First let me say a few things, Happy New Year to everyone. Last night was the first time my five and six year old kids stayed up for the stroke of midnight, it was a blast. Also, I have some new year goals which I will get to you guys next week, it involves everyone so only fair to share. DNKitchen.com is getting a make over, the new theme will be up by Monday if not sooner.
OK, now on to this million dollar site scheme.
John Motson is the author/owner of DNXpert.com and Domaining Manifesto, an ebook that I have promoted here in the past. Now it seems that John wants to become a millionaire with the development of his latest website. I am just going to state my personal opinion, I think he is nuts and genius all at the same time. I do not like these sites yet I want one for myself, lol.
How Does It Work? (Directly from the site)
This auction works on an “all pay” auction basis. An “all pay” auction is an auction where all bidders pay and the highest bidder wins the item that is on auction. All bids are binding and non-refundable.
Auction bidding will start at a low $0.01 with bids incrementing by $0.01 every time a bid is purchased. The auction will end on April 10, 2009 (100 days from launch day) or 2 weeks after the last bid, whichever comes first, with the last bidder standing at the end of the auction proclaimed as the winner.
The bidding mechanism will automatically be disabled at midnight on April 10, 2009 (Pacific time) or exactly 2 weeks after last bid – whichever comes first – making the last bidder that purchased a bid the winner of the mystery domain name.
Not shown on how it works but the winner will be able to choose either $10,000 cash or a domain name valued at $10,000.
Check the site out for yourself and you be the judge, MysteryDomainAuction.com. So far since the launch this morning about 90 or so links have been sold for a total raised of $33.34.
One thing, John says the idea of this site is so he can quit his day job for a little bit and go to the April TRAFFIC event. John, do you really need a million dollars to go to TRAFFIC 
Hmmm….well, I won’t be bidding.
Be a gripe to see the winning bid got for say $1,000 and everyone has to pony up that amount!
And to get at least $10,000 is going to take a heck of a lot of bids and for the bidding to get up high.
Wish him good luck.
I’m anxious to see how it will do!
One heck of an idea! Wish I had thought of it first. Maybe if he hits that one million mark he can have a contest to take some of us with him, first class all the way.
I think he’s on to something. The site is simple, fast and it works. Wonder if he’s gonna use estibot to validate the value for his $10,000 domains?
Either way it’s definitely an interesting game to play. Mystery is fun especially if what is behind the curtain is some serious shit. In the end that’s what will keep people tuning in and playing.
Send the kid to TRAFFIC already!
Who determines the value of the domain?
If it’s really estibot (I love it and have nothing against it), but I see expired names valued at $20-30k by estibot go for $1-2k all the time. If that’s the case, I’d rather keep my hypothetical $1k and have 100% certainty of getting my own “$10,000 name”.
It’s an interesting idea though and it will be fun to see how it turns out. A real possibility however is the site not being able to cover the $10,000 giveaway.
Hi guys,
I appreciate the interest shown in the mystery domain auction.
I would like to clarify something: noone will have to pony up a $1000 or $10,000 for the mystery domain name.
As explained on the front page:
“f you are the last bidder standing, you will win the mystery domain name valued at $10,000 or $10,000 in cash regardless of whether your bid was $0.10 or $10.23 or anything else.”
Also:
“What is the mystery domain name? The mystery domain name is a .com domain name that recently appeared in a domaining meet live auction catalogue valued at over $10,000. The domain name will be revealed on day 50 of this 100 day auction.”
So, if the last bid standing is say $37.45, the last bidder will win the domain name or $10,000 in cash – their choice.
The mystery domain name was valued at $10,000 by a recent live auction meet catalogue.
I hope that clears things up.
John
It’s easy to find where you got the idea from.
I am also working on something similar since I knew about entertainment auctions. You know what I am talking about, right?!
Would not every one wait until the last minute 2 weeks after each bid or the last minute on April 10th? If someone has bid today there is no reason for anyone to bid for another 2 weeks, right? It doesn’t seem like the bids would go up very high at 1 cent increments (or I could have misunderstood the way it works).
i’m assuming if you wait two weeks and then bid the counter will start over again. but sure, you could wait til april 10th. i think most people put up links just for traffic. there has been a lot of traffic to the site and even myself have clicked links out of curiosity.
There was a interesting article by Ian Ayres in the New York Times in mid-December about this very topic.
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/an-all-pay-auction/
KingoftheBill.com ran a similar auction format in 2007 and the bidding maxed-out at $105.00 (if you assume the bids were legitimate). If that bidding gets to that point, this could be pretty interesting.
A good idea, these types of schemes are always profitable. Some people on the internet are clueless these days