Bido Domain Auctions Launches This Wednesday
I've just received a skype message from Dan Kimball of dnZoom. He's a great friend and one of the guys who are constantly trying to get me to move to Louisville, Kentucky. One of the really nice things about our industry is meeting great people like Dan and Sean (also from Louisville and dnZoom) who are both really genuine people who you can trust completely.
So what was the Skype message all about? He just let me know that Bido (of which dnZoom is a part) is launching its first auction this Wednesday. It's been a while coming but I'm sure that the wait will be well worth it.
Bido's auction system is pretty unique as they guarantee the price for a domain which effectively underpins its value. I'm sure that this alone will cause a few people to check through their lists to find any suitable names to sell.Bido also only charges an 8% fee but the most unique aspect to their auction system is that they will be having independent experts valuing the domains up for sale. Anyone can apply to become an expert but I'm sure that they will be applying some sort of criteria to the process. After all, an expert needs to actually be an expert.
At the moment Bido plan on auctioning off one name per day seems a little light on. I would expect that policy to change pretty quickly as the business model gears up. The challenge that they will have will be to get enough experts to value domains as the volume of auctions increases.
There is one thing for sure, Bido is definitely a shot across the bow of existing auction companies. It will be interesting to see the competitive reaction from these companies to a domainer entering the marketplace with a fairly unique auction business model. All in all I think that it will be good for domain owners having another player in the market and I wish the Bido team all the best in their venture.
Source: Posted on WhizzBangsBlog by Michael Gilmour -- Reprinted with permission -- June 16, 2008