For Sale Snapname Vs Dropwizard which will win

[Fearless]

Originally posted by Cartoonz
shame on Drop Wizard for regging gregr.com!

oh brother...

Shame on Drop Wizard for regging haroldw.com! :laugh:

 

[stuff]

Shame

 

[Shiftlock]

I'm not associated with DW in any way, but I assume the logic behind the bonus bid option is that they will divert more resources to catching the name. Any individual drop service obviously has a limited number of resources (registry connections and such), so if they put a lot of effort into catching your premium domain with a high bonus bid, they risk missing other $120 names. So you have a higher chance of getting the name, and DW can make more for assigning more resources to the name.

If the name isn't worth more than $120 to you, don't use the bonus bid option. It's obviously meant for premium names. If you don't get the name, it doesn't cost you anything.

 

[Sharpy]

Originally posted by Shiftlock
I assume the logic behind the bonus bid option is that they will deivert more resources to catching the name.

Yes, as I said I understood what it did, I just think it cheapens their $120 dollar orders.

Maybe I can explain better what I mean this way:

Generaly 3 letter .coms are selling wholesale for about $250-400.

DW say on there site that adding a $100 bonus bid is basicaly useless so in order to have a better chance at a 3 letter .com I'm looking at biding $320. Now if you are going to say that these bonus bids are not meant for 3 letter .coms, fine. So then I leave the $120 bid. But DW themselves are indicating that if you want a real good shot at a name you should bid a bonus so that we can allocate more bandwidth to that name. That doesn't make me feel my $120 is buying much. That's all I was saying.

 

[Shiftlock]

Originally posted by Sharpy
That doesn't make me feel my $120 is buying much.

Your $120 isn't buying anything unless you get the name, so what have you got to lose? If the name isn't worth more than $120 to you, then don't put a bonus bid on it. If the name is a spectacular one word .com, then bonus bid what you're willing to pay. I don't think DW is saying they'll never go after names without a bonus bid. Personally, I like having the option of paying more and increasing my chances. It's like slipping a $20 to the valet parking guy so he puts extra effort into making sure your car is well cared for. Like I said, this is just the way I see it. I'm not associated with DW, so I may be wrong.

 

[Sharpy]

Originally posted by Shiftlock


Your $120 isn't buying anything unless you get the name, so what have you got to lose?

...that's true:embarrass

Originally posted by Shiftlock


It's like slipping a $20 to the valet parking guy so he puts extra effort into making sure your car is well cared for.

Exactly! Doesn't that make you feel that if you don't slip the $20 your car is not being looked after as well?

I was just trying to make the point that you create an elitist service by doing this. Put a $120 down on a chance to grab the name, but don't count on it as we are allocating most of our bandwith to costomers that pay more. Nothing wrong with DW doing that. it's their .biz.

Originally posted by kvinsencius


You are not wrong Shift! You hit the hammer right on the nail

 

[cyphix]

I'm gonna have to pretty much agree with Sharpy. I feel that if you don't put a bonus bid that you don't have much chance of getting the name because they are giving all their resources to everyone on that day who has the bonus bids.

 

[buddy]

I'm not associated with DW, so I may be wrong.

You are not wrong Shift! You hit the hammer right on the nail

 

[DaddyHalbucks]

I've had good luck with Snap. The interface is good and the price is right. They've grabbed alot of good names for me. But yes, they do face strong competition these days, and it seems that their success rate is declining.

NameWinner has a powerful system, and I've used it a few times, but I don't like bidding in general, so I don't use it much.

I don't have alot of experience with Drop Wizard, but I like their customer service. It would be nice to see Gordon succeed.

 

[CHC]

I booked a name with DropWizard last month and they caught it for me, so I thought. When I entered the domain name into my browser the next day there was a SnapNames holding page! DropWizard had taken my $120, and then given SnapNames $49 of it or whatever to do the work for them. Good business for Gordon no doubt but next time I will just go straight to SnapNames.

I did query this with Gordon and he wrote back very defensively and said how he and SnapNames compare their lists of names booked and that if SnapNames have not got a name booked then he sometimes books it with them. It smelt a bit fishy because I do not believe that SnapNames would simply turn over their database to outside companies, especially competitors to examine.

 

[Shiftlock]

Originally posted by CHC
DropWizard had taken my $120, and then given SnapNames $49 of it or whatever to do the work for them. Good business for Gordon no doubt but next time I will just go straight to SnapNames.

I don't see why you should have a problem with this. If Gordon is going after a name for you, and the SnapNames slot is open, then why should you be bothered that he covers an additional base for you by taking it? It increases the likelihood that you will get the name, which is what you're paying for, and in fact it IS what got you the name. If it bothers you, then just take the SnapNames slot yourself in the future, which is something I would think you would have done anyway. Yes, then you would have gotten the domain for $49 instead of $120, but doesn't it seem like that was your mistake and not Gordon's fault? Would you have preferred if Gordon didn't take the SnapNames slot and the name went to someone else entirely? See what I'm saying?

 

[CHC]

I don't have a problem with it all. I admire Gordon's business acumen. I was just making a factual observation of what happened in my particular case. And yes, next time I will go straight to SnapNames and cut out the middleman.

 

[friday]

To the contrary, I believe that drop companies are sharing info about domains being ordered. All the companies want to know the hot domains and the prices people are willing to pay for them and who these people ordering them are.

A database of ordered names with high bids generates a lot of revenue for drop companies. They just don't disclose this.

Say I bid on a domain name at expirycompany d and expirycompany b gets the domain, then expirycompany b has a vested interest in finding out from expirycompany d, how much the bid was for and who it was from.
Expirycompany d discloses this information for a financial reward.

Or expirycompany d, who does poorly at drop time anyway, just sells the database to company b and grabs a domain every now and agin to keep the punters coming back.

I am convinced that info is being shared on a regular basis. It makes financial sense. Unethical? yes. Illegal? probably not.

 

[Fearless]

Originally posted by friday


Say I bid on a domain name at expirycompany d and expirycompany b gets the domain, then expirycompany b has a vested interest in finding out from expirycompany d, how much the bid was for and who it was from.
Expirycompany d discloses this information for a financial reward.

Or expirycompany d, who does poorly at drop time anyway, just sells the database to company b and grabs a domain every now and agin to keep the punters coming back.

I may have been able to follow this if you used A and B for the letters.

 

[Nexus]

Originally posted by CHC
I don't have a problem with it all. I admire Gordon's business acumen. I was just making a factual observation of what happened in my particular case. And yes, next time I will go straight to SnapNames and cut out the middleman.

Reading your point, I think you're being a bit unfair, Chris (and that you really DO have a problem with it, as your previous message stated). You feel somewhat "cheated". Honestly, I'd think that would be a big problem. That said, even companies with very formidable registry access, like BuyDomains of UltSearch also use SnapNames to increase their chance of success.

While I would agree, and recommend you use SnapNames in any case, I feel FAR more confident in DropWizard, knowing that by using them, I can be sure that they routinely check that every avenue available is secured. It makes them more of a one-stop-shop. Having lost names (and seen others lose names) on more than a few occassions when SnapNames and NW winning bids were in place... (I lost HonorableMention.com, and UniqueDomain.com to BuyDomains and their resources), I would consider using a service like DropWizard as yet another important avenue that could have avoided the losses by adding more resources to the connections on "my side".

Here are some important questions to ask them that in my opinion, would matter more: If they put in a SnapBack on your behalf, do they still attempt to register it through their other resources as well? If not, I'd have problem. Otherwise, I would have nothing to complain about.

If Name Winner saw an "unsnapped" name bidded up to $500-$1000, I think (in my opinion) they too might be remiss for not considering at times (if not acting on), the use of their "competitor". Their only main problem would be that it would break their automated process of putting names through to Dotster. This goes to a long standing problem I have that what is considered "competition" in the drop-catching field.

Customers basically want results most of all, and as such, would not, in my opinion, be ignorant to use as many drop-catching services as they can afford in getting those results. On the "provider" side, it's presumeably less exceptable? I don't agree with that.

~ Nexus

 

[DropWizard.com]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by CHC
I don't have a problem with it all. I admire Gordon's business acumen. I was just making a factual observation of what happened in my particular case. And yes, next time I will go straight to SnapNames and cut out the middleman.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reading your point, I think you're being a bit unfair, Chris (and that you really DO have a problem with it, as your previous message stated). You feel somewhat "cheated".

It's obvious you do have a problem with it. And just for the record here is my "defensive" email you mentioned as well as your resonse:

***********************************************
----- Original Message -----
From: Chris Holland
To: [email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 7:50 AM
Subject: ireland2004.com


Dear Gordon,

Thank you for catching ireland2004.com for me. Could you please change the contact details on the domain to mine. I was just about to book further names with you because I thought that you actually operated your own proprietary system like we do at www.detagged.co.uk. I didn't realise that you would simply take $59 of my $125 and use SnapNames. Quite enterprising really but I might as well cut out the middleman next time.

Best regards,

Chris Holland

******************************************

my response:

Thank you for that message Chris. I'm sorry you jumped the gun so quickly. We do have our own proprietary system. And do catch a lot of names that way. We were approached by SnapNames about 3 weeks ago who asked if there was some way we could work together. In comparing our Databases we discovered there was around 3-4% of the names that had not been snapped for one reason or another. In most cases because it was taken at snap originally and then dropped.

We are now monitoring our DB against the snap DB and whenever a snap is dropped for a name we pick it up. We have been in beta with this arrangement for about three weeks and it has proven very successful. It ups the registrar support for certain names from our 2 to 17 in total. Giving us almost a guaranteed catch.

However it only represents a small portion of our names that we otherwise run ourselves.

I've debated the wisdom of this arrangement over the last three weeks anticipating comments such as yours. I decided that our mandate is to obtain a name. No matter what the process as long as it's legal ). We are providing an additional service in that we are monitoring the Snap DB on behalf of the client regardless of if he ordered the name 6 onths ago or yesterday. And the commercial cost of the Snap arrangement, although slightly more expensive to us than the cost of our own registrars, is bearable. It also frees up bandwidth that I can use to improve the chances on the other 96% or so of the names we run on our own account.

I was going to make a mass announcement later this week outlining the arrangement and my reasons for entering into it. I won't be able to separate out clients from the process so if it bothers you that much I'll close your account for you.

Let me know.

Regards

Gordon

********************************************

An afterthought:

-----Original Message-----
From: Gordon Martin [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 5:45 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: ireland2004.com


As an aside I would also point out it was my intention to evolve a detagged UK service for our clients with you. I assume you would have been open to that option based on our previous conversations. Yet this is exactly the same type of arrangement you're putting down.

Just a (stray) thought.

Gordon

**********************************************

Chris's response:

----- Original Message -----
From: Chris Holland
To: 'Gordon Martin'
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 10:16 AM
Subject: RE: ireland2004.com


Dear Gordon,

I rather think that it is you who is jumping the gun now Gordon. I read your first email and appreciated your explanation of why SnapNames was used on this occasion. I understood your strategy and very much appreciated you taking the time to explain it to me.

But then you went onto to say about closing my account and now this second email about me putting your service down! I am very sorry that you were offended by my email. There are always detractors about services like ours and it is how we handle genuine enquiries like mine that separate the men from the boys. You should get a thicker skin Gordon, I meant no offence and wound up getting shouted at! Again, apologies if I caused any offence.

Best regards,

Chris

*********************************************

So Chris you did say you understood the strategy and appreciated it.

And Now???


This service is aimed at the snaps that are dropped. We are monitoring the DB with SNAPS permission and where a snap gets dropped we will pick it up on behalf of our customers. We have been working on an automated system that would run 24 hours a day.

How many of you ordered names 3 months ago that you haven't even looked at recently. The snap may have been gone when you ordered but the holder subsequently let it go because they saw one that had a higher priority to them. Can you monitor your entire list of desired names 24 hours a day??

This is a minor percentage of the names we get and run everyday.
Yesterday our list was close to 200 names and the snap component was a whole 4 names.

And it's being done on our capital resources we pay upfront. Not you!

I can't even claim it was my "business acumen" as somebody stated. This came up as a result of discussions between our business manager Kim and Kjel from Snap. They were exploring business opportunities between the two companies. This is what was arrived at.

I applaud the two of them for thinking outside the box and not letting themselves be bound by competitive pressures.

Chris I'm especially curious to know why you went to all the trouble to drag this thread out of the archives.

And I'm especially curious to know your real problem. The arrangements you and I discussed for a detagged UK service would be exactly the arrangements we've come to with Snap.

Or maybe your perception changes when the money is going into your pocket.

 

[HLK]

>>Or expirycompany d, who does poorly at drop time anyway, just sells the database to company b and grabs a domain every now and agin to keep the punters coming back. <<<

What about company "e"?
Pretty cruel that you left them out.

 

[DropWizard.com]

Say I bid on a domain name at expirycompany d and expirycompany b gets the domain, then expirycompany b has a vested interest in finding out from expirycompany d, how much the bid was for and who it was from.

I think I sort of understood this

And the answer is no. At least not from us.

However we do get defaults. As do the other companies. I would let them know the account has been defaulted on and do they want to pick it up. And I get the reverse; names from them if they have a default that I will pick up for our clients.

And that is just taking care of our clients and our business.

 

[Attilio]

So, if I understand well (which rarely happen), when I place a bid at DropWizard now I have included a service which constantly monitor the snapback on the name and eventually get it if it became available ?

This would be a very valuable added service in my opinion.

Thanks,

 

[DropWizard.com]

So, if I understand well (which rarely happen), when I place a bid at DropWizard now I have included a service which constantly monitor the snapback on the name and eventually get it if it became available ?

Attilio

Thanks for reducing my longwinded explanation to a simple sentence.

Yes that is exactly what you get.