's actually been deleted from the registry and then up on the open market where Snap's threads or Pool's threads or whoever's threads--
KH: Right, right.
Q: --grab--
KH: Because there was technically a period of time when that domain name did not exist, when it was available on the open market for anyone to grab. I mean, that period of time may have lasted a fraction of a second, but it was there.
Q: Right. Now, when a domain name gets into the bidding process, explain that. And a lot of people's concerns from this expired name market is the shill bidding, and the inflated bidding process and how you know there's really somebody on the other end bidding this thing up, or is it the company, and we really need to wipe the slate clean on this one, because there's lots of concerns out there. There's been hints of this been going on across the industry, and, you know, what is Snap Names doing about this and preventing this from occurring, and, you know, how do you, you know, prove that there's valid bids here?
KH: You know, when we designed our auction process, one of our primary goals was to make it more open, more transparent than any other domain auction system that was in place at the time. We've taken a few steps to do that, I think. One way that our auction is different than others is that once a bidder is assigned a screen name, they're unable to change that screen name over the course of every auction that they do at Snap Names. And what this does is for the people who pay attention to the auctions, I mean, they will often see the same people there, and they will know that this person who is bidding up the name is someone who actually participates in the domain name world. Another thing that we did that was not easy for us, but needed to be done, is when we moved to auctions, we killed off our affiliate program. I get quite a few requests from people wanting to be Snap Name's affiliates, and we just don't do it. The reasoning behind that is this, when somebody bids in an auction at Snap Names, the dollar amount that you see on the screen is what that person is going to pay. Nobody has an affiliate discount, nobody, not even our largest customers have any kind of a volume discount, so we thought it was very important to let people know that that dollar amount on the screen is the actual bid and is what the high bidder is committed to paying.
Q: Right.
KH: I do not think it's fair to have an auction where participants in the auction all get a discount at a varying percentage based on whatever kind of deal they've negotiated with the auctioneer.
Q: Right, right. And that's a correct stance to take. And so I'm gonna ask you a couple tough questions around this. One is that before you moved into this TF service, there was obviously a number of reservations and contracts on domain names that, you know, had reservations on previous Snaps, and there is some resentment amongst some of the community that use the service that they want grand fathered in to still have those Snap reservations on the domain names after this change is made. What--you know, how did you guys really address this? I mean, you know, I'm sure it's a little bit of a thorn guy's side, because, you know, in those types of situations you don't know what the fair thing to do is, but I want to address it with you head-on, because it is something that's coming up in the chat room, and it comes up on a regular basis whenever we talk about it.
KH: It is an issue that we struggled with at the time, and I'm not certain that it was resolved correctly, quite frankly. For--just to be clear, prior to TF--prior to the Transfer Fulfillment deal, we had shifted our sites from a first come first serve back order model to an option model, and when we did that, the existing Snap Name back orders, the first come first serve, were not honored. Instead, the funds that were paid to us were treated as credits. I am not certain that that is what we should have done. For various reasons, though, it was the choice that we had to make. If you'll recall, at the time that industry was such that we were in a position where we needed to change our business model or else our days were limited, and it was a hard decision to make, it was one that cost us a few friends, there's no two ways about that.
Q: Well, what would have been your options? Because, you know, it's definitely a sore subject amongst those that had, you know, previous back orders. And, I mean, what are your options, and then, you know, are you considering coming back around and sweeping though some of those people that got kind of hung up in the middle and trying to take care of them in some way? So I think everybody understands market changes, and that companies need to shift their directions sometimes to not only survive, but to be a first mover, but you also have to come back around and take care of those that were caught up in the change and somehow at least try to make things right, you know.
KH: Right, right.
Q: And so, you know, maybe you can--
KH: You know, and--
Q: --just address that, maybe you don't have a right answer, maybe, but it is something that I think people want to hear about.
KH: Well, and of course, I mean, every dollar that we had collected, I mean, was applied to customer's accounts, I mean, they--it was never an issue of accepting money and then not providing the service. I know that people will argue with me on that point, because they feel as if they are entitled to that first position on the names that they had, but I can tell you in all honesty that had we honored every existing back order in our system going out for years and years, as you can imagine, we wouldn't be here today to give them any value on that money that they paid us.
Q: Okay, so it was--
KH: In order to--
Q: --change of direction in order to keep the company in survival, you know, and then, you know, market leader position--
KH: Right.
Q: --to do that. So that's understandable.
KH: You know, it's--we go to a lot of effort and take a lot of pride in trying to treat our customers right and trying to make sure that their problems are addressed quickly and resolved in a manner that's satisfactory to them. That episode is the only episode on our past where, you know, we made a decision and we had to stand by it and it was the necessary decision for us, but it's not one that people liked, and I can appreciate that, but it's in the past now, so--
Q: Right. So there's gonna be nothing done to go back and readdress it? I mean, it was some time ago, but, you know, I just wanted to make sure that it got out and I do--
KH: No, at the moment, I mean, there's no plans to do anything with regard to that changeover.
Q: Right, okay. Well, I do appreciate your candor on that, and I mean, it's a tough question to ask and a tough answer to give. You know, when--you know, everybody can admit they made mistakes and may not have followed the best decision at the time, but as you said, you guys were in a little bit of a survival mode and trying to figure out what direction to take at that point when the market changed on you. And so it's--you know, sometimes you gotta make tough decisions, and you can't make everybody happy all the time, but it is important to protect, you know, those that were aligned with you and, you know, those that were your customers during the best of times, also. So anyway--
KH: Absolutely.
Q: All right. So we'll move on to another question, or another, you know, tough issue. And that is the registrars that are on board for--I think this happens mostly with the deleted side, you know, not in the TF side because you have a pretty good handle on who those registrars are, there's a handful of them, and--
KH: Right.
Q: --another handful to be announced soon, but--
KH: For a TF registrar to--I mean, for it to be a lucrative TF registrar, I mean, they--it needs to be an established registrar with domain names and a user base, and I think that a lot of the registrars that generate complaints are the smaller registrars, the newer registrars, the guys who may have gotten accredited just for the purpose for monetizing their bash [ph] pool connections.
Q: Right, right. So what do we do to get these names, to get these domain names out of these smaller registrars that no one is really behind the scenes on? I, you know, personally help our customers out by, you know, contacting Nelson or, you know, Mason, and I'm very active on a lot of the boards and stuff, and I--people e-mail me and private message me all the time. And we, as a company, are committed, even if the domain names aren't at Moniker, we--because we have relationships with both you, Snap Names, and with Pool, we have pretty good leverage on getting those names out. But what do we really need to do to help those people that are just--they're just stuck, they're frustrated?
KH: I mean, I--what you describe is exactly what I would recommend. I mean, it's--we have relationships, obviously, with all of the registrars who might get a name for you if you order it at Snap Name. Some of these registrars are located outside the US or Canada or are very small. Occasionally they're even one man operations, so they--I mean, when they don't respond to a request, it's not always necessarily because they're trying to blow off a registrant or have something--have--what's the term I'm looking for? They're not necessarily acting with an ill intent.
Q: Right, they're just not capable of supporting--
KH: [Inaudible] enable to process the request.
Q: Right, they're not able to support what they put--I mean--
KH: Right.
Q: --the bad part of it is, they're not able to support what they actually went into market to do is to provide a service for customers.
KH: Right.
Q: And that's the bad thing, so I mean, we could--we can, you know, stay on that topic all night, because we have big problems with registrars that are in that position, and, you know, it creates extra work for us as a legitimate registrar to help get names out of those registrars. So, you know, a lot of our time every day is spent trying to do that for folks.
KH: Well--
Q: So that's one side of it, but--so--but there's not a lot of people like me, though, or like us that go and help their customers.
KH: Right.
Q: I mean, other registrars don't have time to do that.
KH: I mean, that is the one piece of advise that I would give to people, is don't hesitate to use Snap Names if you ever have any kind of issue with a domain name that you acquired through us.
Q: Okay. So who should they contact? What's the e-mail address? Do they contact by phone? I mean, lay it out so people--
KH: Our support department is great.
Q: So is that HYPERLINK "mailto:support@SnapNames" support@SnapNames or what's the--
KH: They can contact HYPERLINK "mailto:support@SnapNames" support@SnapNames.
Q: Okay, HYPERLINK "mailto:Support@SnapNames" Support@SnapNames.
KH: We also have an 800 number if they'd rather call.
Q: And what is that number?
KH: It is 800-385-4075.
Q: Okay.
KH: And a lot of people listening are probably familiar with Nelson Brady.
Q: Yes.
KH: And he is a bulldog on this kind of thing.
Q: Okay. And--
KH: And of course contact me or Mason or really anyone there.
Q: And again, for those that are listening, we are really good at helping with this problem, and we'll be happy to help anybody by using our relationships with Snap and with Pool to help you get your names out of there, and, you know, safe, whatever registrar you're going to be at, but hopefully our registrar. All right, so that's good news on that. What--well, I guess the next logical question is to talk a little bit about the competition. You know, obviously Snap competes on the drop side. First of all, there are a couple people asking what TF stands for, that's Transfer Fulfillment. That's what it basically stands for, correct?
KH: Right, right. I'm sorry, that's the shorthand we use to describe the relationship we have with certain registrars where we get first shot at their names that are expired.
Q: Right. So it's Transfer Fulfillment, that's what TF means. So the TF service basically is putting your reservation on a domain name before it even gets into the deletion pool, grabbing while it's expired, but at a certain point when the registrar is now saying, hey it's ours to do with it what we want and we're gonna offer it to the open market before we send it to deletion pool. If it goes to the deletion pool, then you have your Turbo Snap product, which competes which the Pool system, and Name Winner and Club Drop from Enom and all the other services. And then, you know, there's that whole open market, but I guess Pool's coming out with the Open Listing service and some of the--another service that's competitive to the TF service. And, you know, but where Snap's staying ahead of the game and being innovative in this market to help people get the domain names that they really want?
KH: I mean, we're trying to stay ahead by not giving up the lead that we have both on the thread side, and by constantly seeking out more and new registrar partnerships on the TF side. For us, the name of the game is increasing the volume of domains that we are able to make available to customers. Obviously, it would be wonderful if we could partner with other large registrars and that we're seeking that out right now. We also, I mean, continually modify the website and the services that we provide. For instance, we're in the process of deploying an enhanced search capability, allowing people to track domain names that are coming available that they may be interested in. I mean, those are the source of things that we do on a continual basis, just trying to stay ahead.
Q: Okay. And in terms of statistics, I think it's important to lay out, you know, how does this market break out? I mean, what percentages do you say you guys claim as, you know, winning domain names for people, compared to the other services that are out there? Where do you see the market breaking out?
KH: You know, that's a difficult question. When there were only one or two people going after a name, it was pretty easy to say well, today we got 60% and they got 40, but because there's now at least five professional outfits and some number of skilled amateurs that go after domain names every day they drop, it's really impossible to say that Snap Names gets a name 50% of the time when it wants one, Pool gets a name 40% of the time, just because you can never be certain who is trying to register a domain name when it actually drops. I think--it's just my sense that on a per registrar basis Snap Names has the best technology. I think that Enom does very well with the amount of threads that they have. I think that when Pool is successful, it's often a result of the amount of firepower they have, not necessarily how well they are at aiming it all.
Q: Right.
KH: That's my impression. I mean, I have no spreadsheet I can send you to back that up, but--
Q: And, you know, maybe back this question up a different way, how many domain names do you guys capture a day through either one of your services?
KH: You know, it can vary quite a bit.
Q: Well, give me an average; give me the average per month.
KH: The average per month that we get per registrar can be as low as 100 or as high as 1,000. We get typically on the thread side, we register at least a few hundred domain names a day for customers. And then on the TF side, it can vary between several hundred and several thousand even. So we're moving quite a few domain names every day we can [inaudible] through Snap Names.
Q: That sounds good. All right, well cool. Anything else you'd like to--how about any special tips or tricks or anything you can share with the listening audience that can help them acquire the domain names better than they're currently doing? What are some of the inside, you know, tricks that people don't really know about that--
KH: Well, you know, one--
Q: --[inaudible] use your service?
KH: --thing I'd like to emphasize is people need to use the personnel at Snap Names, and not just if they're having a transfer problem with one our registrars, but if there's really any problem at all with that registrar. A lot of the times, if you're having an issue with the domain names that you acquired via Snap Names, the fault is likely to be on the Snap Names side, not necessarily the registrar side. And I know that a lot of domainers will waste some of their personal bandwidth trying to repair things with the registrar, when in fact, if you guys would just come to us directly, it's--that's probably the way to remedy things.
Q: Well, that's a nice admittance, that it usually is Snap's fault, so that's a good sign. So don't just complain about it, if you're really having a problem, come to Snap to get it.
KH: Right, I mean, it's--
Q: But aside from the problems--
KH: --quite possible that the registrar won't even really know what you're talking about. I mean, it'll be an issue that is so much under our control that they don't even be able to assist.
Q: Right. So that's if you're having problems, but what about capturing the names? Is there any special, you know, inside tips or tricks on how one can, you know, put the right reservation in, get the right domain name, anything like that, or is it just pure, you know, pure luck on putting a reservation on it and hoping that either one, no one else comes in and bids for it, or two, the one that comes in and bids for it, it's gonna be a relatively fair and low price auction and you can afford to buy the domain name?
KH: Right. Well, I mean, the--like most of the people out there know, I mean, the name of the game is identifying names that are coming available that you think could be valuable to you.
Q: So what are the--
KH: I mean--
Q: --best tools to use to find those names that are coming available? Obviously, you have your own list that come due that you send out to the people that are part of the mailing list?
KH: We do, we do. I know that the people we see who seem to be very successful at picking up names that perhaps don't have as much interest from other people, they actually use proprietary systems that they built themselves. Things--systems whereby they can check a domain name against--all the different ways you check it for popularity. I mean, your Overture links and that sort of thing.
Q: Right, right.
KH: And the commercial services that do the same are, I mean, are great, and we use some of them, but the commercial services have quite a few customers, and the people who--
Q: And they're all competing for the--
KH: --have--
Q: --same information, so it's--
KH: Right.
Q: --all--yeah, right.
KH: And the people who seem to consistently find names that are valuable but generate little interest do it with tools they've built on their own, or at the very least taken and modified with their own systems.
Q: Right. And if you had to pick the best public service or services for that information, since we obviously can't allow--you know, we can't give people the private services that people have proprietary information on, who's the best public service to get some of that information, that you've experienced?
KH: Gosh, you know, I hesitate to recommend people to--
Q: Well, don't recommend, this is not a recommendation.
KH: Right, right.
Q: I'll lay that out, we're just saying hey, here's a couple services people can go to to--
KH: Well, I know that DomainsBought [ph] has been around for quite some time.
Q: Yeah, and actually, they're a great group of guys, too. I can recommend them, ‘cause they are a good group of guys, that's for sure.
KH: Right. And--
Q: And good technology.
KH: --actually, another company that I'm fairly familiar with is DropFilter.com. They might be a good one for folks to check out, just because they're relatively unknown compared to DomainsBought.
Q: Yeah, actually, I've never heard of them, so that's a good tip. Good. All right, Kjel. Well, I really appreciate your time, I actually ran--we had so much to talk about, we ran over a little bit, didn't we?
[Laughter]
Q: So I really appreciate your time and I'm glad that we were able to flush out some of the--both the opportunities and some of the issues that people have had with Snap in the past, and we do believe it's a great service and you should be looking for some great announcements on Moniker.com relating to Snap, as well, in the near future. And think that it was, you know, good to have you on and reveal, you know, what's going on your industry a little bit. And really appreciate your time.
KH: Hey, I appreciate the chance to be on your show.
Q: Great.
KH: Yeah, and if anyone needs to contact me, my e-mail address is on the Snap Names website, so please feel free.
Q: Why don't you share that with everybody, just--
KH: Oh, it's Kjel@SnapNames.com.
Q: Great. All right. Well, Kjel, have a good evening, thanks again for your time.
KH: Yeah, you, too.
Q: Everyone else, thank you for listening this week at DomainMasters, we hope to bring you another great show next week, on Wednesday, same time, same place. Be the master of you domain, see you next week, take care.
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