Sedo has provided auctions services for .MOBI, .NU, and others. Here’s what they say about their services in the new round of TLDs, coming… whenever ICANN gets to it. The latest date announced for the draft RFP was “Q3 2008,” so there are a few days before it’s officially late again.

Note: In this series on auction providers, responses to my questionnaire are unedited, except that I’ve fixed typos, punctuation, grammar, complete nonsense, etc. to protect the guilty.

1. How many years have you been in business?

We have been in business for nearly 8 years now. Since our founding in 2001 we’ve assembled the world’s largest marketplace of domains for sale, with over 14 million currently listed. We’ve also developed a sophisticated domain parking program which has won several awards including best domain parking program from DomainNameWire.com, and Best Performing Parking Program at Domain Roundtable.

2. Will you work with new TLDs to auction names? Will you do that on a non-exclusive basis?

Most definitely! Sedo brings years of experience and our global reach as well as strong partnerships with registrars and other key partners in the domain industry to the table. We’ve held similar auctions for .mobi domains when the tld was still young. Our auction platform would be ideal for the release for new TLDs not only because we have the reliable technology platform, but also because we have the customer base and marketing capabilities to make such an auction a success.

While it would be in the best interest of both parties to work together in an exclusive relationship, we would be open to working on a non-exclusive basis if it made sense for both parties’ objectives.

3. Do you have customizable offerings for Sunrise, Landrush, and collision (limited participant) auctions?

Of course! At Sedo, our partner relationships are very important to us and we would want to develop a plan together that would make sense for both parties. In the past, we have worked with registries to develop a customized plan for offerings and details as well as customized joint marketing and communication plans.

4. Have you auctioned names for a new TLD before? If so, which ones?

We’ve worked with several registries for new TLD offerings in the past, one of which is .mobi, where we held a series of three different auction events which brought in more than $3.2 Million USD. We’ve also held a .sh registry auction. We’ve also held auctions for the .nu domain, which was very popular in our European market as “.nu” means “new” in several European languages.

5. Do you do online auctions, live auctions, or both?

Sedo holds both online and live auctions on a regular basis. We have online marketplace auctions, running on an ongoing basis on Sedo and GreatDomains. We also have a monthly GreatDomains auction featuring top-quality English .com and .net domains and a monthly Premium Auction Event featured on Sedo.com with top quality domains from a variety of languages and TLDs. While our specialty is in online auctions, we also hold live auctions, where we see the right opportunity for our Sedo customers. As an example, we hold an annual live auction at the Domainvermarkterforum in Germany.

6. What languages have you done auctions in? (Please distinguish between live and online auctions)

We hold our online auctions in German, French, English and Spanish on a regular basis and have held live auctions in German and English in the past.

7. What currency(ies) have you used in your auctions?

We have held auctions in US dollars, British Pounds, and Euros.

8. If you run an ongoing domain auction platform, how many domains are currently listed for sale?

Sedo is the world’s largest domain marketplace with over 14 million domains available for sale. At any one time there are more than 1,000 domains with active bids in our Sedo auctions.

9. At which venues/conferences in 2009/2010 will you have a presence where you could promote the TLD auctions?

As always we will have a strong presence at all the domain shows like T.R.A.F.F.I.C., DomainFest, Domain Roundtable and Domainvermarkterforum and industry events like ICANN, DomainPulse and ICANN Studienkreis. We also have our annual SedoPro Partner Forum, with some of our best clients and top industry buyers, and we will also have a presence at some search marketing shows and web hosting conferences, such as Search Engine Strategies and HostingCon, just to name a few.

10. Will you provide any marketing/advertising for the new TLDs you are working with? Please be specific.

Of course! A joint marketing plan would make sense for both parties. In the past we’ve worked with registries to develop joint communication and marketing plans. We dedicate a good deal of marketing resources, on everything from PR to direct marketing and advertising, to ensure the auction will be a success for both parties.

11. Are you willing to provide a fixed payout to the TLD in addition to percentage-based payouts?

Any TLD offering is highly specific, and we assess every TLD individually. While we do not rule out any type of financial model and fixed payouts could be possible, we believe that the most benefit for both sides is usually a pure revenue-sharing agreement, which motivates both sides in an optimal way.

12. Are you willing to collaborate on a TLD at the business plan stage without an exclusive agreement?

We are very happy to collaborate with any planned TLD at an early stage. We have extensive experience and insight in the domain industry, which could be valuable in collaborating on the development of a new TLD.

13. Do you have a primary point of contact who has TLD launch experience with the process of a TLD launch? If so, who? Please provide name and email address.

Sedo has multiple experts on board with experience in TLDs. For example, our Director of Business Development for Europe/Asia, Matthias Meyer-Schoenherr, led dotOrg in Europe and Asia for over four years and watched over the roll-out of IDN .org domains. Kate Donahue, our Director of Marketing, helped with dotMobi’s secondary offering on Sedo. We also understand the needs of registrars very well. For example, our Director of Business Development in North America is Mark Klein, formerly of Tucows, who works with registries and registrars on a regular basis to partner for service offerings and tld auctions.

Matthias Meyer-Schoenherr
Director of Business Development Europe/Asia
meyer-schoenherr@sedo.com
+49-221-34030-206

Kate Donahue
Director of Marketing
kate@sedo.com
+1 617-499-7260

Mark Klein
Director of Business Development North America
mark.klein@sedo.com
+1 857-998-8783.

Next up: Pool.com. Please, if you have any thoughts about how I can make these profiles more useful or meaningful, leave a comment.

Tags: ICANN, ICANN new TLDs, ICANN new extensions, domain auction, Sedo, Great Domains, Matthias Meyer-Schoenherr, Kate Donahue, Mark Klein, T.R.A.F.F.I.C., DomainFest, Domain Roundtable, Domainvermarkterforum, SedoPro Partner Forum, Hostingcon, Search Engine Strategies, .MOBI, dot MOBI, .SH, dot SH, .NU, dot NU

Posted by Antony in: Domains, Guide to new TLDs