> The generic name specials.com.au is for sale.

> At a starting price of $20,000

The domain name bb.com was recently auctioned on ebay.  It was well
advertised - i.e. spam emails were sent to domain name owners (.com, .net,
.org. and some ccTLD domain name owners including .com.au) who had existing
domain names including the letters 'b' twice.  I've attached a copy of the
advertising email for bb.com below.

The name received 53 bids and sold for US$41,000.  See
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2000331428.


The $64K question is "how much more valuable is a .com name than an
equivalent .com.au name".

One of the good things about auDA auctioning the generic names is that we'll
all find out.

How much information about the prices paid for the com.au generic names does
auDA plan to make public?

* The winning bid price for every com.au generic domain name?
* The total revenue received by auDA & the number of domain names sold?
* Mean and median prices?
* Percentile splits?


I admit that I am completely undecided whether I think:

1. auDA should release the price paid for each generic domain name;
following the philosopy that being as open as possible is desirable, and if
they don't there will be endless 'ooh, they've something to hide' claims by
some people

or

2. auDA should release general information about the prices paid but not the
full details; following the philosophy that some information would be useful
to finally lay to rest how valuable or worthless these generic names are,
while at the same time having some respect for the privacy of the
organisations that end up with them.


I guess I'll have to flip a coin to see which I think is the right thing.


Regards, Mark

Mark Hughes
Effective Business Applications Pty Ltd
effectivebusiness§pplications.com.au
www.pplications.com.au
+61 4 1374 3959


Here's the advertising email that was sent out:


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


You are receiving this email because you are associated with a BB type of
name.

The domain name BB.COM is now being auctioned at

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2000331428

This name is ideal for:

Business to Business
Broadband
Bed & Breakfast
Banks
Baseball
Billboards
Basketball
Bearer Bonds
Bulletin Boards
Bail Bonds
Bookbinding
Beanie Babies
Bellybuttons
Big Brother

or your own BB interest.

In addition, the domain's web address already receives thousands of visitors
a month.

Consider-- a double letter domain name. aa.com belongs to American Airlines,
the largest airline in America; cc.com belongs to Clear Channel
Commmunications, the largest radio broadcaster in America. Wouldn't you like
to be in that kind of company?

The auction will be ending on February 10th at ##:## And remember-- once
it's
gone, the new owners will be unwilling to give it up.