Oversee.net’s SnapNames.com - Dying on the vine
Jan. 30, 2008 - Within hours after the successful completion of the Extended auctions performed by SnapNames.com at Oversee.net’s DomainFest Global auction, word was sent down from Oversee.net to start letting SnapNames employees go. Inside sources at Oversee.net said that after successfully auctioning over $3 million in domain names, Oversee.net’s Human Resources staff called several employees of SnapNames into conference rooms where they were told to quietly pack up their desks and leave the premises. Nearly 20% of the SnapNames staff quietly packed up and walked away both puzzled and jobless.
A little about SnapNames.com
SnapNames.com was founded in Portland Oregon in 2000, quickly became the largest available source of expired and deleting domain names. What they did is secured agreements with large domain Registrars that gave them exclusive access to deleting domain names. SnapNames would then auction of these deleting domains for $60 to several hundred thousand dollars.
What basically happens here is you put a $60 bid on a domain name and if you are the only interested party, the domain will be yours after the auction. However, if there are other interested parties, the domain name could be bid up and sold at nearly any price. Strategic agreements with key domain Registrars allowed the domain name not to be deleted and thus automatically placed in a SnapNames auction to be sold to the highest bidder.
In June of 2007, one of the largest domain monetization companies, in the business, Oversee.net (DomainSponsor.com), purchased SnapNames.com for an estimated 26 million. Little did they know, that SnapNames was about to lose their contract with Network Solutions to NameJet.com, which “appears as to be a joint venture between eNom and Network Solutions“, but owned by Network Solutions.
So what’s going to happen with SnapNames?
At this stage, it’s too early to know. We have heard however that Moniker, (Also recently purchased by Oversee.net) will be handling the next DomainFest auction and the future of SnapNames.
In the domain expiring business, whoever has the relationship with Network Solutions, rules the roost and SnapNames lost that agreement shortly after the Oversee.net buy-out. From the outside looking in, 2008 looks like the end of SnapNames and beginning of Network Solution’s NameJet.com.
One Response to “Oversee.net’s SnapNames.com - Dying on the vine”
By anonymous on Mar 29, 2008 | Reply
Be carefull with enom and snapnames.
I had a reseller account in enom and a customer forgot to pay me so I did not renew it.
Its domain name is ridicoulus and has nothing traffic, but I ask enom by ticket to renew it when it was in pendingStatus.
Enom told me that it was not possible, so I wait every day to see it released looking at verisign whois…
Finally today I check again its availabity and then I found SnapNames.com has already buy it using a hidden company (Snoqulamiedomains.com).
I know what I am talking about, believe me, and I think enom told SpanNames that someone (my poor customer) was interested in that horrible domain name, because nobody else could wants it (it has around 100 visits in a year only).
Anyway, I am really not interested in that domain name now and my customer neither. We already register another one in another registar (not enom, of course) for its services and we’ll promote it better than he horrible previous one.
Have luck with enom and snapnames, its relationship smells.
anonymous