one ugly domain - trading domains from ugly to $1 million

one ugly domain continues as OnePrettyDomain.com!

2008-03-04T17:38:00.008+01:00

Hi Folks,

My apologies for not posting in a while, I've been incredibly busy. It's been so long that a few traders were actually worried something had happened to me, but I'm happy to report that I'm alive and well! The truth is, I never ended up hearing back from the owner of AboutFarms.com and I simply did not have time to chase him up.

I'm not making up the part about being incredibly busy, either. Since my last post, I've 1) become a Steering Committee member of the dotMobi Advisory Group, where I'm co-chairing 2 Task Forces, 2) invested nearly 6-figures in the December Sedo Premium .mobi auction, only to see that auction experience a first-of-its-kind Sedo meltdown due to the demand, which almost resulted in several lawsuits, 3) setup a Round Table at my .mobi forum, Mobility.mobi, to resolve the Sedo crisis, which was very successful in finding a compromised solution with mTLD that avoided an auction re-do and lengthy lawsuits which would have been a disaster, 4) attended the 4-day Mobile World Congress here in Barcelona where I met the folks from mTLD (including the Chairman of the Board), and 5) submitted a Request For Proposal (RFP) for the Premium Domain Why.mobi for a new .mobi Awareness Campaign Mobility.mobi will be launching next month. There's more, like the 12 Premium .mobi's I now own which need to be developed in the next few months, but that's all I can remember right now. :)

As you can see, I'm deep in the .mobi jungle and don't plan on coming out for a while as it's been incredibly exciting watching this young extension slowly mature and evolve into the mobile future. But enough about me, let's get to the juicy part. This project requires time and patience, two things I no longer have. The good news, however, is that this idea is not dead. Chris Hunt (NP username: munkybrain) has launched OnePrettyDomain.com to breed new life into this concept. Remember, if we were able to go from a reg-fee domain to a $1,000 3-number .net here at OUD, this idea can work, it just needs time and a lot of support from people like you! So follow all the action at OnePrettyDomain.com and go make your offers!

I want to thank Chris for keeping the OUD spirit alive and I wish him success! I will be offering him my last OUD traded domain, MotorizedHome.com which should keep things interesting.

I also want to thank all the OUD traders who offered and won domains, all the voters for leading the way, and everyone who left comments and offered the project food for thought.

See you at OnePrettyDomain.com!

Cheers,
Andres

P.S. I will be leaving this blog up and intact for historical purposes.

P.P.S. If you need me, I'll be at Mobility.mobi :)

AboutFarms.com wins the vote, just waiting to trade!

2007-11-29T09:32:00.000+01:00

Ciao from Roma!

I'm in the beautiful ancient city of Rome for a dotMobi conference but have not forgotten about my oneuglydomain! :) (This is quite a befitting place for a conference on a revolutionary technology in the cradle of Western civilization.)

Anyway, in the most contested Round in OUD history, which included a very tight run-off vote, AboutFarms.com claimed victory over my MotorizedHome.com by one vote!

I'm just waiting to trade with the owner of AboutFarms.com and as soon as that's in order, Round 27 will begin, so give us a few days.

Thanks to everyone who voted, I know it was Thanksgiving in the US, so thanks for taking your fingers off that delicious Turkey to vote!

Grazie!
Andres

OUD Round 26 RUNOFF VOTE: MotorizedHome.com vs. AboutFarms.com

2007-11-23T18:52:00.001+01:00

Hi again folks,

The Round 26 voting had mixed results, with the majority of people voting for something other than me keeping my MotorizedHome.com, yet MotorizedHome.com winning the individual vote count with only 1 vote more than AboutFarms.com, which had 36.84% of the votes.

To be fair to the owner of AboutFarms.com who garnered so many votes, and to make up for the lower overall vote count due to Thanksgiving in the US, I've decided to call a RUNOFF VOTE between the two domains to see which one wins, side by side.

So take your pick and let's see what happens! (This runoff period will also last 24 hours).

Thanks,
Andres

A potpourri of 8 new offers in, Round 26 voting has begun!

2007-11-21T17:33:00.000+01:00

I've received a whopping 8 new offers in (9 actually, but I was limited to only 8 more):

HostChocolate.com (brandable hosting reseller name)
Ayudamos.mobi ("we help" in Spanish)
Plastered.mobi (could be for a plaster B2B site or...what you thought first, a site for drunk people)
SportsBlog.cc (not a great TLD, but an amazing keyword rating)
CreditRepairServices.ws (again, not an amazing TLD, but great keywords)
KayakExcursion.com (perfect name for a site that, well, sells Kayak Excursions)
AboutFarms.com (another perfect name for a site...drum roll please...about farms!)
SurplusLCD.com (unbeknownst to many people, there is a lot of money being made selling surplis LCD screens, so this one isn't too bad)
ClaimADay.com (great name for those claim websites...you know, those pesky ones...buy hey, someone's obviously making a lot of money with them, so who knows!)

What a potpourri of TLD's! .com's, .mobi's, .ws's, .cc's...and even another foreign language domain! As you can see, this round has filled its quota for offers! I'm very happy to see OUD bouncing back and brimming with life again! :)

Now comes the time for you guys to decide which one I trade for, if any, so get your democratic clickers ready and head to NamePros.com for the OUD Round 26 vote!

Thanks to everyone who made offers, you guys are awesome! Good luck!

Cheers,
Andres

2 more offers in, a .com and a .net...and one of them smells funny!

2007-11-19T01:40:00.001+01:00

Two more offers have come in and one of them smells funny (can you guess which one?)! Here they are:

ClaimADay.com (great .com for a claims site...as in those pesky prize giveaways that are obviously making someone money)
iShit.net (I'm sure this one could be branded well with a funny site, c'mon!)

We've got only 2 days and 15 hours to go in this offering period, so make sure you get your offer in quick!

Cheers,
Andres

Late post, but we've got one juicy German .com in to get the party started!

2007-11-17T17:19:00.000+01:00

Sorry about the delay in posting folks, but I had to oversee the transfer of 6-figures worth of domains that I won at the last Sedo dotMobi auction and it needed my undivided attention. Anyway, I had received a .info offer in the first day of this round, but I asked the owner, a cool Portuguese by the name of Jonas, if he had any .com's to offer. He sent me a list and I sifted through it and selected a German word I had never heard of (ok, let' s be honest, I haven't heard of most German words since, well, I don't speak German!). Anyway, it means "Exclusively" in German (and Swiss German!) and has over 60 million Google results for it:

Ausschliesslich.com ("Exclusively.com" in German with over 60 million Google results...by the way, in German, the letters ß and ss are interchangeable, thank you Wikipedia)

I thought that was a pretty juicy offer and one of the first foreign domains I can remember receiving here at OUD. Let's face it, if the domain were Exclusively.com, it'd be a definite trade up, no questions asked. Now, consider that Germany is the 3rd largest economy in the world with a very large internet presence and active .de ccTLD...yup, I think this German .com is a pretty damn good offer too.

Can you beat it? Then show me your stuff and send in an offer!

Auf Wiedersehen!
Andres

MotorizedHome.com is up for trade, Round 26 begins!

2007-11-14T16:51:00.000+01:00

I've finished trading domains with Tom and MotorizedHome.com is now in OUD hands. That means that it's now up for trade, so you can send me your offers!

"Motorized home" has a not-too-shabby OVT score of 350. As Tom mentioned at NamePros, this site could pull in some interesting revenue if developed as an R.V. related affiliate site, so consider that when making your offer.

I'm looking forward to building on the momentum from the previous round and getting some healthy offers, so let's get down to business! Also, notice at the very top of OUD, where I list each trade, that there have been several repeat traders who are clearly loving the OUD experience and coming back for more, so don't miss out on it and be a part of making domain history!

Send 'em in!

Cheers!
Andres

MotorizedHome.com wins the vote and I don't get to eat my burger!

2007-11-10T20:21:00.000+01:00

Congratulations Tom, you've just won yourself a DeluxeBurger.com with extra cheese, no onions, and a side of fries! This voting round had a healthy 34 votes, 13 of which went to the very cozy MotorizedHome.com (that's 38.24% of the votes!).

This marks OUD's 16th trade as we head into Round 26.

Thanks to Tom for offering a winning trade, all the other traders who were brave enough to make an offer, and to all the voters for picking the next winner!

Give Tom and I just a couple of days to trade and I'll be back for more in Round 26. Get your offers ready!

Cheers,
Andres

3 new offers in, a total of 5 offers make it to the vote!

2007-11-08T16:59:00.000+01:00

Now that I've had some time to rest after yesterday's wild Sedo dotMobi Auction, I can finalize this round and set up the vote.

I got 3 new offers in the past few days and they were:

BessieRecords.com (Music for pets!)
BTYJ.com (4 letter .com)
SXO.cc (3 letter .cc)

That brings our total number of offers to 5, with 3 .com's, 1 .net, and 1 .cc.

Cast your vote now at NamePros and help pick the next trade. But hurry because the voting only lasts 24 hours. Remember, if you think my offer is the best one, you can vote for me to keep it and not trade.

Have fun!

Andres

dotMobi auction today, will update blog tomorrow with latest offers and start the vote...

2007-11-08T03:09:00.000+01:00

Howdy folks, quick message to say that I just finished an adrenaline-filled dotMobi auction at Sedo where I dropped 6-figures acquiring Dating.mobi, Adult.mobi, and Student.mobi to complement my .mobi portfolio. The adrenaline was pumping and the heart was thumping and I didn't get a chance to update OUD with the latest offers, so I'll do that first thing tomorrow together with the Round 25 Vote at NP.

Thanks to those of you who made offers!

Andres

First offers are in, a .com and a .net, keep them coming!

2007-11-01T21:47:00.000+01:00

This round is off to a juicy start with 2 offers already in:

MotorizedHome.com (another word for "Motor Home")
RussianMilitary.net (over a million Google results, can also be "Russian Military Network", nice niche)

That leaves only 9 slots left for offers this round, so get yours in now to secure your spot and have a shot at the OUD Round 25 title during the winner-takes-all voting match at the end of the round!

Keep 'em comin',
Andres

Trick or treat? I chose trick and finally traded NQT.us for...

2007-10-31T16:10:00.000+01:00

Greeting from Barcelona, Spain folks! I've finally settled into my new city after weeks of travelling through the deserts of Australia, mountains of New Zealand, population density of Hong Kong, and gambling riches of Macau!

oneuglydomain is ALIVE! I've finally traded NQT.us for the delicious DeluxeBurger.com offered up by the very cool Dan Mortensen from www.NameGrand.com. That marks OUD's 15th trade! Now before you gawk at my trade, consider this: ChocolateCandy.com sold for $26,500 just two weeks ago! So there's obviously a market for very specific and scrumptious food items. Plus, how many times have you ordered a "deluxe burger" at your local burger joint? (Come on, admit it!)

So there you have it, DeluxeBurger.com is the 16th domain to feel the OUD magic. And for those of you saying OUD is dead, I'm going to make you eat your words right after my DeluxeBurger.com!

Oh, and rules are back to the usual...7-day Offering Period with a 24-hour Voting Period at NamePros. Let's have some domain-trading fun and send in your offers (tricks AND treats accepted!)!

Happy Halloween,
Andres

Moving from one side of the world to the other...

2007-10-01T04:34:00.000+02:00

Hi guys,

I'm moving literally from one side of the world to another (from Australia to Spain), so the offering and voting periods will be withdrawn indefinitely. I'm going to be traveling around Australia and New Zealand for the next few weeks before I move to Spain, so internet access will be choppy at best. Therefore, for the time being, I will continue to accept offers but there will be no time limit, and instead of putting them up for a vote, I will select the trades myself since I won't have time to set up the voting each week.

So keep sending in those offers and I'll update OUD as time, internet access, and offers permit.

See you on the other side!
Andres

NQT.us wins yet again, now accepting new and OLD offers!

2007-09-20T07:39:00.000+02:00

My NQT.us has won the vote yet again with approximately 66% of the votes, so NQT.us is up for trade again.

RJ had the brilliant idea (yet another one!) of allowing old offers to be made again since I've already admitted that we've down-traded. I wasn't allowing old offers (that didn't win the vote) to be made because it would be a down-trade by definition. However, since it's beyond clear to everyone (yes, including myself!) that I've already down-traded big time from an NNN.net to a LLL.us, I will lift this rule and accept old offers again. A lot of you traders told me you had run out of offers to make, so this change will be an opportunity for you to get back in the game. I'm hoping I get a few more offers this round so we can move forward with the trades.

Someone throw me a friggin' bone here...

Cheers!
Andres

Voting for Round 23 has started!

2007-09-14T04:33:00.000+02:00

Hi guys,

I'm seeing waning interest in OUD and I don't blame you guys, we went from a 3-number .net to a 3-letter .us. But as long as I'm receiving offers, I gotta keep going. I only received 1 offer this round, so I'm not really feeling the love, but 1 is better than none and at least it's a gambling-related .com.

So this week's vote should be quite simple and hopefully we can get the momentum going again. If we got to a $1,000+ domain once, we can sure as hell do it again.

Thanks for voting!

Cheers,
Andres

First offer is in, still room for 10 more!

2007-09-07T06:23:00.001+02:00

I've received the first offer in this Round 23 and it's a gambling .com:

Gamble4.com

If we were to believe Estibot, it's worth $310, which is a lot juicier than the $90 going rate for LLL.us's, so it looks like it could be a trade-up and we're off to a juicy start.

But there's room for 10 more offers with 6 days to go, so warm those puppies up and send them my way!

Cheers,
Andres

Back from Vacation, NQT.us wins again and is up for trade!

2007-09-06T06:33:00.000+02:00

I'm back down under from my trip to Europe where I visited Spain and Croatia. I must be very jet-lagged because the counter on the left was reading: 351 days 12 h 27 m 10s. It must be neglect. In my defense, though, I've had to take a 27+ hour trip to get from Barcelona to Sydney, and I'm with an 8 hour time difference which means I'm falling asleep at random hours and waking up in the middle of the night not knowing where I am and calling out to mommy.

Anyway, it's time to put the DO back in oneuglydomain and get the party rolling once again. So let's pick the momentum back up now that vacation is over and let's get some juicy offers in. My NQT.us won the vote once again so it's up for trade!

Now I'm not in denial here. OUD has taken a dive since the precious 354.net. After all, an LLL.us is only worth $90 whereas an NNN.net is worth $1,000. But if we made it there once, we can do it again, and if we went from an $8 domain to a $1,000 domain, it is definitely within the realm of possibility that we can hit the $1 million jackpot, especially since we now have an experienced group of domainers from NamePros.com picking the winners each round.

Remember folks, OUD is what YOU, the traders, voters, and readers, make of it, so add some spice in to your lives and offer up a winner to take this puppy to the next level. I'm not going anywhere and I'm in no rush to hit the beautiful $1 million domain, I just know we can do it (otherwise I wouldn't be here). Don't forget that I'm sharing $500,000 with you traders and that all traders get their 15 minutes of fame (and PageRank) at the top of my blog, so it's not just about a 3-letter .us...trade for the glory!

OK, I apologize if I'm not making sense, but I'm still jet-lagged.

Anywho, be cool and send in your offers. You know you've always wanted a 3-letter .us, so don't deny it.

Off to bed (at 3pm),
Andres

One Ugly Domain Round 22 vote...a .com, .tv, and .us, which one will take the cake?

2007-08-23T20:38:00.000+02:00

Hey Folks,

It's voting time for Round 22 and we have 3 interesting offers to choose from, all in different extensions, including a .com, .tv, and .us, so this should be an interesting 3-way battle!

Things have been a bit slow this month because I've been on holidays in Europe (I'm on the Croatian island of Hvar on the Adriatic at the moment...it's beautiful!), but the offers are still coming in, so OUD is very alive and eager to get back to that NNN.net level and beyond! So keep those votes and offers coming, the juicier the better!

Thanks to everyone who submitted offers this round. Now cast your votes and help choose the next trade!

Cheers from Croatia,
Andres

NQT.us wins again, now accepting new offers for it!

2007-08-15T20:11:00.000+02:00

My NQT.us won the last round with a whopping 84.21% of the votes, so there was no trade last round. Therefore, NQT.us is up for grabs again so send in your best offers.

AdoptableDomain from NamePros posted some interesting information regarding the potential users/uses for NQT.us, which I'm taking the liberty of posting here:

Google search: "Results ... about 1,070,000 for nqt."

from Acronymfinder.com

Newly Qualified Teacher (96,100 google search pages!)
Network Query Tool (17,000+ google pages)
National Qualifying Time
Nonlanguage Qualification Test
New Qualitative Technologies
Non-Quenched and Tempered (steel)
National Qualifications
narrow QRS complex tachycardia
National Quality
Northern Quebec Territory
Neighborhood Quality Team
No Qualifying Time
Normal Quiet Time
Non Quenched and Tempered
NIS Quality Team

I could think of dozens of other potential commercial uses pretty quickly, for example:

Nick's Quality Tires
Ned's Quick Transport
Networking Quiz Templates
Not Quite There
Nations Quietest Trucks
Network Qualified Trainers

There are a bunch of potential users for this domain, so don't hate the Q!

Bring it on!
Andres

Only 1 offer in, voting has begun for Round 21!

2007-08-12T12:23:00.000+02:00

Sorry for the late post folks, I'm vacation in Europe at the moment and was just doing a bit of traveling in the south of Spain and did not have much internet access. It seems like I wasn't the only one on vacation, however, since I only received 1 offer for NQT.us from traders. I know the July/August period is a bit quiet since many people in the northern hemisphere are on vacation, so it's understandable.

The offer that came in was:

LLLLcom.com (and LLLLcoms.com) which is a perfect name for a website specializing in 4-letter .com domain names.

Since it's the only offer on the table, the vote will be between it and my NQT.us, so it should be an easy vote this round. Make sure you cast your vote here!

Thanks guys!
Andres

NQT.us wins Round 20 and is now up for trade!

2007-07-30T18:34:00.000+02:00

Congratulations yet AGAIN to Brian Raymond for winning another trade! His NQT.us won with a razor-thin 2.22% margin over my LBAB.com. No other offer even came close.

So there you have it, folks, NQT.us is now up for offer. It's a 3 letter .us which I'm sure will receive some juicy offers. Make it happen and send your offers now...remember, there's only room for 11 of them!

Good luck,
Andres

11 mostly-.com offers make it to the vote, Round 20 voting period has started!

2007-07-25T12:03:00.000+02:00

Hey folks, it's that time of the week again where you get to use your democratic powers to choose my next trade.

This was a good round because the quota of 11 offers was entirely filled. I'm really liking these new rules, they've streamlined the whole process, and I think they're gonna take OUD far.

Thanks for voting and thanks to all the traders who submitted offers!

Cheers,
Andres

LBAB.com wins the vote, Round 20 has begun, now accepting offers!

2007-07-17T15:01:00.001+02:00

Congratulations to Tristan Perry for winning the Round 19 vote with LBAB.com. Thanks to all of those who voted.

I know a lot of you think I'm pretty much back to square 1, and that could very well be the case, but if I was able to trade oneuglydomain.net for a NNN.net, there is still a lot of hope, especially since LBAB.com is a much better domain than oneuglydomain.net. In fact, LBAB.net is being used by an Arab website, and LBAB.be seems to be a company in Belgium, so all is not lost. The good news, though, is that now we have a formula that works and doesn't have to be changed again, with only 11 offers per round, limited to single domain offers and 1 offer per trader per round, plus the sharing of the wealth and the NamePros voting to finish each round off. So I'm very curious to see where this formula takes us, and I have a real good feeling about it. Heck, if you think I can still hit the million in 36 more rounds, this trade will be worth over $1,300. That's entirely possible, it's all about momentum. We've lost a bit of it now, but we can just as easily regain it with a single juicy offer.

So let's see what kind of juicy offers we get this round to spark things up again. Don't forget that LBAB.com is also linked directly from the top of every page on this blog, so the PageRank is also gotta be worth something. Don't forget that I can only accept 11 offers, so make sure you get your offers in early.

As for the usual critics, I'm sorry, but I won't stop until I get to the $1 million or until I receive no more offers, so, just like the voting, it's completely out of my hands. :)

Send in your offers, folks!

Cheers,
Andres

1 last offer in, voting has started!

2007-07-12T12:35:00.000+02:00

Sorry for not posting for a few days, but it was my birthday on Sunday and I had a bunch of things to catch up on. Well, it doesn't seem like traders were feeling very generous on my birthday because I only received 1 offer in the rest of round 19 (poor me):

DesignTuts.com (could be used for a design tutorial website)

Anywho, the voting has started at NamePros here, and I'm looking forward to the results!

Good luck traders!

Cheers,
Andres

First 3 offers are in, still room for 8 more!

2007-07-05T11:43:00.000+02:00

Wow, we're off to a pretty good round! I received 3 offers, including a *set* of mortgage domains:

AmericanHeir.com
5YearMortgage.com, FiveYearMortgage.com, FiveYearMortgages.com, 7YearMortgage.com, SevenYearMortgage.com, SevenYearMortgages.com (These two mortgage lengths are very popular. For example, ING Direct - the largest online bank - offers only 5- and 7-year mortgages, and 5-year mortgages are apparently the most common type in Canada.)
LBAB.com (an all premimum, and pronounceable ("ell-bab") LLLL.com)

I know the mortgage set is a packaged offer, but all the names are related to mortgages so I let it pass. Anywho, we're off to a pretty good start and I'm looking forward to the next offers. It looks like this is gonna be a quick round, so don't be left behind and make your juicy offers now!

Bring it on, guys!
Andres