I had used Delicious in the past, but after all the hoopla about new ownership and not knowing what will happen to that company, I’m hesitant to start using it now. After all, with bookmarking especially, you want to choose a service that will actually be around for a while.

I tried a few other free services and had the same issue with almost every one: too complicated! I just want to easily add bookmarks with tags and be able to search them. That’s it.

So I finally decided to try Pinboard because it offers a 3 day money back guarantee. When I signed up for Pinboard, the cost for registering was a one-time fee of $9.55. The cost increases by $1 for every 1000 users that sign up.

After using it for only 3 days, I’m really liking it. I would say the main reason is because it is simple and just does what is supposed to do very all. I got the FireFox extension and it’s very easy to quickly add bookmarks with various tags. You can then search your bookmarks or tags and that goes really quickly.

Anyway, what’s interesting is that Pinboard is a one man operation. If you read his blog you can tell he is very passionate about delivering a great product and he is always adding new features. You can read about how it all started here.

Bottom line is if you found this post and are considering signing up, go for it. It’s a one-time fee and a great service that you will be using for a long time.

Most experienced buyers are looking for value, not current revenue. They are looking for a website with potential; a good base to start from to expand their own vision. If you have a website that has good design or a good concept or a good script or a good name, buyers will imagine the potential and pay accordingly. Earning potential (which is different to every person) is much more important to most buyers than whether the site is currently earning $23/month from adsense or not.

Obviously it matters, it’s just not the only factor as amateur buyers tend to believe.

2) Highlight the strengths

When describing your website, put emphasis in the areas where it is strong even it is something you personally don’t value that much. For example, some people care more about Pagerank, others care about domain age; some care more about direct traffic or search engine traffic etc. Certain buyers value certain things and make decisions based on those, so make sure to highlight the strengths.

3) Don’t be a salesman

Don’t use words like “Wow” or “Great deal” or “I could have turned this into a multi-billion dollar business but I have too many other more important projects on my plate so it’s your lucky day”. This is by far the biggest indicator that your site is worthless.

In general, people like to discover the value of something themselves. Being told something is great only makes it less great.

4) Do some research to see what your website is worth

A great way to get some ballpark numbers, is to search already ended auctions on Flippa that are similar to your website. This should give you a good idea as to what people are willing to pay. There are many other factors that determine the worth of a website, but ultimately the number will be subjective and should reflect what you are comfortable selling it for.

On a related note, don’t ‘explain’ why your website is worth what you’re asking. People will bid what they think it’s worth, not what you tell them to think it’s worth.

5) Set a 7-14 day auction time maximum

People like to get hyped about things. They find a website they want to buy and have all kinds of ideas about what they are going to do with it and how they are going to change the world….And then they see you listed it as a 30 day auction…2 weeks later the excitement has died down and they are no longer interested. You just a bidder.

You might be thinking that 30 days gets you more exposure, but in that case why not list it for 60 days? People will always wait till the last minute to bid anyway, and most buyers I talked to check Flippa at least a few times a week.

6) Post as much proof/data as possible

This one is pretty simple but sometimes I see sites that I’d otherwise be interested in that don’t have this information posted. Verified Google Analytics is best for traffic but any stats screenshots will do. Also if you are claiming revenue, expenses etc try to find some screenshots to back it up. The more (relevant) proof you post the more legitimate it makes you look.

7) Be responsive to potential buyers’ questions

So you have a great website to sell, a good description, all your stats posted and you got the buyer’s interest. Now don’t drop the ball by not responding or taking too long to respond to questions. It shows you are not taking the sale seriously.

I think it is generally best to answer questions within 24 hours, preferably sooner. But not too soon as that will make you look desperate.

That’s all for now. Hope these were helpful to you!

2004

• Truck.com
• eCruise.com

2005

• Lunch.com
• Lofts.com
• EQ.com
• Blogster.com

2006

• Dora.com
• HB.com
• MovieRentals.com
• FunnyAds.com

2007

• Debit.com
• Bulk.com
• 15.com
• VN.com
• Track.com

2008

• Cleaning.com
• LT.com
• MeetPeople.com
• Jake.com

2009

• Pipi.com
• LiveStream.com
• OnlineEducation.com
• Keyboard.com

2010

• Dirt.com
• Prize.com
• CashUSA.com
• 027.com

2011

• Soulmate.com
• Ocean.com
• 235.com

I will try to get more names for 03 and 04. This is a VERY limited sample, just thought it would be cool to glance over!

Which year do you think got the best deals?

info via DNJournal

I got this advertisement yesterday (the day .XXX registrations opened to the public) in an email from GoDaddy. I’m aware that many schools and companies are spending insane amounts of money registering .XXX names “defensively”. I wonder how much of this the ICM knew in advance, or if it’s all just a big bonus for them. Either way, seems a bit low to use it as a selling point even if they know that’s why most (?) people are registering them.

As a side note, if you have a company called ‘acme cleaners’ that isn’t famous like Google or Microsoft, who exactly is going to buy acmecleaners.xxx and what exactly will they do with it? I think it applies only to really major brands & even then it is an easy lawsuit to get the website taken down (granted, for them, it’s easier to register the domain than have to even worry about filing a lawsuit). I don’t see how this is necessary or worth it for most brands/companies.

I went to check on some domains at NameJet this morning and noticed they  re-designed the whole site! Everything seems to be bigger, clearer and nicer. Good job.

I’m really happy about this as the old one was cluttered and very out-dated.

When the web was smaller, people welcomed distraction as we were always interested in new things. However the web has gotten so big now that I think many people want less noise. And the best way to get to where you want to go without noise is by typing in the domain name directly (and with URL auto-fill in most new browsers, you rarely have to type in the full name anyway).

This has definitely become the case for me.

I’ll keep you posted as the auction continues but I highly doubt this auction will meet the reserve.

For reference, here are the top 5 .net domains sold this year:

• Cars.net – $170,000
• CreditCard.net – $138,000
• Gold.net – $81,500
• Safe.net – $50,000
• Spain.net – $40,000

What do you think company.net is worth?

This is really big news because it is the largest known sale price for any .Me domain. The  buyer is a company that also owns the domain meetme.com.

Many people are using this as an argument for the new domain extensions. I don’t think this proves anything as it is an exceptional name that works really well with the .Me extension. Also it’s only one sale. Either way exciting to see.

• buymoto.com
• waspy.com
• bankpulse.com
• coffeejunction.com
• toxiccurrency.com

• fixtures.org
• wikiyes.com
• masana.com
• seed5.com (sounds cool)
• gmzn.com