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

The .im's finally get traded, the Months.us Set won the voting and is now up for trade!

2007-07-04T05:27:00.000+02:00

Finally! We have eradicated the .im curse and landed a trade, thanks NPers! It took a few rounds but we finally traded the .im's for a pretty juicy set of domains which I'll get into in a moment. I wanted to congratulate Rom for the trade, he was the lucky winner of not just the super .im gambling duo, but of also the permanent Ad space which he's filled up with the following wrestling Ad (click on it and check it out!):

Wrestling Deals
Find deals on WWE DVDs,
T-Shirts, Figures & more!
www.WrestlingDeals.com

Now I don't know at what point I started accepting offers with multiple domains, turning this into what some NPer called MUD (Many Ugly Domains), but from now on I'm only accepting single domain offers. I've had to change the rules on several occasions to keep things going and exciting, but I've come to learn that those changes end up hurting OUD in the long run, so I'm going to be refining the rules and not changing them again. As for this 1 domain offer rule, the only exception is if other domain(s) offered are related to the main offer (e.g. OnlineCasino.im and OnlinePoker.im, or CarWash.com and CarWash.net). In other words, there needs to be a synergistic benefit to owning the extra domains, otherwise your offer has to consist of only 1 domain. This should help increase the quality of offers.

Now onto my current domains up for trade. I won't re-invent the wheel since Tristan Perry has already sold people on the value of these domains, so here it is (thanks Tristan!):

Months.us: A popular, common dictionary .us with over 600 million Google results,
LicenseHost.com: "License Host" (w/o quotes) gets 63,500,000 Google results,
LinkTypes.com: 224,000,000 search results..
LoveGamble.com: (A gambling domain with a good extension!!) "Gamble Love" has an OVT score of 34, and obviously "gamble" itself has an OVT score of 14,058.
PHPBrowser.com: 211,000,000 search results, roughly mid xx overture

Each of these domains are pretty good in their own right, and together they pack a powerful punch. This is also the last time I will be trading a portfolio set, so get it while it's hot since all 5 names will be benefiting from OUD PageRank.

We're off to a good start because I had already received 2 offers for them before this Round 19 started, but those offers were portfolio sets which I'm no longer accepting. So send in your best domain offer for this round and let's get the party started again!

Thanks to all the traders and voters from last round!

Glad to be moving forward again!
Andres

P.S. Happy 4th of July everyone!

Voting for Round 18 has begun!

2007-07-01T11:04:00.001+02:00

Hey guys,

It's that time of the week again!

Please vote for which offer you think I should accept to trade for my OnlineCasino.im, OnlinePoker.im, Trade 12 shares, and permanent Ad Space on my blog.

If my offer wins again this round, I'm going to auction my 2 domains next round and trade the results of the auction.

Thanks!
Andres

2 more offers in, still room for 2 more, 6 hours to go!

2007-06-30T11:28:00.000+02:00

Just a quick update to say I've received 2 more offers, one of them is particularly juicy (I've included the owner's comments):

DeluxeBurger.com (talk about a juicy name!), AttractProsperity.com (what this name will do for OUD), FilesDepot.com (a GREAT name that gets good traffic and already had a nice $xxx offer at Sedo, which I did not take.), 20k.us (This name will "go the distance"...it's very popular in all extensions and it gets more than a thousand hits a month with the .us extension.)
Squeak.mobi

Needless to say, that DeluxeBurger.com set is very JUICY, makes me want to take a bite right now.

There's still room for 2 more offers, so if you want that unique Ad space, the OnlineCasino.im and OnlinePoker.im domains, plus the Trade 12 shares, you have 5 hours to make your offer. But there is room for only 2 more, so you gotta be quick. First come, first served.

Bring it on!
Andres

1 more offer in, 4 more to go, less than 24 hours left for offers!

2007-06-29T17:44:00.000+02:00

That's it, we're down to the last 24 hours of this Offering Period. I received one more packaged offer of 11 LLN.net's:

vm0.net, wj0.net, wk0.net, uo5.net, uc0.net, uy3.net, wj6.net, uy0.net, uo8.net, jl0.net, and ic0.net

According to the 3character.com, LLN.net have minimum wholesale prices of $12, so these ten would be worth $120.

There is still space for 4 more offers, so if you want that juicy Ad on OUD, plus those delicious .im's, you need to make your offer now or never.

Looking forward to it.

Cheers,
Andres

Edit: It was 11 LLN's, not 10. Thanks Anonymous.

1 more offer in, still room for 5 more with less than 48 hours to go!

2007-06-28T17:06:00.000+02:00

I got a nice non-packaged .com offered today:

Falsifications.com

Perfect name for...a fake ID site? (You didn't hear it from me.) Could be used for a government site about detecting fake ID's, passports, etc...yeah, that one sounds much better.

Anyway, OUD has made more magic and one of the better names to have passed through here has been sold. I can't reveal any details yet because the sale hasn't been completed, but as soon as I can, I'll let you guys know. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the OUD effect...it sells names.

Well, we still have room for 5 more offers. This could very well be the last time I offer up Ad Space on OUD, so don't regret it later folks because even if I do not do a trade again this round, next round is going straight to Auction.

Send in your best!
Andres

1 more offer in, 6 more to go, less than 3 days left!

2007-06-27T18:14:00.000+02:00

Yet another packaged offer has come through:

YourLinkPage.com, SongIdentification.com, and MusicIdentification.com

We've got less than 3 days to go and still room for 6 more offers, so send in what you've got and get a chance to make a very juicy trade this round.

This round is definitely looking juicier than the last one.

Cheers!
Andres

1 more offer in, 7 more to go, 4 days left to make offers!

2007-06-26T15:39:00.000+02:00

I've received a packaged set of 3 .us's:

Credite.us, GeoLocator.us, AntiVirusProtection.us

Some very nice keywords there, I'm definitely liking the offers more this round than in the previous round, and it seems that the Ad Space trade is making a difference, which I'm glad to see.

Now there's still space for 7 more offers, so if you're looking for a juicy pair of .im's that don't expire until July 2008 and some permanent Ad Space on a highly targeted PR 4 blog, now's the time to whip out those equally juicy offers.

Cheers,
Andres

Third offer has been defined, still room for 8 more...

2007-06-25T17:05:00.000+02:00

The 3rd offer has been defined by the trader and it's:

Months.us, LicenseHost.com, LinkTypes.com, LoveGamble.com, and PHPBrowser.com

Not a bad combination of 4 good .com's and a juicy .us, definitely some good value there. But if you think you can beat that and want OnlineCasino.im and OnlinePoker.im together with the OUD Ad Space all to yourself, then send in your best offer!

Bring it on!
Andres

First 3 offers are in, 8 more to go, Round 18 is off to a great start!

2007-06-24T17:17:00.000+02:00

As expected, my upping my offer has increased interest from traders. I've received 3 offers today, but I'm still waiting to confirm the last one because I received 6 domains from a trader and I want to check if they're being offered as a package. The other 2 offers were:

CasinoFacts.net and Casnio.us (typo)
MeatDra.ws and MeatDraws.com

That leaves room for only 8 more offers. Forget my 2 awesome gambling domains up for offer, this opportunity for a permanent Ad space on my blog is very rare, I'm not going to be doing this every round, so I strongly recommend interested traders send in their offers ASAP before all remaining 8 slots are gone.

Cheers,
Andres

OnlineCasino.im wins AGAIN, new round has started, I have increased my offer, send in your offers!

2007-06-23T15:42:00.000+02:00

What a suprise, my OnlineCasino.im set wins again! :) It got 48.57% which placed it as the strong favorite. Thanks to all the NPers that voted!

Now it's gotten more than obvious that this is going nowhere and that we can't continue like this. Several of you have suggested once again that I sell my domains and trade the money. As I've said before, that ain't gonna happen...I"m trading my way to $1 million. Others have suggested that I change the rules a bit to force a trade. Well, that's ain't gonna happen either cuz I'm done changing the rules, so we're stuck with the current rules which I actually like quite a bit. So that only leaves one avenue of change, and that's my offer. That's the only variable I have left to play around with so that's what I'm going to have to do...

First of all, I'm scrapping the InstantMessage.im and Wifi.im from the offer because they're expiring soon and are nowhere near as good as the Batman and Robin of Isle of Man domains, OnlineCasino.im and OnlinePoker.im. In fact, they're several levels below them and only tarnish what is otherwise a very juicy offer. (So there's an opportunity for anyone who wants to catch the other 2 .im's on the drop...and I know one of you will.) OK, so where are we? Oh yes, my offer is now OnlineCasino.im and OnlinePoker.im. But that obviously isn't enough, I need to offer more. It looks like I'm going to have to pull a rabbit out of the hat. Drum roll please.....................OK, are you sitting down? I'm offering a PERMANENT advertisement on OUD, right there on the left, below the About Me section. You can place the equivalent of a Google Ad on there and it will stay there on my blog FOREVER (you can see a sample Ad there now). You can advertise anything non-adult, non-gambling, and non-offensive. Just think about the value of this. This will be especially valuable when I approach and hit the $1 million mark because then this page will be receiving millions of hits just like the million dollar homepage and oneredpaperclip...and that Ad space will be sucking it all in. You will even benefit from the increasing PageRank. This is huge. Pause for a moment to consider just how big this is........................one more sec......................OK, cool. Oh, and don't forget, you will still get Trade 12 shares in this puppy.

Let's sum it up. I'm offering:

OnlineCasino.im
OnlinePoker.im
Trade 12 shares in OUD
A permanent "Google Ad" below the About Me section.

Sound juicy enough?

Well, there you have it, this is easily my BEST offer yet. Just consider the dollar value of all of that. I've just offered up an arm and a leg and a head...it's going to be interesting to see what offers I get in return, especially since I can only accept the first 11 offers that are made for it. Suffice it to say, I'm expecting to make a huge trade-up. I have a feeling that, unlike the previous few rounds, this one is going to end way before the bell.

Be one of the first and send 'em in!

Cheers,
Andres

Voting for Round 17 has started...will we break the .im curse?

2007-06-22T11:55:00.001+02:00

OK, OK, it's not really a curse, OnlineCasino.im and OnlinePoker.im are great names, I just can't seem to get many offers for them even with the luscious $500,000 I'm sharing with traders!

Will any of the 7 offers up for vote win these juicy .im's this time around? We'll know in 24 hours...

Thanks to all traders for submitting offers and to NPers for voting! If you haven't already done so, vote now.

Andres

1 new offer in, 1 offer withdraw, 5 hours to go!

2007-06-22T02:14:00.000+02:00

One of the traders has removed his V8Motors.com offer after finding out that Wifi.im and InstantMessage.im expire soon. Guys, please do your due diligence BEFORE making an offer. It hurts OUD when you make an offer and later withdraw it, and it's unprofessional.

On the bright side, I got another offer in:

Fukn.org

It's an easily brandable name.

Well folks, there are only 5 hours to go and still room for offers, so if you think you can steal this round and take home the deadly duo OnlineCasino.im and OnlinePoker.im, then send in your best offer, but you have to make it NOW.

Cheerios,
Andres

1 more offer in, 4 more to go, less than 40 hours left to make your offers!

2007-06-20T17:49:00.000+02:00

I got one more interesting offer today:

V8Motors.com

For those of you who don't know much about engines (include me in that group), you can learn about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V8

Well folks, there is still room for 4 more offers before the counter reaches 0, so if you think you can beat any of the offers I've received so far this round and you're interested in acquiring the delicious OnlineCasino.im set, send in your offer now!

Thanks!
Andres

1 more offer in, 5 more to go, less than 3 days left!

2007-06-19T16:00:00.000+02:00

I received one more offer today:

Commercially.org

2 previous offers were also corrected. The .info set does not include "Encountered.info" and YoureARecordBreaker.com was replaced with:

HealthLoss.com

I have a feeling my OnlineCasino.im set might win the vote again unless someone comes in with an extra juicy offer in these last 2 days and 15 hours.

Bring it on,
Andres

2 more offers in, 6 more to go, send me a winner!

2007-06-17T16:16:00.000+02:00

I've gotten 2 more offers from traders:

Approximated.info, Attributed.info, Fluctuations.info, Minimised.info, Predominantly.info, Encountered.info
Futbols.net ("soccer" in Latvian?)

Well, that brings the number of offers to 5, which leaves rooms for only 6 more with 4 days and 15 hours to go. If you feel like the offers so far don't stand a chance of winning the vote, then send in your own kick-ass offer and take this round home!

Andres

First 3 offers are in, 8 more to go!

2007-06-16T13:24:00.001+02:00

I've received the first 3 offers for Round 17:

YoureARecordBreaker.com
Academically.org
Zaniest.net

Remember, I can only accept 11 offers, so that leaves room for 8 more offers. I'm hoping some of those 8 offers are extra juicy so we can trade!

Cheers,
Andres

The OnlineCasino.im set wins yet again, now accepting up to 11 new offers for it!

2007-06-15T07:49:00.000+02:00

Thanks to everyone at NamePros who voted, we had a total of 40 votes with the OnlineCasino.im set winning by a considerably smaller margin than last time, which I take as an indication that the offers are getting better and better each round, so hopefully this round they'll be good enough to result in a trade! I want to give a special mention to Stephen's HealthyGrub.com which took 2nd place with a very respectable 27.5% of the votes.

Well, the recently-renewed OnlineCasino.im is up for trade again. For those who missed it, you can read about how juicy it is here. Now remember, under the new rules (which I had to put in place since NamePros polls are limited to 12 options), each Offering Period will last until either 1) I have received 11 offers, or 2) the 7-day timer is up. This also means I have to limit each trader to 1 offer per round, so you're going to have to send me your best one if you want a chance to win. You're also going to have to offer them up pretty soon because as soon as I've locked in 11 offers, the voting will begin.

Anyway, there you have it, I have a good feeling that this round 17 will result in a nice trade for the OnlineCasino.im set.

Send me your best offer!

Cheers!
Andres

1 last offer in, Round 16 voting has started!

2007-06-14T02:36:00.000+02:00

It's that time of the week again for you to decide in which direction oneuglydomain goes!

I had one last offer come in on the last day:

uschalter.com (uswitch in German)

That brings the total number of offers for my OnlineCasino.im set to 11.

Since all voting is now done at NamePros and since NamePros is limited to Polls with only 12 options, I am going to pre-empt a potential future problem (since we cut it so close this round) and limit every round from now on to 11 offers (which together with my offer makes 12 poll options). So if I receive 11 offers before the 7-day timer is up, then the round will end and we'll go straight to voting. This will have the benefit of keeping the voting simple and uncluttered while speeding up rounds that receive several votes. It will also ensure traders make their offers at the beginning of the round rather than waiting until the end to see what the competition is like before making an offer on the last day. And to keep a trader from monopolizing the whole round with 11 offers of their own, I'm limiting each trader to 1 offer per round, so make sure from now on you give me your best shot every round!

So to re-cap, from now on, Offering Periods will end as soon as either 1) I have received 11 offers or 2) the 7-day timer is up and I'm limiting offers to 1 offer per trader per round.

By the way, Traders whose offers are up for a vote can feel free to tell others why they should vote for their offer as long as they don't criticize other offers (in other words, no negative campaigning!).

Now get your butt over to NamePro's and vote!

Thanks!
Andres

1 new offer in, last 21 hours to make an offer for the OnlineCasino.im set!

2007-06-12T14:13:00.000+02:00

I got one more offer and I'm hoping to get a few more before the counter hits zero so that we can move ahead:

CasinoTropicana.net (plus Tropicana-Casino.net)

That brings the number of offers this round to 10. Remember that I renewed OnlineCasino.im and OnlinePoker.im for a full year and that the winner of this trading round will receive Trade 12 shares in this one ugly domain project, so get your offers in in the next 21 hours!

Last call for offers...ALL ABOARD!

Andres

8 new offers in, 3 days and 7 hours to go!

2007-06-10T04:40:00.000+02:00

I had offers for yesterday but I wasn't able to update my blog until today so I'm adding them in today with another offer I received since. Here are the 8 offers I've received:

iPhoneV1.com (plus iPhoneV2.com and iPhoneV3.com)
HealthyGrub.com
kGaz.com (Gaz is French for Gas)
Pannara.com (area of Indonesia)
Decreasing.info
HitMyTrack.com
FakingSpace.com
FakingHot.com (plus FakinHot.com)

Well, that's quite a few offers...hopefully that'll spark a few other traders to send in some more offers so we can heat up this round.

Cheers!
Andres

First offer in, hoping to get a lot more!

2007-06-07T14:07:00.000+02:00

I received the first offer for the renewed OnlineCasino.im set and it's a .mobi that makes you want to scratch:

itch.mobi

I was hoping to receive a few more offers now that I renewed the 2 best .im domains, so show me the love. Come on guys, I just spent $160 renewing these premium .im domains for ya, throw me a freakin' bone here! :O)

Looking for love,
Andres

NamePros has spoken, I'm keeping my OnlineCasino.im set and I'm throwing in a few goodies!

2007-06-06T10:42:00.000+02:00

Wow, I was very impressed with the whole voting process over at NamePros, which voted that I keep my OnlineCasino.im set with an unprecedented 76% of the votes. Within 2 hours I had as many votes as I had here in 24 hours this round, and by the time it was over, I had a whopping 50 votes, which was 150% more than the total. I also thought the results were a lot more accurate, which makes sense since it was all experienced domainers casting their votes. It also showed that there's a strong level of interest still in this ugly journey to a million-dollar beauty, so I took it as a vote of confidence.

The success of the NamePros veto vote got me thinking. If it's OK with RJ (the owner of NamePros), I would like to host all of one ugly domain's votes there from now on and benefit from the double-whammy of more votes and more accuracy. I guess this means the rules will be changing once again as I course-correct this baby on the path to $1 million. Oh, and the NamePros votes will always be binding (unless there's obvious cheating), which will make things even more exciting!

Well, the juicy news doesn't end there. I know how much traders hate the idea of trading for a name that is about to expire and costs $80 to renew, so I took Brian's advice and I absorbed the $160 total renewal fees of my 2 best names, OnlineCasino.im and OnlinePoker.im, which means they won't be expiring until July 2008. But don't just take my word for it, check for yourselves: OnlineCasino.im and OnlinePoker.im. So that's pleeeeeeeeeeeenty of time for the trader who ends up with them to find a suitable end-user in the Isle of Man willing to pay thousands for such a premium pair of domains. Make no mistake about it, to an end-user wishing to setup online casino and online poker operations in the gambling-friendly Isle of Man jurisdiction, these names are worth gold. And now you have over a year to find that end-user, which shouldn't be too hard considering Isle of Man is a gambling jurisdiction. So at the very least, you'll end up with 2 top-keyword gambling domains from a pro-gambling jurisdiction that don't expire until mid-2008.

Well, there you have it. A lot has changed (again!), but for the better, and I'm hoping this round kicks some serious ass!

Now accepting offers for the renewed OnlineCasino.im set!

Cheers!
Andres

Winning offer of LLLL's is vetoed, binding vote moves to NamePros!

2007-06-04T18:06:00.000+02:00

Well, watta ya know, I give myself superpowers and the first chance I get I use them. I was hoping I wouldn't have to, especially so soon, but I'm not fully convinced with this rounds voting results. It's just that I noticed that several people voted for the LLLL.com set NOT because they thought it was necessarily better, but because they just wanted things to "move along". I know people are itching for oneuglydomain to progress, but I also want to make sure this is really the best trade for this offer and the ideal way to progress. So I'm not fully convinced, especially considering there were only 20 votes in total, which is considerably less than what we usually get, and that the LLLL set won by a razon-thin margin of only 2 votes. Regardless, as I mentioned earlier, the results of the NamePro's poll WILL be binding. So if your domains make it through the NP voting round, then I WILL trade them with you, no if's, but's or maybe's.

So vote now in the NamePro's 24-hour poll and help decide the fate of this round: Vote now.

Cheers!
Andres

4 offers make it to the vote, voting has started!

2007-06-03T10:55:00.000+02:00

Tristan felt that oneuglydomain magic and sold 2 of the domains he had offered, Draining.org and Gnawing.org this round, which I'm sure was, in a big part, thanks to the exposure they get on OUD, so they're no longer on the table. To make up for that, he offered up 3 LLLL.com's as a set:

LBXS.COM, KEHJ.COM, QEJY.COM

I also received another .com offer from another trader:

DrugPropaganda.com

I must admit, sharing $500,000 with the traders did not generate as much interest as I had hoped. I only ended up receiving 4 offers this round, which is incredibly disappointing, and that doesn't bode well for OUD's future. I still stand by these .im names, especially OnlineCasino and OnlinePoker, which I think are top names, but I understand most traders don't like ccTLD's. I still think they're a quick flip, especially to an Isle of Man-based end-user. I also wanted to correct what was mentioned in the forum about their expiration dates. These domains don't expire in a few days, Isle of Man is a European country and their dates are in the European format (dd/mm/yyyy), so they still have 1 month to go until expiration (if I'm wrong, I'll cover the registration fees).

Anyway, here are the 4 offers on the table:

LBXS.COM, KEHJ.COM, QEJY.COM
DrugPropaganda.com
Lululemon.name
Gluing.org

Together with my own offer, that's 5 options you will have to choose from. Remember that the vote lasts 24 hours and that you have to confirm it by e-mail.

Vote away!
Andres

1 more offer in, not feeling the love!

2007-05-30T12:33:00.000+02:00

Whoop-dee-do, 1 more offer in! C'mon traders, you can do better than that, show me the love!

Here's todays offer:

lululemon.name

I have to admit, I've never heard of lululemon (pronounced "Lu-Lu-Lemon"), but Google helped me out and told me it's "self-described as a yoga-inspired athletic apparel company...based in the Canadian city of Vancouver." I have a brother studying at UBC in Vancouver, so maybe he'll fill me in...

Now c'mon guys, there's only 3 days and 14 hours left...who's going to make things interesting?

Anyone?
Andres

First 3 offers are in!

2007-05-29T15:46:00.000+02:00

Just a quick post to announce the first 3 offers for this round:

Gnawing.org
Gluing.org
Draining.org

And to answer Rom's recent post "Do you really think that he is going to get a million?", the answer is HELL YA! :) If a guy can trade a paperclip for a house or sell pixels for a dollar, and if I can trade an $x domain for an $x,xxx with practically no publicity, you can bet your mom I can keep going until I hit $1 million. The only question is how long will it take. Of course we've hit a few bumps along the road and I'm sure we're gonna hit a few more in the future, but once OUD starts gaining some publicity and goes mainstream, we're gonna hit the $1 million mark very, very quickly. So the real question is, how long will it take for OUD to start getting some publicity? One way or another, OUD will end up getting publicity, either for having traded up so well or for having traded so many times. It's just a matter of time...

And when I do reach that end of my journey, I'm going to love sharing the spoils with all of you who made it happen.

Now send me an offer!

Cheers,
Andres

OnlineCasino.im set wins again, new round has started with Profit-Sharing!

2007-05-26T09:33:00.000+02:00

As expected, the OnlineCasino.im set has won the round with a whopping 65% of the votes. I say expected because I think it was, by far, the best offer. This obviously means I won't be vetoing the results, which also means I'm now accepting new offers for the OnlineCasino.im set!

I made a mistake in the valuation of this "round" in my last post. I based the valuation on the round number (round 14), not on the trade number (trade 12). Since not every round ends in a trade, there are always going to be more rounds than trades, but the shares are based on the trade number. So in reality, this 12th Trade is worth *only* $1079.51 (I've already corrected the previous post). So keep that in mind when making your offers for this round, you're not just trading for the awesome OnlineCasino.im set and a PageRank 4 (and quickly growing) in-bound link, but you're also trading for the Trade 12 shares potentially worth a very realistic $1,079.51. Quite the deal, ain't it?!

I'll summarize the sales pitch for this awesome set below:

Premium Isle of Man Domains.
"Online Casino" and "Online Poker" are 2 of the hands-down strongest and most valuable keywords on the internet.
The Isle of Man is an online gambling jurisdiction in Great Britain.
The British love to gamble.
One of the largest online casinos is: www.OnlineCasino.com
One of the largest online poker casinos is: www.OnlinePoker.com
Similar sales:

OnlineCasino.EU - $45,891 (July 2006)
OnlineCasino.BIZ - $7,500 (July 2006)
OnlinePoker.DE - $24,189 (May 2006)
OnlinePoker.HK - $4,450 (April 2005)
OnlinePoker.SG - $4,450 (April 2005)

The Isle of Man is an online gambling jurisdiction and gives licenses for Online Casinos and Poker rooms to operate in their jurisdiction. In fact, the Isle of Man government has an entire section devoted to online gambling: http://www.gov.im/gambling
Here is a list of a few online casinos already based and operating in the Isle of Man that might find this domain quite valuable: http://online.casinocity.com/jurisdi ctions/jurisdiction.cfm?Id=21
Owning "online casino" together with "online poker" in a jurisdiction that licenses Online Casinos offers a highly rare and valuable synergy, making it a uniquely attractive investment for any company wanting to set up online casino and poker operations in the Isle of Man jurisdiction.
There is also a Hilton Hotel & Casino in the Isle of Man that may be very interested in acquiring these names: http://www.hilton.co.uk/isleofman
About Isle of Man: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of _Man
This is a unique and rare investment for any end-user or reseller.

And here's what the lucky winning trader will be taking home:

OnlineCasino.im, OnlinePoker.im, InstantMessage.im, and Wifi.im domain names
2 In-bound links from OneUglyDomain.com, currently a PR4 and quickly growing (remember also that OnlineCasino.im is linked to from several other pages in OUD).
Trade 12 shares in OUD (valued at $1079.51 if we make it in 50 trades, considerably more if we make it in less).

This is an awesome deal and I'm hoping to get some very juicy offers for it. I'm very keen to see how this new dynamic plays out, considering that I'm now sharing $500,000 with traders. Be a part of this exclusive club and make history, get a cool domain, get some juicy PageRank, make money, and get famous! :)

Shoot away!
Andres

PS. We've hit the 20,000 unique visitor mark, wooohoooo another milestone!!

One Ugly Domain is back up and sharing the wealth, new rules in place, voting for Round 14 has started!

2007-05-25T05:40:00.000+02:00

The latest post in the oneuglydomain NamePros thread reads:

"Come on, we're losing momentum here. Make a decision and let's get rolling again."

I think this expresses the general mood. Since a general consensus was not reached, I'm going to have to make the decision here so that we don't delay this any further. Before that, I wanted to say that there have been some great ideas on how to run OUD and thanks to everyone who offered constructive criticism and suggestions. One of those ideas that was repeated a few times was sharing the wealth with traders. Since they are the reason for oneuglydomain's success, I actually think that's a really good idea. However, those who suggested that the profits be shared also suggested that it be shared equally amongst traders. Let's say that share is $2,500 for each trader, that might motivate traders at this $x,xxx level, but it will do very little to motivate traders at the $xxx,xxx level. On that note, I don't think someone who traded an $xxx domain with me should receive the same compensation as a guy who traded an $xx,xxx domain. So this is what I'm going to do (a lot of you will like this, I know). I'm going to share 50% of the $1,000,000 profits with all the people who traded domains. However, the disbursement will work the following way:

the final trader will receive $100,000
every other trader will receive 10% more than the trader before him.

This does several things:

it ensures that the traders who traded more expensive domains get compensated more.
it motivates people who have already traded to really support OUD and make it happen, since the more trades that happen, the less they will receive.
it gives yet another incentive for people to make better and better offers each round since each new rounds brings with it 10% more reward than the previous one.
it gives the ultimate incentive for that $1 million domain (the toughest trade of all) by guaranteeing $100,000 to the trader.

So there you have it folks, everyone who trades with me will share in the wealth. I think that's only fair and I should have thought of it sooner! So for example, if I get to the $1 million in 50 trades, the first trader will receive $378.36, the trader of this 12th Trade will receive $1079.51, and the last trader (the 50th) will receive $100,000. However, if it takes 100 trades, the first trader will only receive $3.19, the trader of this round only $9.11, while the last trader (the 100th) still receives a whopping $100,000. So there's a huge incentive for people who have already traded with me to support and get the word out on OUD as much as possible so that it reaches the finish line ASAP. The beauty of doing it this way is that the final trades still receive a huge incentive (to ensure we hit the finish line and don't stall), and only the older trades rapidly decrease in value as the number of trades increase. So as we get to more expensive trades, the cash incentive roughly stays the same. In fact, no matter how many trades there are, the final trader will always receive $100,000, which represents 10% of the supposed $1 million domain, and the second-to-last trader will never receive less than $36,000, which is still a pretty juicy incentive.

No one can argue that this new incentive is going to significantly increase the value of trades each round and significantly decrease the number of trades it will take to get to the $1 million jackpot. If you're really optimistic and think that right now, in Round 14, we are half way to the finish line, then Round 14 is currently worth a whopping $10,629.31.
You might be asking yourself how I'm calculating these values. I'm no mathematician, but as a student of Finance I know my way around Excel. So I just use Excel's Goal Seek function to find the solution considering that the final trader must get $100,000, each other trader must get 10% more than the previous one, and that the total sum of the rewards must equal $500,000. Excel then calculates each share in approximately 0.3 seconds. If some mathematician wants some one ugly domain notoriety and can come up with a beautiful formula to find out what a trader gets based on the number of total trades (x), please feel free to submit it and I'll be sure to mention your name and give you full credit so you can get all the girls. Otherwise, Excel will have to do. For reference purposes, I have posted a sheet with the value of each traders share considering 100, 50, and 25 total trades. You can view the share chart here.

Well, there you have it folks. Trading with oneuglydomain has just gotten a whole lot juicier. Not only do you benefit from greater exposure to your new domain, but you also get an inbound link from an ever-increasing PageRank and, on top of that, you get to share in the awesome wealth. I can't wait to see this new dynamic play out.

The other thing I noticed mentioned repeatedly was to put my own offer back into the vote to protect against a down trade. However, several people also mentioned that they're not convinced by the vote process due to possible manipulation. So I'm going to give myself Veto power over any voting result, just in case I'm not convinced with the trade being made. But this isn't a draconian veto power allowing me to do whatever I want, because I still want the power to be in the communities hand. So the Veto power will work the following way: if I exercise my veto right, the vote for that round will be re-started again but hosted in the NamePros forum, where the community of experienced domainers will decide the trade, which I will not be able to veto. You might be asking why I don't just always host the vote there. The reason is because I want to give everyone a chance to participate, not just members of a forum. So I will only do that as a last resort, but the decision will still be made by the community, not myself.

Several People are eager to see oneuglydomain continue along it's journey, so I won't delay it any further. I'm taking this round to a vote, adding my own domains to the vote, and giving myself veto power as described. Remember, the voting lasts 24 hours. Note that 2 offers were withdrawn by their owners, so you will only see 6 offers, not including mine, to vote for. I know all these changes won't please everyone, but I'm not here to please everyone, I'm here to trade one ugly domain for one worth $1 million.

Well, there you have it folks, lot's of exciting changes that are sure to bring a new dynamic to one ugly domain. Remember, every trader will share in the wealth, so the better offers you make, the fewer trades their will be, and the more you will make.

It's good to be back!

Vote away!
Andres

Edit: I've fixed the share values of this trade in this post, which correspond to the 12th trade not the 14th round, as explained in the next post.

The God's have been angered, Sedo Auction closed, NamePros community to decide fate of OUD!

2007-05-16T03:19:00.000+02:00

Wow, life has a funny way of doing things. There was a complete revolt over at NamePros that reminded me of the Digg fiasco with the HD-DVD key a few weeks back. People were criticizing my decision to extend this round (even though it was the 3rd time I do it along this journey), they were criticizing TheRecordBreakingDomain.com (which really has nothing to do with this), they were saying how OUD is dead (I must have heard that about 392 times since I started), that they were going to start a competing site to reach the $1 million (there are already 3 copycats out there), and they clearly don't seem to mind rule changes until it affects them. Now they go as far as to say this has hurt my credibility and reputation. I didn't back down from a trade, I simply extended an offering period and it's the 3rd time I do it. So I don't know where that's coming from. I would NEVER back down from a trade. But the funny part is, though, that I've heard all of this several times now along this journey (quick example: April Fool's post). And OUD is still here. What kills me is those people who have a pattern of criticizing OUD time and again, yet keep coming back. In fact, they do it so much that they even create enemies within the community. Talk about a bad addiction! :) But seriously, guys, we're here to have fun. I'll repeat that for emphasis: WE'RE HERE TO HAVE FUN. If you're not having fun because you continuously see the negative in what is happening and can't find a way to enjoy it, then don't be here. Otherwise, what's the point?

One thing I have learned, is that when people starting mentioning lawsuits, that your idea is dead for the 393rd time, and that they'll be opening a 4th competing site, you KNOW you're on to something. That's the way I see it. Call me an optimist.

Well, I must have angered the God's as well because Sedo has canceled my auction and OnlineCasino.im account due to "Domain sellers and buyers may only have one open account with Sedo at any given time". See, I've been opening a new account for every new domain I trade so that I can then transfer it to the new owner if they like. I didn't know it was against the rules and I guess it will be tough to use Sedo in the future because I can't really do that without violating their rules. I'll have to figure something else out. And maybe this happened for the better...

Anyway, much like Digg had to do with it's community, I will bow down to it. That's because OUD is NOTHING without its community of traders, voters, commentators, and observers. So here's exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to let the NamePros domain community, which has been following my journey very closely and is responsible for the majority of traders, decide EXACTLY how I should run OUD. I will then follow it to the letter. The collective knowledge of a group of experienced domainers will hopefully make OUD succeed. These sorts of changes are all part of the fun and we'll see how they go. I'm all for keeping things live and exciting, and you guys coming back for more.

So let's get cracking. No time limit here. Everything is on hold until the folks at Namepros can come to a consensus on how to run OUD. When the consensus is reached, I'll post the new rules and keep moving forward.

The community has spoken and I'm all ears.

Looking forward to it,
Andres

Round 14 extended, OnlineCasino.im and OnlinePoker.im in Sedo Auction, winning offer takes all!

2007-05-15T09:26:00.000+02:00

As some of you already speculated, I tried a different approach this round and remained very quiet to increase the suspense and see what sort of offers I would receive. Well, it didn't work very well because I received only 8 offers which were mediocre at best:

SportsRoom.mobi
m-8.us
bobsfamilypharmacy.com
of8.com (plus iflew.com, rsxy.com, and duqd.com)
YouPurchase.net (plus YouPurchase.us)
Accommodation.ac.nz
YouthCollege.com
FormalWomen.com

However, all is not lost. I received 2 cash offers for OnlineCasino.im and OnlinePoker.im in Sedo. The offers were for $160 each, which is the minimum offer allowed. As a result, I've decided to take a huge gamble and auction off both names starting now. So I'm extending this round and will continue to accept offers from traders until 24 hours after the end of the 7-day auction. We will then do a usual vote and the winning offer will take ownership of the domains, Sedo account, and auction results. This means the winning trader will have to honor the auction and will take home the cash from the 2 auctions together with InstantMessage.im and Wifi.im. The risk is huge. If no one else bids on these domains, they will earn the winner $10 each (after $150 in Sedo fees), which means I will most likely receive reg-fee offers this round. However, if the domains get bid up nicely and the market decides these names really are quite valuable, then I expect to be getting some very juicy offers towards the end of the auction from hungry traders wanting to cash in. Sound like plan?

Here are the links to the auctions:

OnlineCasino.im Auction

OnlinePoker.im Auction

This could very well be the end of One Ugly Domain or a new leap forward. We will know in a week and it will be damn exciting to watch it unfold. I don't expect to get many offers at the beginning of the auction, but if it unfolds and the bids increase, I expect to get a rush of offers.

Wish me luck...

Heart's thumping,
Andres

P.S. To be fair, those of you who already made offers this round will have a chance to remove your offers if you do not like the results of the auction.

Now accepting offers for the OnlineCasino.im portfolio!

2007-05-08T08:07:00.000+02:00

I'm pleased to announce that I've traded domains with Brian Raymond again, putting an end to the cursed Round 13. I asked Brian to keep me posted about his adventures with Casino.rw. But enough about Rwandan domains, let's talk about a little place called Isle of Man. It's an island in the middle of the Irish Sea, which is in the middle of Great Britain, where the Bee Gees were born (OUD is staying aliiive!). What makes it stand out, however, is that it has a very low tax rate making it a very popular offshore banking center. It's ccTLD is "im" which can stand for "instant message", making it a very versatile name. Here are the 4 names I got from Brian which are now up for offer:

OnlineCasino.im
OnlinePoker.im
InstantMessage.im
Wifi.im

The first name that immediately stands out from the bunch is InstantMessage.im simply because that's what "IM" is most well known for. So that's a perfect match for a name and we're off to a great start. What about Wifi.im? Well, "wifi" is a pretty damn popular keyword and "wifi instant messaging" sounds like a cool concept, so I think this puppy only helps the offer! But what about OnlineCasino.im and OnlinePoker.im? People criticized Casino.rw, regardless of how good the keyword was, because it'd difficult to market an online casino to Rwandans. What those people failed to realize is that you can use Casino.rw for a casino site that markets itself anywhere in the world. So the same goes for OnlineCasino.im and OnlinePoker.im. But I did a little poking around and found something very interesting. See, the Isle of Man actually gives licenses for Online Casinos and Poker rooms to operate in their jurisdiction. In fact, the Isle of Man government has an entire section devoted to online gambling. Don't believe me, then check this out: http://www.gov.im/gambling And here's a list of a few online casinos already based in the Isle of Man. Hmmm....this is starting to look VERY juicy. Add to that the interesting concept of an "instant messaging online casino" or "instant messaging online poker" and these names clearly stand out as the best of the bunch!

Having the very strong keyword "online casino" in a ccTLD whose jurisdiction licenses Online Casinos is incredibly value in and of itself, absolutely no one can deny that. But, on top of that, having "online poker" in that same jurisdiction packs a double-punch, making it a uniquely attractive offer to an online gambling company wanting to set up online casino and poker operations in the Isle of Man. Add to that the self-describing InstantMessage.im and the strong keyword Wifi.im and we're looking at a portfolio that could easily rival anything OUD has touched before. At least that's my humble opinion, but I do think the facts speak for themselves.

So there you have it. A portfolio of four awesome keywords, uniquely relevant to the extension, whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts. You can only imagine what these names would be worth to an end user wanting to set up shop in the Isle of Man.

Well, let's hear it, start sending me your best offers and let the games begin! Round 14 has officially begun!

Excited,
Andres

P.S. I don't know if anyone's noticed (I only did just now), but One Ugly Domain now has a PageRank 4 and I suspect it's only gonna go up from here. That's good news for everyone whose traded names with me as they now they have an inbound link from a PR 4 site. Another milestone for OUD!

OnlineCasino.im portfolio wins the cursed Round 13!

2007-05-05T04:22:00.000+02:00

Congratulations Brian for winning Casino.rw with your OnlineCasino.im portfolio offer! Special mention goes to Randy for his close 2nd place offer, the eBoyfriend.net portfolio. Now what an eccentric round this has been. I'm not a superstitious guy at all but this Round 13 was definitely cursed! Everything that could go round did and it didn't let up, with several attempts at manipulating the vote. I'm just glad to be putting this round behind us and I'm quite happy with the results (could have been better, but also could have been a lot worse). I know some of you voiced concerns about the OnlineCasino.im votes, but I double-checked them and did not find anything suspicious. They were spaced out, voting for them continued through until the last few hours, and its later start could simply have been due to the resetting of the vote. However, because there were 3 other attempts at cheating, I will have to write up a set of rules to make it clear what is and what is not allowed. But I do have to point out that so many desperate attempts to win Casino.rw show just how juicy this name really is despite what most people thought. And now I want Brian to prove just how juicy this name is and flip it for a delicious 4-figure mark and report back! Good luck Brian!

A lot of you have also suggested that I remove the vote as it should not have been there from the beginning. I could not disagree more. It's an integral part of one ugly domain. I did not want to just flat out copy Kyle's one red paperclip and so I set out to do things differently where the public, not me, choose what to trade for. I think this makes it a much more interesting and news-worth journey since it is fully interactive. Consider it the Web 2.0 version of one red paperclip, where it depends 100% on the community. To be honest, the voting has been quite successful...after all, I went from an $8.34 domain to a 4-figure domain all via the voting process. But everyone should take a reality check and realize that not every single trade is going to necessarily be a trade up. Stock prices go up and down but what matters is that the trend is up (this is coming from a Finance graduate), so why should one ugly domain be any different?

Now I'm not even saying that the OnlineCasino.im is a trade down, that remains to be seen. What I'm saying is that we can expect ups and downs in the trading process but what matters is that the general trend is UP.

Anywho, give us a moment to make the trade and we'll be back with a holier Round 14. Thanks to everyone that voted!

Cheers,
Andres

Problems with voting script fixed, vote has been restarted and will last 48 hours!

2007-05-03T03:21:00.000+02:00

There was a problem with the voting script and many of you were unable to vote. I just fixed it and reset and restarted the vote. I've also reset the time and made the vote last 48 hours in case those of you who tried to vote don't see this until tomorrow. Sorry about all this, I know it's a pain, but please don't let this little hiccup keep you from casting your vote this round. I have no idea which offer is going to win and I need all the votes I can get!

Vote away!
Andres

P.S. This round 13 really is cursed !! :)

UPDATE: Pigtures.com has been removed from the voting for cheating. Remember, I have a zero-tolerance for any kind of cheating or manipulation during the vote.

UPDATE 2: cz5.org (plus lesex.info) has also been removed from the voting for cheating. As a result, I have also removed the owners other offers: ff.tc, lesex.info, and youreanoob.com (plus lesex.info).

UPDATE 3: FindWholesale.co.uk has also been removed due to cheating.

18 new offers in, voting for Casino.rw trade has started!

2007-05-02T16:01:00.000+02:00

I've received several very interesting offers in the final hours of this round (thanks Brian!):

upskirts.info (plus wettshirts.info)
jostle.net (plus endow.net)
resolvepain.com (plus itreatpain.com)
fidelitymobile.com
nycityinfo.com
cartoonprogram.com (plus cartoonprograms.com and InternetToons.com)
hifi.ws
eanimators.com (plus eenlargement.com and egimmick.com)
diyzilla.com (plus iconzilla.com and tweakzilla.com_
nqt.us (plus cqt.us and qbq.us)
lawyer.im
mustaches.net (plus videobanking.net)
genericonlyplan.com (plus genericonlyplans.com, genericplan.com, genericplans.com)
dyuh.com (plus urkd.com)
onlinecasino.im (plus onlinepoker.im, instantmessage.im, wifi.im)
earlymorning.tv
bonusgas.com
moneypigs.com (plus moneyfetish.com)

The OnlineCasino.im set looks pretty juicy. So that brings the total number of offers this round to 44.

Well, the time has come for you to vote for which offer I should accept to trade for my delicious Casino.rw. The vote will only last 24 hours and you will have to confirm it by e-mail, so don't forget.

This should be interesting, I'm not sure what to expect...!

Vote away!
Andres

1 more offer in, final call for offers, less than 13 hours to go!

2007-05-01T16:29:00.000+02:00

What a slow and disappointing round this has been. Luckily, one ugly domain is more powerful than any of us and will weather this storm on a surf board. I'm curious to see how the vote goes and where we end up in Round 14, although I have to be dead honest and admit that unless a really awesome offer shows up at the last minute, I'll probably be trading down. Trade downs didn't hurt the one red paperclip, so I don't expect it to hurt my ugly baby in the long-run.

Here is today's offer, which was actually offered yesterday but had to be clarified (on that note, I received another offer today, which it's also awaiting clarification):

ache.mobi (plus salts.mobi and transform.mobi)

Some of those were also offered before, but never as a package.

Anyway, I feel compelled to repost the Casino.EXT sales to reemphasize the value of my beloved Casino.rw and how you are all giving a very lucky trader a very juicy trade-up unless you decide to do something about it and offer up some magic:

Casino.COM	$5,500,000	Jan-05
Casino.INFO	$35,127	Sep-06
Casino.HK	$15,000	Mar-06
Casino.BE	$10,426	Feb-07
Casino.IO	$6,300	Mar-06
Casino.ORG.UK	$3,700	Jul-04
Casino.PN	$3,698	Jul-04
Casino.SC	$3,392	Jan-06
Casino.PK	$2,800	Oct-06
Casino.UG	$2,600	Jan-07

Again, the sales figures speak for themselves.

Well, that's it ladies and gentlemen, this is the final boarding call for offers for the juicy Casino.rw.

Surpise me.

Fingers crossed,
Andres

2 new offers in, still no Zorro and less than 27 hours to go!

2007-04-30T16:44:00.000+02:00

I stayed up all night waiting for Zorro to show up and blow us away with a magnificent offer, but he never came. I still received a couple of offers (3 actually, but I'm waiting to get the 3rd one confirmed), and one of them is pretty hot:

HotMom.co.uk (plus HotTeacher.co.uk and HotThong.co.uk)
CDUse.com

You might remember that I was offered HotMom.co.uk a few rounds back, but now it's back with a ménage-à-trois of pure British hotness to try and spice things up. But is it good enough to win?

At this point, none of the offers really blow me away, which means that if any of you other traders out there with a kick-ass offer take a risk and make things exciting, chances are you'll take home the deliciously delicious Casino.rw.

So what are you waiting for? Blow us all away and join the one ugly domain hall of fame!

Looking for some love,
Andres

8 new offers in, still waiting for that one offer to blow me away!

2007-04-29T15:31:00.000+02:00

I got 8 more offers but I was hoping for a lot more quality at this point in time. It's starting to look like one lucky trader is going to be doing a major trade-up this round at one ugly domain's expense. Fair enough, I knew this could happen, the rules were clear, so if that's the case, I'll have to live with it. But I'm still hopeful some mysterious trader wearing a Zorro mask and cape is going to submit a kick-ass offer at the very last minute and blow us all away. If he doesn't show up, I'll just have to watch the movie for some amusement after this very slow round.

Here are today's 8 offers:

FindWholesale.co.uk
RealEstate.sh
NameBandits.com
GoodFormula.com
ImagingDeals.com
YoyoPoker.com
pigtures.com
ff.tc

C'mon Zorro, show your face, if only briefly, and give some hope to the people of one ugly domain ville!

Still hoping,
Andres

9 new offers in, one ugly domain is giving traders good exposure!

2007-04-28T18:31:00.000+02:00

Well, things have picked up a bit, but still nowhere near where I expected them to be half way through this round. But before I go into todays offers, let me tell you about this e-mail I got. A guy who had done business with Andy Kelly (who traded Consolidate.biz for the TriGuard set with me a few rounds back) was having a hard time reaching Andy and so he Googled him and found one ugly domain instead and sent me an e-mail asking me to get him in touch with Andy. So you see, there's some more of that OUD magic for you. It's funny because I actually get several hits a day coming from Google searches for domains that have already been offered to one ugly domain, so it's kinda cool to see this baby spreading its wings. So, did you hear that Andy? "ezdeek" is lookin' for ya!

Anywho, on to todays 9 offers:

DBV.biz (plus FEJ.biz, FRK.biz, CVL.biz, CRF.biz, MGU.biz...6 LLL.biz)
LeSex.info
cz5.org (plus lesex.info)
youreanoob.com (plus lesex.info)
TLDRegistrations.com
WindowsDownloads.net (plus .org)
PCDownloads.org
gangland.org
Vurd.com (plus ikmu.com)

I had actually received one more offer, but it had already been offered previously so I could not accept it again. Also, notice that the Vurd.com offer was spiced up with another pronounceable 4-letter .com, ikmu.com, so that's pretty juicy. And I really like the WindowsDownloads pair and PCDownloads.org, which are probably the top contenders at this point. The set of 6 LLL.biz is noteworthy as well.

Well, we're about half way through this round, so get your offers in soon and don't miss out on this BOMBSHELL of a domain, Casino.rw. Just imagine yourself being one of less than 300 people/companies in the ENTIRE world owning a single-keyword, 6-letter, purebread "CASINO" domain name. That's a very exclusive club indeed.

Join the club,
Andres

1 more offer in, this round's a sleeper!

2007-04-27T14:38:00.000+02:00

It definitely looks like Round 13 is cursed cuz it's moving v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y with only a trickle of offers coming through. If I were Rwandan, I'd be upset. The main problem I'm hearing is that people don't want to get stuck with a domain that costs 225 euros to renew. Since this domain doesn't expire for another year, that means most traders actually think they wouldn't be able to flip this domain in the next 11 months. I haven't been a domainer for very long and I think I could flip this domain in less than a month. I'll actually be flipping it in a week, but I mean for money. Maybe I'm don't know what the hell I'm doing, but I'm pretty damn sure that if you this domain was placed on Sedo for a 7 day auction with no minimum bid and no reserve price, it would fetch 4-figures. Am I on drugs?

Anywho, I think this domain sells itself and I'm just going to have to let the free hand of capitalism and democracy lead the way and see where it takes us. Here's todays offer:

AntiVirusProgram.tv (plus KnifeShow.tv...OVT for "Anti Virus Program" is over 700K, Knife Show could be used for something similar to a QVC styled show, online.)

Not bad at all, Anti Virus Programs are a pretty damn big market so this one looks good.

Well, there's about 4 and a half days left for offers. Is someone going to step up to the plate and hit a home run or are we going to just sit here and play with our dolls?

Spice it up!
Andres

Only 3 new offers in, are traders giving up already?

2007-04-26T16:20:00.000+02:00

I gotta say, I'm surprised I've only received 3 new offers for Casino.rw. I don't know if traders are giving up already, are on vacation, lost their internet connection, or just don't like casinos or Rwanda, but this is a domain worth a lot of money, so I'm very surprised I did not receive more offers after the first day. I'm really hoping traders put their competitive gear on and start making more offers. Anyway, I don't want to discredit todays offers, which actually weren't too bad:

HairBeautyFashion.com
MustSeeTV.mobi
Vurd.com

But come on traders, you can do better than that! We're talking about a domain worth thousands, are you really gonna let someone else take it? Show me the love and send me some juicier offers so we can give this round the excitement it deserves.

I just had a thought...could it be that Round 13 is cursed? I hope not...someone throw me a freakin' bone here!

Still very hungry,
Andres

Now accepting offers for Casino.rw, first offers are already in!

2007-04-25T06:40:00.000+02:00

I'm pleased to announce that I am the new proud owner of Casino.rw. We all know it's a temporary ownership becasue Iw ill be trading it again in 1 week, but I will enjoy it while it lasts. Make no mistake, this is the best domain to go past one ugly domain. "Casino" is the 2nd most valuable keyword in the world (after "sex") and the sales figures (which I've re-posted below) confirm that. In fact, this puppy is so good that I already have 3 offers for it, which I'll discuss a bit later. Here are the facts:

There are 141 million Google hits for "casino".
"casino" has an OVT score of over 250,000.
There are only 266 top-level domain extensions (and that's including obscure ones like .arpa, .cat, and .coop). That means there are only 266 possibilities of having a 1-word, 1-extension "Casino" domain. If you own Casino.rw, you will own 1 of only 266 in the ENTIRE world. That is an extremely rare piece of property, and thus highly valuable.
.rw stands for Rwanda. Uganda borders Rwanda. Casino.ug (for Uganda) sold for $2,600 4 months ago.
The online gambling market is a MULTI-BILLION dollar market.
Casino Cost-per-Acquisition affiliate programs pay up to $300 per referred player that deposits at least $50. Bring in 1 player, and you've covered your annual renewal fee for .rw. Bring in a handful of players and you've also covered the cost of the domain. Bring in any more and you're making huge profits.
The .rw extension can stand for "ReWards" or "RevieWs", both highly relevant to the domain and much more beautiful than .UG(ly)
This domain does not expire until April 2008, giving resellers almost a FULL YEAR to flip it and sell it to a Casino Affiliate or a Casino itself. (If you can't flip this name in a year, you're in the wrong business.)
Did I mention "Casino" is the TOP keyword after "Sex"? Just wanted to make sure...

Here are all the sales figures for Casino-domains over $2,000:

Casino.COM	$5,500,000	Jan-05
Casino.INFO	$35,127	Sep-06
Casino.HK	$15,000	Mar-06
Casino.BE	$10,426	Feb-07
Casino.IO	$6,300	Mar-06
Casino.ORG.UK	$3,700	Jul-04
Casino.PN	$3,698	Jul-04
Casino.SC	$3,392	Jan-06
Casino.PK	$2,800	Oct-06
Casino.UG	$2,600	Jan-07

This is a HOT domain. Period.

OK, cool, now that we all agree that this is a DAMN GOOD domain to own no matter if you're an end-user or reseller, let's talk about the offers I've received before this round even started. I received the following 3 offers from 3 different traders:

skulls.mobi
eBoyfriend.net (plus iBoyfriend.net, eGirlfriend.org, iGirlfriend.org, eBoyfriend.org, and iBoyfriend.org...dating websites have become huge across the internet and are very profitable. The two biggest one-letter 'prefixes' are 'e' and 'i'. With this set, the owner would have the only two prefixes worth owning and thus reduce their competition)
rsxy.com

If I had to guess, I'd say the eBoyfriend.net portfolio is the current contender. But can you do better? If you think you can, do not miss this opportunity to own a $2,600+ Casino domain and send in your best offers! You will not want to let this one go.

I'm looking forward to a heated and exciting round.

Keep 'em coming,
Andres

Casino.rw wins the vote, just waiting to finalize the transfer!

2007-04-24T04:06:00.000+02:00

Congratulations to Alex Simon for his winning offer, Casino.rw! It won the vote with a significant 22% lead and more than twice the votes of 2nd place winner I.kg. I honestly think Casino.rw is the best name I've had so far and I'll get into it more at the start of Round 13 which I just know is going to be a heated round! In fact, the round hasn't even started and I already have 3 offers for it, so this is going to be JUICY!

Anywho, the transfer of .rw domains works a bit differently than with most standard domains, that's why it's taking a bit longer than usual. The .rw domains cannot be transferred out of the .rw main registry, so the WHOIS information has to be changed manually on the account which takes 48 hours. That's already been done and is already showing my details and my Sedo parking nameservers, so now I'm just waiting for the password on the account to change so I can finalize the "transfer" and fully make it mine (I didn't find out about the password change until today, otherwise I would have already done it and we would have started the new round already). That shouldn't take longer than 24 hours, so get ready because Round 13 is about to begin.

Start warming up those offers!

Andres

6 final offers for 354.net, Offering Period is over, 24-hour Voting Period has begun!

2007-04-20T07:05:00.000+02:00

The Offering Period for the juicy 354.net is over. I got 6 final offers just before the bell:

Insurance.gs
InsaneClip.com
SurfEyewear.com
CampingChair.net
FreshMusic.TV
TwentyOne.TV

Another great 1-word ccTLD with Insurance.gs (.gs is for South Georgia Islands) and some nice .TV's.

Anyhow, the voting has already begun with 48 offers on the table. Remember, the Voting Period now lasts only 24 hours, so make sure you get your vote in ASAP. As usual, you will have to confirm your vote via e-mail, so don't forget to do that or your vote won't count! Just like in last voting round, I have sorted the domains from shortest to longest, which means the "portfolio" offers are at the end.

Thanks to all the traders for making offers and good luck to you...one of you will win 354.net and it's now in the hands of the voters!

Click away!
Andres

P.S. It's now official, Simon Moxon has sold Consolidate.biz to Vijay Rao for $1,000! Congratulations Simon!

New barrage of offers with less than 24 hours to go, final boarding call for .net Airways Flight 354!

2007-04-19T07:12:00.000+02:00

Finally we got some excitement in this round! It looks like traders are finally feeling the pressure and don't want to miss out on the delicious 354.net! With less than 24 hours to go, I've received a total of 26 offers from 5 different traders, including the first 1-letter domain offer one ugly domain has ever received!

Here they go:

Yusu.com
Vuyo.com
TourLyon.com
TourMontpellier.com (plus MontpellierTours.com and Montpelliertour.com)
TourMarseille.com
Zicy.com
TourGenoa.com
TourPenang.com
ScubaFriend.com
TourBilbao.com
LiveForexRate.com (plus LiveForexQuote.com)
MobileBuying.com
FileUDRP.com
UDRPFiling.com
UDRPAction.com
TaxHavenCountry.com
USTravelPhone.com (plus USTravelPhones.com)
UKPhoneRental.com
PortableAsset.com (plus PortableAssets.com)
DISCARD.INFO (listed at Sedo's Top Domain List and has been accepted to be listed at Greatdomains.com for $6,500.00)
I.KG
VGPros.com
TalkHarmony.com (plus .org)
BoredAdult.com
Cromster.com
agilitytalk.com (plus qualifyingrun.com)

Definitely some interesting offers there, including the one letter cctld I.kg, but how do they compare with Casino.rw and Girls.vc?

This is certain to make things a bit more exciting now.

If you want a chance to get the valuable NNN.net gem that is 354.net, then this is your absolute last chance! Take a good, hard look at the timer on the top left cuz that's all the time you've got left! Remember, one of these offers WILL win the vote and trade for 354.net.

Final boarding call for .net Airways Flight 354.

All ears,
Andres

1 more offer in, time is ticking, don't miss out on the $1,500+ 354.net!

2007-04-18T15:15:00.000+02:00

I got only one offer today and it's a bit unusual. I've been offered 50 L--L.com's (where "L" stands for any letter, so domains like L--W.com, G--W.com, Q--J.com, etc), and we won't know which letters we'll get until after the vote because the owner currently has hundreds for sale and 50 of the ones left overs will make up the final offer. The owner had originally sent me a "tentative" list of 50, but since he couldn't guarantee those exact 50, I said I'd label his offer as:

50 L--L.com's

I could not find any valuations for L--L.com's so I have no idea what each of them are worth, let alone 50. To be dead honest, I didn't even know you could have more than 1 hyphen in a row in a domain name, so I learned something new today.

So there you have it, that brings the total number of offers so far to 15 with less than 39 hours to go. If you want a chance of getting the $1,500+ 354.net, send in your juiciest offers now!

Cheers,
Andres

2 more offers in, traders still intimidated by Casino.rw!

2007-04-17T16:55:00.000+02:00

It is pretty damn clear that traders feel they cannot beat Casino.rw because I can't fathom any other explanation for why I am not receiving more offers for this 3-number .net gem, 354.net. Another thing I wanted to point out about my juicy .net is that it is worth AT LEAST $1,500. According to 3character.com, the minimum wholesale price (MWP) of a 3-number.net is $875, however, 3-number .net's made up 100% of "premium numbers" (1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9) sell at a 300% - 400% premium (or more!) to that MWP, which would be $2,625 - $3,500. Since 2 of the 3 numbers in 354.net are premium, it is 67% made up of "premium numbers" so it should fetch 67% of that range, or $1,750 - $2,345! So again, it must be the Casino.rw offer that is keeping people from even TRYING to get this gem, but do keep that valuation in mind. On top of that, the price of 3-number .net's have gone up 6% since March 2007, which is more than what your bank account pays you in a year, so this is a damn good investment.

Before I mention today's offers, let me quickly address Casino.rw's renewal fee. People have mentioned that the renewal fee will detract people from trading for it and that if I end up with it after this round, it might kill OUD. I totally disagree. The domain won't expire for almost another year and the idea is that who ever ends up with it after me would have 12 months to sell it to an end-user. Considering Casion.ug (Uganda) went for $2,600 4 months ago, there is a handsome profit to be made. Plus, considering that Casino Affiliate Programs can pay upwards of $250 per depositing player, an end-user would only need to refer 1 player in the entire year to cover their renewal fee, so they could easily afford it. 'nuf said.

On to today's offers:

Girls.vc (Girls Video Clips)
HotelBreaks.mobi

Girls is definitely a good keyword, and .vc (for St Vincent & Grenadines) could stand for video clips, so this one looks interesting. But will it beat Casino.rw?

Anywho, I know I'm receiving a lot of ccTLD's, but at least I'm receiving great one-word keywords. The vote should be interesting, but make it even more interesting by sending some more offers!!

Looking forward to them.

A bit more than 2 days to go...

Feeling lonely,
Andres

Only 2 new offers in, but Casino.rw is looking juicier!

2007-04-15T04:14:00.001+02:00

I only received 2 offers today. It looks like people were scared away by Casino.rw and they have reason to. I dug a little deeper and uncovered some very interesting information. Here are all the sales I could find for the incredibly-valuable, 6-letter "casino" keyword:

Casino	.com	$5,500,000	Jan 2005
Casino	.info	$35,127	Sep 2006
Casino	.hk	$15,000	Mar 2006
Casino	.be	$10,426	Feb 2007
Casino	.io	$6,300	Mar 2006
Casino	.org.uk	$3,700	Jul 2004
Casino	.sc	$3,392	Jan 2006
Casino	.pk	$2,800	Oct 2006
Casino	.ug	$2,600	Jan 2007
Casino	.nr	$1,090	Aug 2006
Casino	.pn	$315*	Jan 2006

But there's more to that table than meets the eyes. I could not find the $315 .pn sale on DNJournal.com, but I did find an earlier sale of it from July 2004 in the journal for $3,698. So if we average the $315 price with the $3,698 we get a realistic $2,007 for it. That means that EVERY single sale for the keyword "casino" has been over $1,000. That sounds like a trade up to me anyway you look at it.

More importantly, by far the most relevant and significant sale for Casino.rw which also gives us the most realistic picture of how valuable this domain really is, is neighboring country Uganda's Casino.ug which sold 4 months ago in January for a very juicy $2,600. Considering .rw is a much prettier extension (does .ug stand for ugly?) and that ".rw" can stand for "rewards", Casino.rw could very well be worth more than that and be one of the best contenders one ugly domain has seen yet.

Also, thanks to one of the comments left in my last post, I learned that the renewal fee is over $200 for a .rw domain, which is damn expensive, but this one doesn't expire until April of 2008 so anyone could easily flip it before then for a very juicy sum (I would say easily over $1,500). I did have my own scare when I visited Casino.rw and read "this domain does not exist". However, I followed up at Nic.rw and confirmed it was taken and the owner forwarded me the ownership confirmation.

Anyway, on to today's 2 offers:

FileRecovery.mobi
Coed.eu

They're interesting, but I still think Casino.rw is the biggest contender. And sorry for basically making this post about Casino.rw, but I haven't really received many other offers to talk about and I would definitely not mind trading for Casino.rw, so I wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page in terms of how juicy it is.

So are the rest of you traders going to let a .rw take YOUR 3-number .net? I hope you don't give up that easily! Now show me the love and send me some juice!

Needing more offers,
Andres

First offers are in for 354.net!

2007-04-14T06:49:00.000+02:00

We're off to a good start with 11 offers for 354.net. None of them blew me away, but a couple were kinda interesting.

Here they are (with owner descriptions):

Casino.rw (Casino.anything sells very well, usually for more than $2.000)
Ruby-on-Rails.com (it is the exact name of the new internet language "ruby on rails")
proteins.cc (plus playsblackjack.com)
ClickBetter.com

B2Bbonus.com

GoodTrend.com

RichBonus.com

DisableSpam.com

CoreCodes.com

BlogOcean.com

BestOut.com

Casino.rw looks the most intriguing, but I really don't know about the ".rw" country-coded top level domain (ccTLD) of Rwanda. I did a little investigating and found these recent sales of "casino.cctld":

casino.hk - $20,000
casino.be - $10,426
casino.sc - $3,392
casino.pn - $315

I think Rwanda (.rw) is closer in value to .pn (Pitcairn Island) than Hong-Kong (.hk), Seychelles (.sc), or Belgium (.be). Having said that, though, .rw could stand for "rewards", in which case Casino.rw would be like Casino rewards...just a thought, I need more convincing, but I think it's probably the top contender at this point.

I received 2 other offers today that were identical to offers I received last round so I wanted to clarify that I cannot accept offers that have lost the vote in a previous round. You're free, of course, to spice up the offer, but I can't accept the same exact offer.

In other news, I've added a new link to the top of the website labeled "Offer $1,100 for it". As you may have guessed, this link is for end-users. If you click on it, it will take you to Sedo where you can make an offer for 354.net. If the offer is at least $1,100, then I will publicize it on the blog so traders are aware that there is an official offer for it that is higher than any previous offers one ugly domain has received. I don't expect every round to have end-user offers, but this will at least make it easier for end-users, which I think is a good idea considering the success of Vijay's $1,000 cash offer last round.

Anywho, keep sending in your offers. Can anyone beat Casino.rw or any of the other contenders so far? If you think you can, send in your offers and chances are you will be taking home 354.net with all it's glory!

Cheers!
Andres

Now accepting offers for 354.net, one ugly domain is no longer playing little league!

2007-04-13T04:58:00.000+02:00

I've traded Consolidate.biz for 354.net with Simon Moxon, who I wanted to thank for such a speedy trade. Simon has revealed to me that he will be selling Consolidate.biz to Vijay for $1,000 so I'll keep you guys posted on that sale. Well, here we are at the start of Round 12 with the 10th domain I've owned along this journey. Sadly enough, I will only own it briefly because in about a week I'll be swapping it for one of your offers after sprinkling it with some one ugly domain magic.

Now I know there's been a lot of dispute and discussion in the past over pretty much every single domain I traded. But 354.net is one whose market value cannot be disputed and that's why I think this round will be an important turning point and milestone for one ugly domain. According to 3character.com, the minimum wholesale price of a 3-numbered .net is $875. That's the minimum. However, if you consider that 354.net is 66% made up of so-called "premium" letters and that it now has the "one ugly domain factor", this domain is easily worth over $1,000. But it only gets better. This domain was created on December 12, 1998, almost 9 years ago. That's like centuries ago in internet time, adding a "collectibles" value to this domain. The reason 3-numbered .net's have such a juicy value is primarily because of how rare they are. There are only 1,000 3-numbered .net's all over the world and .net is the 2nd most popular extension, so this is a great domain to own as a long-term investment. The fact that there are over 150 million Google results for "354" doesn't hurt either.

So there you have it, one ugly domain is no longer playing in the little league so I'm expecting to see some minor league competition here. But remember, regardless of the offers I get, the best offer is guaranteed to take it home one week from now, so send in your best stuff to secure this awesome domain.

Shoot away,
Andres

354.net wins in a landslide victory, taking home 59% of the votes!

2007-04-12T14:07:00.000+02:00

Congratulations to Simon Moxon for winning the vote with 354.net! It became apparent early on in the vote that no other domain stood a chance, and 354.net took it home with a whopping 52% lead over second place Dolls360.com. There was an issue on the first day of voting with fake votes for Dolls360.com, but even if I hadn't caught it, it would not have mattered. THAT'S how juicy 354.net is.

I've noticed that pretty much every single winning offer so far along this journey was determined within the first day of the voting period, so I've decided that from now on, the voting period will last only 24 hours to get things moving even quicker.

I think 354.net is going to take us to the next level with an undisputed market value interesting enough to start getting some serious offers and some new traders participating, so I'm really psyched about the upcoming Round 12.

I know Vijay Rao is going to be happy that Consolidate.biz will finally be out of my hands, but it will be up to Simon Moxon whether he takes Vijay's $1,000 cash offer or not. I'll keep you guys posted on that.

In other news, Randy sold OUD alumni YoG.mobi for a delicious $350, which is over 100% more than the current market price for 3-letter .mobi's. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the one ugly domain FACTOR, do not underestimate it. It's yet another reason for you to join the party!

Anyway, give Simon and I a chance to trade domains and stark cooking your offers in the meantime cuz I'm only going to own this incredibly rare 3-number .net for a week before I trade it again. Remember, one of you will be owning it next week.

Thanks to everyone who voted, who the hell knows where one ugly domain would be right now if it wasn't for you!

Loving it,
Andres

Attempted sabotage has been quashed!

2007-04-11T05:23:00.000+02:00

Several consecutive votes for Dolls360.com were made using anonymous proxies and free e-mail addresses, so I have canceled all those suspicious votes, which has reduced the Dolls360.com count to 3 so far. I have no reason to believe the owner, Randy Pendleton, is behind this attempted sabotage. He seems to have a few enemies on here judging by some of the previous comments left behind in previous posts, so my best guess is that someones is attempting to discredit him and get him banned from OUD. Whoever is doing this has too much time on their hands and needs to get out of the house more. I'm flattered you would spend so much time creating new e-mail accounts, generating different IP's, and casting several votes, for my idea, but my girlfriend gives me enough attention as it is, so thanks, but I don't need any more.

I take the voting process very seriously and scrutinize every vote carefully to catch and fix these sorts of things. I'm glad the process works so that we can continue with voting periods which I consider an integral part of this interactive journey to $1 million.

Now let's all grow up, shake hands, and be nice or karma will come back to bite you in the ass.

Keep voting!
Andres

Voting has begun with 55 offers on the table, one of them will win and take Consolidate.biz home!

2007-04-09T12:26:00.000+02:00

This is going to be exciting! The 3-day voting period has begun with 55 offers on the table and you'll notice Consolidate.biz isn't on the list! That means that the offer that receives the most votes in the next 3 days WILL be traded for the $1,000 Consolidate.biz. No if's, but's, or maybe's, it's gonna happen, so please take your vote very seriously as a lot of money is at stake. I'm going to be extra vigilant with any attempts at manipulating the votes and any such attempts will result in all your offers being removed and you being permanently banned from ever trading with me.

Also, you will notice that I've sorted the domains in order of LENGTH to make things easier for you . That's because, with all else being equal, the shorter the domain, the greater its value. This helps to push names like "voteformesoiwin.com" to the end of the list and reduce the clutter. This also means, however, that all "portfolio" offers that include more than one domain are at the very end, so keep that in mind before voting.

Before I forget, the last offer I received, which came in since my last post, was:

Bet.org.in

So who's going to end up with the delicious Consolidate.biz and the option to sell it for $1,000 it comes with? That is entirely in your hands. Choose wisely. Choose quickly. Make it happen.

Thanks to all the traders that submitted offers this round. Good luck!

Click away,
Andres

P.S. Don't forget to confirm your votes via e-mail in order for them to count!

2 new offers in, less than 48 hours to go!

2007-04-07T14:30:00.000+02:00

Time's almost up for offers, so get them in fast. I received another 2 today, so here they are:

Dolls360.com
TravelRoutes.mobi (plus TravelRoute.mobi)

I know most of you are gonna be out hunting for chocolate eggs tomorrow, but if you have any juicy domains lying around, one ugly domain is hungry for them (he's not a big chocolate fan and is on a strict domain-only diet).

Consolidate.biz is about to go, so make it happen!

Happy Easter,
Andres

4 new offers in, YoG.mobi is on auction!

2007-04-06T10:47:00.000+02:00

Before I get into todays offers, there is some exciting news in one ugly domain world. One of the domains that have passed through the one ugly domain hands, YoG.mobi, is up for sale on auction by its new owner, Randy L. Pendleton. This is one of only 9 domains I've owned briefly since one ugly domain started, which means it will ALWAYS and permanently be showcased atop this site. That means it will benefit from OUD's future PageRank and publicity, making it a very rare piece of internet real-estate, so this is definitely not your ordinary 3-letter .mobi (and trust me, I know about .mobi's)! If oneredpaperclip is any indication, one ugly domain could end up with a PageRank of 7 and a ridiculously massive surge in traffic once I hit the $1 million, giving each domain I've traded more free traffic then their new owners could ever buy (think milliondollarhomepage.com). So don't miss out on this chance to own a piece of OUD and internet history and bid on it today! Good luck Randy!

On to todays 4 offers, here's what's come in:

transferred.mobi
Schnapps.tv
Conductor.tv
Tarpaulins.net

Some nice keywords there, but how will they compete against a 3-numbered .net? Only the vote will reveal.

Keep sending in your offers, ladies and gentlemen, there's only 3 days left for you to make your offers and it's Easter Weekend, so better send 'em in now before you travel and forget!

Andres

one ugly domain gets a bit prettier, 2 more offers in!

2007-04-05T15:49:00.000+02:00

Some people were having problem accessing this site with IE7, so I've upgraded to the latest Blogger template which not only fixed the problem but also made the site a bit prettier (although still quite ugly!), which is applicable I guess now that we're at a $1,000 domain. I also forgot to mention in my last post that Simon (SJM211), the same guy that offered up the delicious 354.net, was the first one to catch the Easter Egg in my April Fool's post, so he wins the warm fuzzy (congrats Simon!). For those who still didn't find it, read Simon's comment here.

Well, it definitely seems like Simon's offer scared everyone away because I only got 2 offers today. It sure as hell looks like most traders have given up which is a damn pitty cuz I know you're all gonna regret it after Simon comes back to post about his $1,000 sale. :)

Anywho, here are today's 2 offers for the adult industry:

Banged.net
Ribbed.net

Definitely not bad, but can they compete with a 3-number .net? We'll have to wait until the vote to find out.

There's still plenty of time left for offers, but all I'm hearing are crickets..................................no one else is stepping up and it's a damn shame cuz if you blew our minds with an incredible offer you'd get instant fans from all over the world thinking your the bomb. That's a lot of positive karma going your way!

Hope that convinced you (seriously).

Blow us away,
Andres

Only 4 more offers in, looks like traders were intimidated by yesterday's offers!

2007-04-04T14:58:00.000+02:00

I got 4 new offers today which is less than I expected and a clear indication that traders were intimidated by yesterdays incredible offers, especially 354.net. You never know what can happen with the unpredictable nature of the vote, so send in your juiciest offers for the $1,000 Consolidate.biz now or cry home to momma later after seeing someone else snatch it.

Here are today's 4 offers:

motorcircuit.com
xliv.net
tehworld.com
a-Cd.com

Not bad, but I don't think they're on par with yesterdays offers. If you think you can beat any of these, then take your chances and send in your offers. There's no cooler feeling than seeing your domain win the vote and having your name put up for everyone to see on one ugly domain (no, seriously). And if fame isn't your thing, then let the color of money entice you to submit your best offers.

I'm hoping to see some tougher competition here, so send in your best stuff! Show me what you got!

Unimpressed,
Andres

7 more offers in, including a few VERY juicy ones!

2007-04-03T12:56:00.000+02:00

It looks like my little "no reserve, low starting price" strategy has worked. I've received some of the best offers so far along this journey, including 2 one-word, dictionary, action keywords (one a .net, the other a .info), a 3-number .net, a very juicy .mobi couple, and the first .pro I've ever been offered.

Here are the 7 new offers I've received (remember, I'm just copying and pasting as-is, the descriptions come from the owners):

Plod.net
Parts.pro (perfect name to sell auto parts, it may be a good trade with all the recent .pro hype)
TurnkeyParadise.info
EuropeanVacations.mobi (plus InvestmentService.mobi)
Pull.info
354.NET
IndexStockFund.com

It's hard to say which one is winning so far, but I think 354.net is probably in the lead with a market value of $875 according to 3character.com.

Think you got something better than any of these? Then don't let them take YOUR Consolidate.biz and offer up something juicier!

Send 'em in!
Andres

April Fool's, one ugly domain is still alive and well and better than ever!

2007-04-02T10:31:00.000+02:00

Sorry to disappoint the few of you who thought I should indeed end this, but going from $8.34 to $1000 in six months IS progress and it is a damn good sign that I can make it to the $1 million so there is no stopping me. If you still haven't gotten it, my last post was an April Fool's joke. I hope everyone read that post between the lines and got the message, which was also sprinkled with sarcasm. Not only that, but there was an Easter Egg in that message which I'm surprised no one found yet. I won't give it away, but the first one to find the Easter Egg (which hinted at that post being an April Fool's Joke), will get a warm fuzzy. The two guys that seem to have gotten my joke the best are Brian and Dan, so read through their posts so you "get the message" (kudos to you guys for the positive karma!).

Seriously, anyone who thought I would quit on a project that has yielded a 11190% return in 6 months purely from trading really is a fool (no offense :)! Honestly guys, I would have to be incredibly stupid, naive, and easily-impressionable to let any critic hold me down. I'm doing something that no one has ever done before, sailing through completely unchartered territory, and the progress so far has been absolutely remarkable. What did the critics think, that if I didn't have the $1 million in 6 months this was a failure? Boo haw, even if it does take me 5 years to get to the $1 million that's still, uhm, how do I say this, oh yeah, $1,000,000 DOLLARS! So sorry, no thanks, I'm not quitting, was never planning to and never will. :)

I would like to thank all of those who left messages of support and encouragement hoping this one ugly domain journey would not end, I really appreciated that. In light of so much recent criticism, it was a refreshing moment. Nobody knows where one ugly domain is going to go in the future or how it's going to get there, but I'll be course-correcting my way until I get there. I don't have all the answers and neither do my critics, however, I don't think we need all the answers to trade this puppy into the 7-digit zone. We just need to keep things light-hearted, unpredictable, and exciting in order to reach the finish line.

But hey, I could not pull off an April Fool's joke on this scale without making a huge change. Before I say what it is, let me say that me reaching the goal will depend as much on the interest I generate as on the offers I get. I won't get great offers unless there's big interest for one ugly domain. So here's is what I'm going to do. It's risky, it's bold, but I think it will add the right element to get this moving. I'm going back to basics, ti how things were when OUD first started. I know how boring it is to have my current domain an offer win the vote again and to have to do another round. So here's what I'm going to do: from now on, I will be conducting a trade EVERY single round. Period. In order to do that, I will no longer be putting my current domain up for offer. That means that one of the offers WILL win the vote and I WILL do a trade, guaranteed. The risk is obvious, if I only get crappy offers I will quickly trade down to another ugly domain name. But the upside, although less obvious, is a lot juicier. Now that we are finally at a cold-hard $1,000 cash domain domain, I know a lot of you really, really want it. So if every trader knows that SOMEONE is definitely going to win the $1,000 Consolidate.biz at the end of this round, then a lot more of you will make offers for it. Not only that, but if the initial offers are crappy, I know you other traders won't let the owner of that crappy offer take the $1,000 "for free", so the "market forces" (I love economics) together with the "competition" will drive the offers higher. The best example of how well this works is auctions. If I put Conslidate.biz up for auction with a reserve price of $1,000 (or a starting price of $1,000), not many people, if any, will bid. However, if I put this $1,000 domain on auction with a starting price of $1 and no reserve, people will bid like crazy for it. In fact, the psycological and emotional factors could very well drive the bids higher than $1,000 as competing bidders feel they must "own" it after attaching themselves to it. The point is, people hate bidding when there is no guarantee the highest bidder will win. That's about to change. Does any of this make any sense at all? I hope so.

To be fair, I'm resetting this round, which gives everyone 7 days to get their offers in. I'm also going to let you traders toot your domains' horns to the public by commenting on how good they are and thus why we should vote for it (I'll just copy and paste whatever you send me), so the power is in your hands. Now I know the vote my get a bit hectic with so many offers so, to make things easier for you guys, I will be sorting by length (from shortest to longest) for the vote.

Remember, every offer that comes in will go to the vote, and one of you will win it, guaranteed! That means that the 35 offers I've received so far this round will be going into the vote:

Flew.org
BetBrand.com
BetDome.com
CleverCoat.com (plus CleverCoats.com...a new "intelligent clothing" technology)
Layups.net (highly brandable basketball sports domain)
ProRights.com (highly brandable legal/lawyer term)
AntiVirusProtection.biz (very very high ovt score)
BlossomShop.mobi (Everyone knows what flowers.mobi sold for)
360Elite.net (xbox 360 Elite)
Entrar.mobi (Spanish for Enter)
VJFS.com (plus .net, .org, .info, .biz)
BuyPorn.org
GirlPleasures.com (plus .net, .org, .info, .biz)
Mfm.in
rhb.in
pmh.in
rfn.in
nld.in
airportstatus.mobi
rakeshare.com
theamall.com
wwwmensa.org
yau-man.com
yaumanchan.com
wptcircuit.com
chtoday.net
djsney.com
agilitytalk.com
qualifyingrun.com
pheonixna.com
iphonev1.com
iphonev2.com
iphonev3.com
divinedogbed.com
PokerArtwork.com

Talk about making things exciting! Will one ugly domain crash and burn with a major down-trade or will market forces drive the offers up and continue the path to $1 million? Only time will tell. All I know is that I will continue to do this until I get to $1 million, I don't care how long it takes or how crappy my domains get. At worst, I'll break a world record for most domains traded (or maybe even most ANYTHING traded), and at best, I hit the big mark.

Love it or hate it, this is how it's going to work, so you might as well enjoy it! You can't deny it will make things more unpredictable, volatile, and therefore exciting.

Keep the OUD spirit positive, send in your best offers, and cash in. We've reached the $1,000, but can we go higher? Send in your offers and let's find out.

Not a fool,
Andres

I've decided to end one ugly domain early and have traded from ugly to $1 thousand.

2007-04-01T08:18:00.000+02:00

It's been a wild ride but it is coming to an end. I've been reading the discussion in the forum and have decided that my critics are right. I'll never make it to the $1 million, interest is dying, the offers aren't very good, we're at a stalemate, and it has gotten boring. After all, only a handful of people were keeping this going. The truth is, trading from an $8.34 domain to a $1,000 domain in 6 months is not progress. On top of all that, traders have started flaming and fighting each other over one ugly domain, so much so that a notice had to be placed in the thread, and I just don't want to be the cause of that. The truth is, it's all my fault...I just want attention and have lost credibility as a result. I'm taking Vijay's $1,000, changing this to "trading from ugly to $1 thousand", and calling it quits. I guess one red paperclip was lucky and domains are just a completely different animal.

I sincerely want to thank all the readers, voters, and traders, who made this journey fun and exciting for me. I just rather cut my losses at this point and finish on a relatively "high" note (high meaning "better than I started"). At least I can say I tried something that had never been tried before which is rewarding in its own right.

I'm aware that several of you are wanting to carry on this domain trading concept and wish good luck to SwapNames.com, TradeMeDomains.com, Randy's future trading site, and others. Maybe this is the start of a domain trading revolution, and I'm glad it all started right here.

I'll never delete this blog to ensure it stays as a tiny but hopefully semi-significant part of domain history, and hope that future generations of domainers will enjoy reading and learning from it.

Good luck to all the people who traded domains with me, I hope your new domains give you whatever you were looking for. If I learned one thing during this journey, it is that domains are incredibly subjective, more so than most people realize.

This is my last post in One Ugly Domain , I bid you all farewell.

Over and out,
Andres

Consolidate.biz wins again, new offering period started, now accepting new offers for the $1,000 Consolidate.biz!

2007-03-29T06:01:00.000+02:00

Damn, this round just keeps getting wilder! Consolidate.biz has won yet another round, beating more than 200 offers, including the 24 that made it to the vote! But it was a razor thin victory with 6-2.com from RJ of NamePros.com coming a very close 2nd. Now I know a lot of you are going to tell me to just take the $1,000 in cash from Vijay this time and put that up for offer (which I'm sure you traders would prefer), but that would go against the whole principle of my idea. I don't want to sell my way to $1 Million, I want to trade my way up there which is, granted, a lot harder at the beginning, but it will also result in more media publicity towards the end, which I will need to reach the finish line. In other words, sticking strictly to trading makes for a much more interesting story, not to mention that I won't have to deal with any of the complications arising from selling domains and earning income each time. Having said all of that, rest assured that Vijay's offer is still on the table. He really wants this domain and I guess he's not too happy about having to wait another round to get it, but remember, his offer for $1,000 in cash will last for the 2 weeks after I've traded it with one of you, and I haven't traded it yet. If there are any of you still not making offers because you fear Vijay's offer is not legitimate, don't forget that I will trade your domain back with you if he doesn't honor his offer (which I know for sure won't be the case), so do not miss this opportunity. Just think about what you could do with $1,000...you could get the PS3, the Xbox 360, AND the Wii, so what the hell are you waiting for, send in your offers!

Anywho, I don't think I need to repeat how good Consolidate.biz is because I think you all already know. According to you guys, it's even better than a N-N.com, of which there are only 100, and also better than several portfolio sets of domains that were offered last round. So the question is, who is going to make a bold offer and take the $1,000 Consolidate.biz home? That's entirely up to you, and I've got my arms wide open ready to receive your offers...but better make them extra-juicy this round so one of you actually takes this puppy home and cashes it in for $1,000 bucks!

Thanks to everyone that voted this round...you just made Consolidate.biz a lot sexier!

Now send me your offers!
Andres

Voting for Consolidate.biz has started, 24 offers on the menu!

2007-03-26T04:34:00.000+02:00

Sorry about the delay folks, but I did not want to rush anything with money on the table (and the fact that I was moving apartments did not help at all!). I was also trying to legitimize the second offer I had received for Consolidate.biz but I could not wait any longer. Vijay's $1,000 cash offer is still on the table and will last for 2 weeks after I've traded Consolidate.biz.

This is unlike any previous round. There is a lot of money at stake and the fate of who gets that money is partly in my hands (for choosing which domains to accept) but primarily in yours for voting who actually gets it. Choosing which domains to accept was an incredibly difficult task and I tried to envision both end-user and reseller values when cherry-picking the offers that would make it to the vote. I read everyones comments in the forum and blog which helped me decide. To be fair and not leave so much power in my hands, I've tried to be flexible and accepted a total of 24 offers, which is considerably more than I accepted in the last few rounds. I know that may spread the vote a bit thin, so if that happens, I may extend the voting round. Otherwise, the voting round will last the usual 3-days. You'll notice in the voting list that offers that included more than one domain are simply listed with their first domain and the word "SET". I've had to do this because some of the offers were too long for the voting script, but you can view what each set consists of in the left hand side under "Current offers". Remember, you will have to confirm your vote via e-mail for security purposes (you won't get spammed, ask any of the guys who voted in the previous rounds). Keep in mind that if I notice anything that smells suspicious, I will immediately and permanently remove the offer from the vote without hesitation. Also, don't forget that you can vote for me to keep Consolidate.biz by voting for it.

To give you guys an idea of just how juicy it is to not only trade domains at one ugly domain but to simply make an offer and have it mentioned in my blog, at least 2 domains that were offered this round and published on my blog have sold after renewed interest. They were Yevi.com and Meet.nu. James, the seller of Meet.nu, said (and I quote) "The domain was lying around for ages and nobody was interested. I couldn't have guessed that somebody would buy it after you put it on your list. Apperantly, getting on your list increased the interest." So future traders should keep that in mind, there are several benefits to making offers at one ugly domain! Congrats to James and Simon for their sales!

Well, that's about it. As usual, I will remain quiet during the voting period. Good luck to all domainers whose offers are up for vote, and thanks again to everyone who sent in offers this round and commented one which ones I should accept.

Who's going to get the $1,000 Consolidate.biz? The choice is yours.

Click away!
Andres

Offering Period for Consolidate.biz is over, time to consider which of the 183 offers make it to the vote!

2007-03-19T10:11:00.000+01:00

I have not received an offer from the second interested buyer so I'm closing this offering period. This has been the funnest, wildest, most unpredictable round yet and a definite turning point in this one ugly domain journey. What went from being the ugly kid in school became one of the most popular after a premium certification, a 4-digit cash offer, and a 5-digit appraisal! It also blew the previous record for most offers received, with a total of 204 offers made for Consolidate.biz. I believe that more than doubles the previous record! But now comes the hard part, deciding which of the 183 offers that came after Vijay's cash announcement deserve to make it to the voting round! Please leave your opinions regarding which I should accept in either the comment section or the forum and debate it if you must. A lot is at stake here as the winner of this round will have a guaranteed $1,000. This is an important turning point in one ugly domain and I want to make sure we make the right decision! The only one I do not need help choosing and which I am already including in the vote is RJ's 6-2.com. Here are the other 182 domains up for consideration, including the last offer made today, hooky.mobi:

Hooky.mobi
Franchiser.biz
HIVSymptoms.info
BuyLegalBooks.com
SothebysAuctions.com
Seesawing.com
SuiteFind.com
MarsPortal.com
chrisisaak.net
tetu.net
meet.nu
PokerTrooper.com (plus PokerStarship.com, PokerTroopers.com, CasinoTroopers.com, BlackJackSplits.com, DealerBlackJack.com, DoorPoker.com, GrindersPoker.com, OffPoker.com, StreakCasino.com, WildRoyal.com)
Jostle.net
LifetimeGuarantee.info
Nightie.us (plus Nighty.us)
EgoBlog.com
WheelsBlog.com
Phukd.com
Qelk.com (plus Quelk.com)
禍.com (xn--okz.com - Single Japanese character IDN that means "Trouble")
Explorers.info
NYPR.net
Inwards.net
GeorgiaSingles.org
Qewt.com (plus .net, .org)
Tukz.com (plus .net, .biz)
Euphemisms.net
DOIP.net
eWho.net (plus .org)
Muddin.net
TheTonightShow.net (plus .org)
NetWt.com (plus .net)
PixelPornsite.com
LotteryResults.biz
UnlicensedMusic.com
MobileBargain.com
Bra1.com
NYCityInfo.com
XboxLog.com (plus Xbox360Log.com)
CartoonVideo.info (plus CartoonVideos.info )
InternetToons.com
RealIDAct.us
BannerLogos.com
Ale1.com
Nabzilla.com
Iconzilla.com
DrDre.org
CelebMoms.com (plus MomsAndWives.com, OrdinaryMoms.com, SeniorMoms.com and YoungerMoms.com)
CasinoBeauties.com
WUI.info
Sothebys.us
PreOwnedMini.com
VintagePez.com
AntiMale.com (plus Anti-Male.com)
Ulia.net
Mitigate.net
eGimmick.com
DIYzilla.com
Burritos.us
QBQ.us
GenderTest.org (with site)
Emocrats.com
GadgetSidebar.com
BookExchange.biz
Plurp.com
Plurf.com
Zookio.com
Jokes.im
OnlineCasino.im
Mortgage.im
Arcade.im
ZuneWallpapers.com
SquareFoot.net
Onlooker.org
InstantOpen.com
LDrop.com
Tweakzilla.com
Hedonist.mobi
Tbird.info
WetTshirts.info
airportstatus.mobi
rakeshare.com
theamall.com
wptcircuit.com
MarketingBusiness.tv
GraphicsTablet.com
proudness.com
jestee.com
classics2.com
queenofass.com
inamac.com
macrules.com
Suffer.biz
termsofservice.biz
iWire.mobi
Mp3d.mobi
PokerCell.mobi
RecoverFinance.com
NanoInternational.com
law-school.co.uk
c-v.info
pressadverts.com
Adolescents.biz
SourceCoder.net
moaning.net
TeenBusinessForum.com
EGS.vg
BlogRight.us
Adequately.net
Gadgeet.com
INeedLogo.com
IWebSurfing.com
PageBarn.com
PickyLady.com
TooYummy.com
BallGod.com
EDani.com
PortsNet.com
ListeningAid.com
InstaChex.com
LoneWolfe.com
DonorScreening.com
Ulster.biz
almostmarried.com
machinist.mobi
assemble.mobi
Rented.biz (plus OnlineCons.com, LB8.org, MovieTrailer.at, TopMovieReviews.info as a set)
GetawayPlans.com
MovieMemorabilia.com
eAnimators.com
CartoonProgram.com (plus CartoonPrograms.com)
FreePC.info
TrialStudy.com (plus .net, .org, .info)
NewsEvents.org
PlasmaDisplay.org (plus PlasmaDisplays.org)
Endow.net
Mitigate.net
VideoBanking.net
OnlineCasino.im
OnlinePoker.im
InstantMessage.im
WiFi.im
BlogExposed.com
TattoosForum.com
YourTorrents.com
Vista-Search.com
BikeOnline.net
IndiaChina.net
i-lending.com
DebtDiet.net
talkcss.com
ConanForum.com
FYIJ.com
adestia.com
cowtownpoker.com & cowtownpoker.net
WebmasterForum.us
precum.net
Rented.biz
wirefinance.com
mufunds.com
maxdebt.com
letfinance.com
ladyloans.com
keyattorney.com
heyfinance.com
farfinance.com
equalfinance.com
SucceedCasino.com (plus .net)
SweepCasino.com (plus .net)
TeenFire.net
owt.mobi (plus prog.mobi, stairs.mobi, starring.mobi, presale.mobi, motorinn.mobi, mixeddrink.mobi, impaired.mobi, localsite.mobi, paytoplay.mobi)
Futuristically.Com
financiadores.com (Spanish for "Financiers")
rca.info
epu.mobi
yevi.com
crafty.us
farmyard.info
forgetful.org
hump.info
internet.vg
outshone.com
Pilf.info
OWT.mobi
Tiresomely.com
FloralArrangements.info
WorldSummit.info
ChromeSpinner.com
ScottishAutos.com
YearbookPage.com
EmoMart.com
MobiMinisite.com
PremiumDrop.com
MovieTrailer.at & TopMovieReviews.info
FreeMillionaire.com
CashEquityLoans.com
Bankroll.biz & Rectify.biz
CheatsChat.com
IEatKids.com
WYPH.com
TotalTechWebDesign.com
MillionDollarWebsite.biz
ConsoleCharts.com

Wow, that's a huge list when you see it all together, and it doesn't even include 6-2.com and the 21 offers that came in before Vijay's cash offer!

Start typing away, we have a big decision to make. Regardless of what happens, I wanna thank everyone that submitted an offer this round!

Let's make it happen!

Thanks!
Andres

New buyer interested in purchasing Consolidate.biz, 11 more offers in, less than 19 hours to go!

2007-03-18T15:52:00.000+01:00

This has been a wild round and it just keeps getting wilder! I've just received an e-mail from a new buyer interested in purchasing Consolidate.biz. Not only is this the first domain I've had on oneuglydomain with an interested buyer, but now there's 2 of them! If their offer is higher than Vijay's $1,000, then I will legitimize the offer via Sedo. Depending on how juicy this offer is, I may even extend the offering period again to give people a chance to send in better offers. There could very well be a bidding war for this domain, so whomever trades it with me is sure to have some exciting times ahead. This is yet again another indication of how absolutely awesome this domain is!

I've also received 11 more offers, which I'm copying below:

Franchiser.biz
HIVSymptoms.info
BuyLegalBooks.com
SothebysAuctions.com
Seesawing.com
SuiteFind.com
MarsPortal.com
chrisisaak.net
tetu.net
meet.nu
PokerTrooper.com (plus PokerStarship.com, PokerTroopers.com, CasinoTroopers.com, BlackJackSplits.com, DealerBlackJack.com, DoorPoker.com, GrindersPoker.com, OffPoker.com, StreakCasino.com, WildRoyal.com)

Let me know what you think of these.

I'm looking forward to hearing the new interested buyer's offer, so I'll hopefully hear back from him tomorrow.

However, this could very well be the last 18 hours and 30 minutes to get your hands on Consolidate.biz, so send in your offers RIGHT NOW!

Thanks!
Andres

Consolidate.biz appraised at $18,000 by GreatDomains.com, 68 new offers in, last 48 hours for offers!

2007-03-17T09:24:00.000+01:00

I finally got the appraisal from GreatDomains.com and it was worth the wait! They've valued Consolidate.biz at a whopping $18,000. Now I know many of you think that GreatDomains.com overvalues domains, but it can't be denied that this is another huge thumbs up for Consolidate.biz.

In other news, a barrage of 68 offers has come in from Brian Raymond, who traded CelebrityAffairs.com with me for ReleaseParty.com. I guess Brian wants Consolidate.biz badly and I don't blame him! :) Here's the list:

Jostle.net
LifetimeGuarantee.info
Nightie.us (plus Nighty.us)
EgoBlog.com
WheelsBlog.com
Phukd.com
Qelk.com (plus Quelk.com)
禍.com (xn--okz.com - Single Japanese character IDN that means "Trouble")
Explorers.info
NYPR.net
Inwards.net
GeorgiaSingles.org
Qewt.com (plus .net, .org)
Tukz.com (plus .net, .biz)
Euphemisms.net
DOIP.net
eWho.net (plus .org)
Muddin.net
TheTonightShow.net (plus .org)
NetWt.com (plus .net)
PixelPornsite.com
LotteryResults.biz
UnlicensedMusic.com
MobileBargain.com
Bra1.com
NYCityInfo.com
XboxLog.com (plus Xbox360Log.com)
CartoonVideo.info (plus CartoonVideos.info )
InternetToons.com
RealIDAct.us
BannerLogos.com
Ale1.com
Nabzilla.com
Iconzilla.com
DrDre.org
CelebMoms.com (plus MomsAndWives.com, OrdinaryMoms.com, SeniorMoms.com and YoungerMoms.com)
CasinoBeauties.com
WUI.info
Sothebys.us
PreOwnedMini.com
VintagePez.com
AntiMale.com (plus Anti-Male.com)
Ulia.net
Mitigate.net
eGimmick.com
DIYzilla.com
Burritos.us
QBQ.us
GenderTest.org (with site)
Emocrats.com
GadgetSidebar.com
BookExchange.biz
Plurp.com
Plurf.com
Zookio.com
Jokes.im
OnlineCasino.im
Mortgage.im
Arcade.im
ZuneWallpapers.com
SquareFoot.net
Onlooker.org
InstantOpen.com
LDrop.com
Tweakzilla.com
Hedonist.mobi
Tbird.info
WetTshirts.info

Let me know what you think about these!

This has easily been the round with the most offers, which I think reflects just how juicy Consolidate.biz is. However, this offering period is coming to a close. I've decided to announce the final 48 hours of this offering period now. I know I was going to wait to have Consolidate.biz listed on GD to announce the final 24 hours, but they still have to send me an agreement, which I need to sign and fax, and it's the weekend, so I have a feeling that will take several days and I don't want to wait any longer. I have enough offers to play with. :)

So let me re-emphasize, this is the FINAL 48 hours to get your offers in for Consolidate.biz, the juiciest domain I've had so far which comes with:

A guaranteed buyer at $1,000
A PremiumDomains.com score of 431
A soon-to-be confirmed listing on GreatDomains.com for $18,000
plus a lot of juice.

Do not miss out on this opportunity. Even if you hate the domain, you can't hate the $1,000 it's been offered. So make your offers now, or regret it later! You've got nothing to lose and at least $1,000 to gain!

Once I close the offering period, I will determine which names will go to the vote and then the voting round will begin. Things are about to get very exciting...I'm looking forward to the last minute offers!

All aboard!
Andres

Still waiting for GreatDomains.com listing, 5 more offers in!

2007-03-16T15:53:00.000+01:00

For some reason, GreatDomains.com is taking its time to list Consolidate.biz. I've never had a name listed on there before, so I don't know if this delay between notification of acceptance and actual listing is usual or not. I know it's a bit boring to wait around, but I want to have all the cards on the table and give traders a last chance to make offers based on exact information rather than speculation. As you can tell, I want to maximize the hell out of this juicy puppy. But hey, offers are still coming in, so that's a good sign. Here are the 5 I received today:

airportstatus.mobi
rakeshare.com
theamall.com
wptcircuit.com
MarketingBusiness.tv

Consolidate.biz will hopefully be listed on GD by tomorrow (fingers crossed!). But send in your offers ASAP cuz once it's listed, there will only be 24 hours left in this offering period (imagine waiting until the final hours to make an offer and the internet dies! Doh!). So send 'em while they're hot!

Andres

The Rabbit is out of the Hat, Consolidate.biz has been accepted by GreatDomains.com!

2007-03-15T05:15:00.000+01:00

The Rabbit was not shy after all and has lept out of the Hat! The wait was not in vain, hooray! About a week ago, I *secretly* submitted Consolidate.biz to GreatDomains.com to see if they'd consider it a juicy name and accept it. I just really wanted to prove the critics wrong and make the world give this domain the love and attention it deserves. Well, it worked! Today, at 0855 hours, I got an e-mail from GreatDomains.com announcing they had accepted Consolidate.biz! For those who don't know, getting listed on GreatDomains.com is a big deal as they are highly selective regarding which domains they accept. They only have 2,442 domains listed, which easily represents less than 1% of all domains for sale, so this is the cream of the crop...in fact, Cafe.com sold there a little why ago for $300,000! Now, before we get all excited and start doing the hula dance, they have yet to "appraise" the domain and set the listing price. Regardless of what that price is, this is yet another indication of how, contrary to popular opinion, Consolidate.biz is a plump and juicylicious domain! Once the listing price is set and the domain appears on the GreatDomain.com website, I will announce the final 24-hours of this offering period.

So remember, I'm still accepting offers for Consolidate.biz! In fact, I got a couple more offers today:

GraphicsTablet.com
proudness.com
jestee.com
classics2.com

Well, that's about it for now. Drum roll please as we await the listing price of Consolidate.biz on GreatDomains.com...

Andres

13 new offers in, still accepting offers for the $1,000 Consolidate.biz!

2007-03-14T16:53:00.000+01:00

It's 3am here so I'll make it short. Here are the 13 offers I received today (remember, I won't be making any decisions until the end of the offering period):

queenofass.com
inamac.com
macrules.com
Suffer.biz
termsofservice.biz
iWire.mobi
Mp3d.mobi
PokerCell.mobi
RecoverFinance.com
NanoInternational.com
law-school.co.uk
c-v.info
pressadverts.com

Let me know what you think about these.

The rabbit still hasn't come out of the hat, so bear with me.

Keep those offers coming and don't miss out cuz this trade is worth $1,000 to a lucky domainer!

Off to bed!
Andres

$1,000 offer for Consolidate.biz locked in on Sedo, 25 new offers in, offering period extended!

2007-03-13T14:09:00.000+01:00

As I mentioned we would do in yesterday's post, I've created a new Sedo account and added Consolidate.biz to it, and Vijay has offered $1,000 for it directly through sedo:

You can also confirm that this offer has been made directly on the Sedo listing page. As I explained before, I won't be accepting, rejecting, or countering this offer. I will leave that up to the new owner after we trade (remember, the new owner will also receive full ownership and control of the Sedo account and bid thread). This offer is binding for the next 7 days and Vijay will extend it after it expires. (Reminder: the new owner does not have to use Sedo to sell the domain to Vijay, this is just to formalize the offer.) Randy Pendleton (aka. Archangel) also gave me a good idea. To leave you even further at ease regarding Vijay's $1,000 offer, I commit to trading the name back with the winner if Vijay does not follow through with his offer (although I know that won't happen :). Consider it a 2-week warranty period on Consolidate.biz, since that's how long Vijay said his offer will stand for after Consolidate.biz is traded. But I want to be clear that I would not be making this guarantee if I did not know the end-user, so don't expect this to be the case in the future (the trader will have to bear the risk). However, end-user offers will always be legitimized via Sedo.

Moving along, I've received a bunch of new offers and a lot of feedback on the 56 offers I received yesterday. I've decided to play it safe and extend this offering period until I get to use the last trick up my sleeve (which should happen within 7 days). I'm doing this because I want to make sure I maximize the potential of this deal and get as many juicy offers as possible cuz I seriously believe this is an important milestone and turning point on my path to the $1 million domain. I've also decided not to make a decision on any new offers until I have all the offers in front of me and the offering period has ended. Since I have extended this round indefinitely, I will provide a 24 hour warning before closing the offering period. So If you are still interested in Consolidate.biz, I strongly recommend sending in your offers ASAP.

Here are today's 25 new offers (let me know what you guys think of these):

Adolescents.biz
SourceCoder.net
moaning.net
TeenBusinessForum.com
EGS.vg
BlogRight.us
Adequately.net
Gadgeet.com
INeedLogo.com
IWebSurfing.com
PageBarn.com
PickyLady.com
TooYummy.com
BallGod.com
EDani.com
PortsNet.com
ListeningAid.com
InstaChex.com
LoneWolfe.com
DonorScreening.com
Ulster.biz
almostmarried.com
machinist.mobi
assemble.mobi
Rented.biz (plus OnlineCons.com, LB8.org, MovieTrailer.at, TopMovieReviews.info as a set)

OK, now let me re-cap for the sake of clarity:

1) Vijay's offer has been formalized on Sedo.
2) I haven't made any decisions yet on any of the offers received since yesterday and won't until I have closed the offering period.
3) I have extended the offering period until I'm able to pull the last rabbit out of the hat.
4) I will give 24 hours notice before I end the offering period.
5) I am still accepting offers for Consolidate.biz

So there you have it, all the pieces are falling in to place to make this the best trading round yet! I know all this sounds complicated and convoluted, but I think it's necessary considering the significance of this trade, so please bear with me!

In the meantime, keep those offers coming, there's less than a week left for offers and possibly a lot less than that!

Good luck!
Andres

A barrage of 56 offers, need your help to sort through them...less than 17 hours to go!

2007-03-12T15:21:00.000+01:00

As expected after yesterday's huge $1,000 announcement, I received a barrage of offers from a bunch of traders. Consolidate.biz suddenly went from being the ugly, four-eyed fat girl with braces and no date to the prom, to the prom queen everyone wants to - uhm - dance with...all because she was offered a role in Ugly Betty! Politically-incorrect sidetrack aside, this is way too many offers for me to even begin sorting through, so I'm enlisting your help (hey, it's almost 2am here!). There are some pretty damn good offers there, including a N-N.com and a .mobi starter kit, but I need your help to determine whether any of these would be trade-ups for the $1,000 Consolidate.biz (I'm not 100% convinced about any of them, to be brutally honest).

Here's the list:

GetawayPlans.com
MovieMemorabilia.com
eAnimators.com
CartoonProgram.com (plus CartoonPrograms.com)
FreePC.info
TrialStudy.com (plus .net, .org, .info)
NewsEvents.org
PlasmaDisplay.org (plus PlasmaDisplays.org)
Endow.net
Mitigate.net
VideoBanking.net
OnlineCasino.im
OnlinePoker.im
InstantMessage.im
WiFi.im
BlogExposed.com
TattoosForum.com
YourTorrents.com
Vista-Search.com
BikeOnline.net
IndiaChina.net
i-lending.com
DebtDiet.net
talkcss.com
ConanForum.com
FYIJ.com
adestia.com
cowtownpoker.com & cowtownpoker.net
WebmasterForum.us
precum.net
Rented.biz
wirefinance.com
mufunds.com
maxdebt.com
letfinance.com
ladyloans.com
keyattorney.com
heyfinance.com
farfinance.com
equalfinance.com
SucceedCasino.com (plus .net)
SweepCasino.com (plus .net)
TeenFire.net
6-2.com
owt.mobi (plus prog.mobi, stairs.mobi, starring.mobi, presale.mobi, motorinn.mobi, mixeddrink.mobi, impaired.mobi, localsite.mobi, paytoplay.mobi)
Futuristically.Com
financiadores.com (Spanish for "Financiers")
rca.info
epu.mobi
yevi.com
crafty.us
farmyard.info
forgetful.org
hump.info
internet.vg
outshone.com

Post in the Forum or drop me a comment and let me know which ones, if any, you think would be trade-ups and why. (By they way, I always list the domains in the order I receive them to remain unbiased.)

I know some of you were still concerned about the legitimacy of Vijay's offer. I didnt' get any suggestions yet on how to legitimize such an offer, but here's what I've come up with. I'm going to create a new Sedo account and put the name up for sale. Vijay will offer $1,000 for it, but I won't accept it or reject it. I'll leave that up to the new owner and leave the offer open. The new owner of Consolidate.biz will also become the new owner of that particular Sedo account and will have the power to accept, reject, or counter Vijay's offer. That's as close as we can get to legitimizing the offer, I think. (Obviously, if you want to avoid Sedo's 10% escrow fee, you can just deal with Vijay directly since I've provided his e-mail in my previous post...he'll pay the lower Escrow.com fees). I'll let you guys know when this is all set up so you can feel safer about this offer.

I have one more trick up my sleeve for Consolidate.biz, but I won't reveal it until it's ready.

Anyway, there's a lot to ponder and very little time left for offers for this juicy $1,000 domain. If you need cash right away, you better send your best domains right this second so you take this one home with a guaranteed buyer. Less than 17 hours to go...

Thanks for your help, guys!

Cheers,
Andres

$1,000 offer made for Consolidate.biz, 3 more offers in!

2007-03-11T08:04:00.000+01:00

I received a very interesting e-mail today, which I will get to in a sec. First of all, I wanted to comment on the utter disdain for Consolidate.biz by some people. The latest less-than-positive comment comes from "Alan", who attempts to compare a .biz with the .kh extension (which I think is like comparing a 2007 Ford Taurus to an old Russian Zaporozhets), and tells me to stop trying to convince myself that I didn't trade down. I actually laughed out loud at that one. It is clear that most people are focusing on the extension and not on the keyword. This makes me think that most traders are only concerned with PPC revenue from type-in traffic. If that's the case, then I think people need to start opening up their minds a bit more and realize that the value of a domain is three-dimensional, not one. It is obvious to anyone that .biz is not .com or .net or even .org, but it is still a major extension. The keyword "consolidate", however, more than makes up for the lower-calibre extension. In fact, let me show you guys another link I found proving just how juicy Consolidate.biz is. It's an article that was dugg almost 1,000 times 6 months ago: The top 50 most expensive adwords. Analyze the article it points to and, in this instance, you will notice that consolidate-related keyword represent more than HALF of the top 50 most expensive keywords. I went a step further and checked Google Adwords to get a realistic picture of how much advertisers are paying for this keyword RIGHT NOW. To purchase the highest number of clicks possible, Adwords recommended that the keyword "consolidate" have a CPC of $47.02. That means that the current highest bidder has a max bid of $47.01, which is pretty damn high. The estimated average CPC was $14.80 - $20.61. Forget the max bid and let's be very conservative and use the lower $14.80 average CPC number. Assuming AdSense pays affiliates 50% of CPC revenue, this means the keyword "consolidate" is earning affiliates a realistic $7 per click (rounded down to be even more conservative). Now forget about type-in traffic and imagine what developing Consolidate.biz would mean. If you developed a consolidate-related site that received 2,000 visitors a day and had a modest 2% click-through rate on your conslidate-related ads, you'd be earning 2000 x .02 x 7 = $280 a day. That's over $100,000 a year. No one is saying it's easy to develop a site with 2,000 daily visitors, but the incentives with this kind of name are huge. Even if you were receiving 500 daily visitors, you'd still be making $25,000 a year, and that's using a very conservative earnings-per-click figure on the pure "consolidate" keyword which isn't even the most expensive consolidate-related keyword. But enough trying to convince you guys.

Back to the e-mail I mentioned earlier. My friend Vijay Rao, who works at the bond-trading department at Barclay's Bank in San Francisco and is the manager of The Color Bars, a contemporary, Seattle-based rock band, sent me the following e-mail today, which I'm taking the liberty of copying below:

Andres,
I've been watching the OUD site for awhile now, and I see that you are now offering consolidate.biz to barter. Unlike some of the other members of your site, I like the domain, despite it's biz ending. I think it is worth significantly more than other domainers are estimating, and I'm willing to prove it. The problem is, I don't have any domains that would be worth trading. If you allow it, I will make a $1000 USD offer to the winner of consolidate.biz, as I think that this domain is undervalued and could be developed into a very profitable site. I am willing to pay for the escrow fees as well, as long as the transaction takes place within 2 weeks of the domain transferring away from one ugly domain. Also, I would be interested in making future offers for good domains to help build up my portfolio. Please feel free to post this email along with my contact details on the site.

Thanks,
Vijay

In 3 words: This is huge! In fact, I think it will put all criticism to rest. You cannot argue with the value of a $. I know some of you will think I'm making this up or that I've fabricated this or colluded with Vijay. To appease any worries any of you might have regarding the legitimacy of this offer, let me give you Vijay's e-mail so you can get in touch with him yourselves: vijay.rao (at) thecolorbars.com. Fortunately for Consolidate.biz, I had nothing to do with this. So what does this all mean? It means that whoever trades for Consolidate.biz with me now will have a guaranteed buyer at $1,000. In other words, Consolidate.biz is worth at least $1,000 RIGHT NOW. For all of those who thought I've been down trading these past few rounds, I now officially disagree. I've officially hit the elusive $x,xxx barrier.

This offer from Vijay actually got me thinking. I know you guys had discussed in the forum how I should accept cash offers from end-users as trades. Well, this is an indirect way of doing just that, without any of the added complications. In fact, it's brilliant! If end-users are interested in my current domain on offer and are willing to make a cash offer for it, I can publish that offer so that traders know exactly how much that domain will immediately fetch if they win it. I'm just not sure how we can make those offers binding, so if you have any ideas, drop me a line (I can vouch for Vijay in this case, since I know him). It also made me wonder how if someone who knows me is willing to make such a juicy cash offer, what kind of offers could I get if a lot more people knew about oneuglydomain. Hmmmm...I need to get the word out!

I'm really psyched up about this new development because it will definitely spice up what has so far been a less-than-juicy round. This of course means, however, that the offers are going to have to be incredibly juicy for me to accept them.

Speaking of offers, I've received 3 today, including a 3-letter .mobi, which I chose not to accept:

Pilf.info
OWT.mobi
Tiresomely.com

(OWT.mobi is a good offer, but I don't think it's worth $1,000.)

Anywho, I'll let you guys digest this post, there's a lot to think about. All I have to say is that there are less than 2 days left in this offering period. Who's going to take the $1,000 Consolidate.biz home? Things are about to heat up!

Andres

Consolidate.biz certified as "Premium Domain"!

2007-03-10T13:58:00.000+01:00

Just a quick post to say that Consolidate.biz has been certified as a "Premium Domain" by PremiumDomains.com with a score of 431. The is just one of the steps I'm taking to convince traders of how juicy this name really is. This name is incredibly valuable and I don't want you just taking my word for it.

One very clever trader is going to score a very nice domain for taking a risk and seeing value where others say there is none. Is that going to be you? Make an offer to find out!

Andres

No offers accepted yet, 7 new offers in!

2007-03-09T12:25:00.000+01:00

I've decided not to accept PremiumDrop.com. It's a good name, but not good enough.

I've received 7 new offers and have decided not to accept any of them either:

FloralArrangements.info
WorldSummit.info
ChromeSpinner.com
ScottishAutos.com
YearbookPage.com
EmoMart.com
MobiMinisite.com

I'm not feeling the love from traders this round, and I think it has to do with the .biz extension, but I honestly think people are letting there emotional disdain for such a cute and lovable extension impair their rational judgment of how valuable this puppy really is. If you have your doubts about how good Consolidate.biz is, read my earlier post. I'm not going to let it go that easily. I'm also working behind the scenes on a little something to prove just how good this name really is.

In the meantime, keep the offers coming, but make sure they're nice and juicy!

Andres

6 new offers in, considering 1!

2007-03-08T07:46:00.000+01:00

I got back to Australia today, jetlagged like a drunken monkey, but happy to see a few offers waiting for me in my inbox. Of the 6 offers I've received, I'm considering the following one:

PremiumDrop.com (a great end-user name for a domain drop-catching service)

Should I accept it? I'm not entirely convinced, so let me know what you think.

The other 5 I've decided not to accept are:

MovieTrailer.at & TopMovieReviews.info
FreeMillionaire.com
CashEquityLoans.com
Bankroll.biz & Rectify.biz
CheatsChat.com

There's been a few suggestions for oneuglydomain that I wanted to discuss. The first is one is about creating a forum to build a community behind this. To be honest, I think there already is a community behind this (that's where these suggestions came from) based in the oneuglydomain thread at NamePros.com...in fact, that thread has already had 760 posts and more than 20,000 views, so I'm more than happy to continue using it to house the oneuglydomain community (which is also complemented by the comment system on this site). Another suggestion is about requiring offers to come with a low-priced (but not free) appraisal in order to be considered, making it easier to accept offers objectively and keeping crappy offers from being made. However, I think the cons outweigh the pros because it will result in fewer offers (yes, it will eliminate more of the bad offers, but it might also eliminate some good ones too). I rather receive 100 crappy offers than not receive one good one. I want to keep things easy so that I receive as many offers as possible, and then filter the good, the bad, and the ugly, which is also part of the fun. Lastly, some think I should remove the voting process entirely so that there is no voter manipulation. I'm definitely against removing the voting process as it is a fundamental element of this whole idea. I think one big reason why oneuglydomain has been so successful thus far has been the interaction between the site and its visitors. Giving you guys a say in all this attaches you to this site and keeps you coming back. Let's face it, my writing simply isn't sexy enough, on its own, to keep you coming back. Less visitors equals less offers. Less offers equals less chances of success. So it's a no-go, even if it results in a few bad trades (although I'm doing everything I can to minimize voter manipulation).

Thanks a lot for all your suggestions, I really appreciate your help in making oneuglydomain as good and fun as possible. Keep them coming, I'm all ears all the time.

In the meantime, keep sending in your offers for this juicy .biz. You might not be totally in love with the extension, but who can argue with $55 a click? It's a premium finance keyword in a major extension and you have less than 5 days to get your hands on it, so send in your best offers!

Cheers!
Andres

Now accepting offers for Consolidate.biz, first offers already in!

2007-03-06T06:25:00.000+01:00

This latest trade has been generating some very heated and interesting discussion. In fact, a few people don't think this was a trade up. To be honest, I think they're missing the point and I couldn't disagree with them more. This isn't the first time my trade has been criticized and I know it won't be the last, although I think these debates are always healthy. I really think Consolidate.biz is a lot better than most people realize. But don't just take my word for it, let's look at the facts (and my reasons for accepting the trade):

"Consolidate" has several meanings in many different industries, making it very versatile.
"Consolidate" is a premium finance keyword which means "to take one loan to pay off many others" (something that makes your debt more manageable and that many companies compete for).
"Consolidate" has an OVT score of over 12,000 and between 26 and 30 million Google results.
Consolidate-related keywords represent 36% of the TOP 30 highest-paying Adsense keywords. For example, the keyword "consolidate student loan" is paying more than $55 dollars a click! Check this out and see for yourself how many times a consolidate-related keyword appears (click here if link doesn't work).
There are 6-pages worth of Google Adwords Ad's in the U.S. for "consolidate"...a highly competitive ad space.
.biz is a major alternative to .com that's related to business, much like "consolidate", and will continue to grow as .com's become more and more scarce...in other words, a great investment.
Several .biz domains have already sold for 5-figures, including:

Meningitis.biz - $15,000
Car.biz - $14,027
Cards.biz - $11,750
Find.biz - $10,630
...even Alice.biz has sold for $3,634! (Source: DNJournal.com)

"Consolidate" is already taken in every major extension including .com, .net, .org, .info, .mobi, .tv, .eu, .us, .at, .au, .bz, .cc, .cn, .co.nz., co.uk, .de, .me.uk, .nl, .org.uk, .tk, and .ws!

If you consider all this, I think you'll agree with me that this domain is easily worth at least a few grand...so I don't plan on letting it go that easily. Any domain that can be monetized with $55 CPC keywords is worth big bucks in my book, especially when you consider the juicy PageRank it will be getting from oneuglydomain in the future. I rest my case.

There's also been a lot of discussion about how I should accept actual money as trades to allow end-users to participate since they might not have domains to offer. I'm not ready to do that just yet, but it is something I will consider thoroughly. Trading for money adds complications that I don't think are necessary or worthwhile at this point. Despite the criticism, I'm feeling quite good about how oneuglydomain has been evolving and the pace has been phenomenal. In fact, I've already received 5 offers for Consolidate.biz but have decided not to accept any of them:

IEatKids.com
WYPH.com
TotalTechWebDesign.com
MillionDollarWebsite.biz
ConsoleCharts.com

The offers are going to have to be a lot juicier than that! Stake your claim to this delicious domain now and make me an offer I can't refuse...you only have 7 days, so you better make it quick!

Andres

Consolidate.biz scores the Golden Goal to win in Overtime!

2007-03-04T18:28:00.000+01:00

Wow, what a round this has been! After a total of 136 offers, an entire offering period with no accepted offers, and a sudden-death overtime just itching for a Golden Goal, we finally have a winner. After giving it much thought, I've decided to accept both Andy Kelly's Consolidate.biz and Randy Pendleton's Yerx.com. However, since Consolidate.biz was sent in first, it automatically wins this sudden-death round. I've even received 5 offers today (making that 141 offers made for the TriGuard set), but since we already have a winner, I'll be considering them for the next round together with Yerx.com.

A Big thanks to everyone who submitted one of the 136 offers this round and those who helped me make my decisions. These rounds are only going to get tougher and more competitive, so start priming your juicier domains now. Consolidate.biz is an awesome domain and I will, of course, be talking about just how awesome it is when the next round begins. Give Andy and I some time to do the actual trade and get ready for Round 10!

Damn, I love domains!

Andres