Like many others, I sat in my office yesterday and watched the live domain auction at TRAFFIC Dublin.

I love what TRAFFIC has done for the domain industry, but the auction? It was embarrassing.

There were a couple of hundred or so domain names that went under the hammer and I have to say, some of the reserves on those names were absolutely ridiculous. Surely, the people entering their names understand that they are pitching in the main to other domainers, and that as a rule, these people don’t pay high prices.

At least not in Europe.

Some of the names had no right being in a high profile auction at all. This audience is informed and educated on all things domaining and I watched name after name go past with a “passed” notice on it, either because there were no bids (rightly so in most cases) or because the reserve wasn’t met.

BS.com should have been snapped up. It would make a great domain auction site name.

Now this is partly the fault of the organisers, because in my opinion, they should only carry the type of inventory that is likely to attract bids.These people know what they are doing. I’d hate to think of the names they must have rejected from the auction catalogue.

But the real problem I feel, lies in the expectation of domain owners.

This particular auction reminded my of the early days in this game, where sites like UK2.net would allow people to register a name and then place it for sale on their site, along with an asking price in the millions.

Surely, these stupidly naive reserve prices stifle bidding? Or is it only me that thinks this way?

If the domain industry is to be taken seriously, then domain owners have to start being realistic about the value of their assets.

For those who might criticise my opinion, or suggest that this is a case of sour grapes, I will freely admit that most of my names probably wouldn’t stack up to that much scrutiny and I certainly wouldn’t consider putting more than one or two into an auction.

It’s not why I bought them.

Developed, they are a different story,  but only because I do my own development and have been relatively successful in creating income-generating sites or in some cases, stand-alone businesses.

I’m realistic. It’s my development that creates the income, not the names on their own. Therefore, you can tell me that my names are worthless and I will probably agree with you.

In the current round of domain auctions, all we are seeing is posturing and pouting by egotists who have this crazy notion that their domains are worth far more than they think they are.

Good luck to them, but  somehow feel that if a name is really worth the reserve price, then the domainers in question would be far better off by posting up a for sale page, along with the asking price and contact details. If it’s as great as they think it is, it will sell. If not, it won’t. Just like in an auction, but without the embarrassment of being watched by their peers around the world.

Put your egos down guys, you’re killing an industry.

My presentation at the MeetDomainers show in Manchester this Friday was going to be all about using domain names as niche marketing tools. Sadly, I have had to pull out of that, which is a pity because I was looking forward to meeting some new and not-so-new friends there and I’d begun an experiment last week to see whether I could start a brand new site on a brand new domain and get a sales enquiry in before the show.

Here’s the background.

I have a friend, Colin, who loves working with lead. He is a roofer with many years experience, but he’s getting on a bit now and having recently been diagnosed with Epilepsy, he really shouldn’t be going up on roofs.

But he loves his work. he absolutely lives for it.

A while back, I put up a web site for him, a nice simple site that is nothing more than a testimonial for his lead roofing work, which is pretty specialised and very much a dying skill.

He was delighted when he began getting enquiries from people who said they’d  found his details on-line – and in fact, it’s got him a good number of very nice jobs over the past months. I hadn’t told him about the site, so it was a complete surprise for him.

I was discussing his health issues with him last week and suggested that perhaps he should take his doctor’s advice, but of course, he wouldn’t listen. But we got talking about other types of lead work…

Over the years, he’s done a few jobs for funeral directors, lead lining coffins – a skill that has all but disappeared, along with demand probably, since the cost of lead is extortionately high and not many people could afford a lead lined coffin.

A search on Google found nothing in the first few pages, apart from old articles about lead lined coffins being dug up.

Well, you can’t let something as niche as that slip by can you? I can’t.

So I registered a few domain names and set up a one page based on lead coffins. It’s called leadcoffins.co.uk. This is as simple a site as I have ever built and I have no idea whether it will ever get an order.

I do know though however, that if it does, somebody will end up with a first class product built by one of the most highly skilled, enthusiastic tradesmen I have ever met.

I asked Colin if he had any pictures that I could use, but the only ones he had were of him lying in the coffin – his idea of fun – but it looked a bit too realistic and might have the opposite affect I was looking for, hence the rather stark web page.

Imagine my surprise today when, just 2 days after registration, I checked the stats on the site and saw this:

As an experiment, this isn’t bad at all. The site is already perched in the top 10 results on Google and as you can see, is getting relevant visitors – only two, but you only need one call or email to make money.

This site is aimed at funeral directors as I guess they’re the ones who would be looking for the service, but that might change.

I did this because I thought it would be an amusing anecdote and example site to show a few domainers that you don’t have to build affiliate sites in order to make money. People with  skills are usually happy to pay commissions if it means they don’t have to go and sell for a living.

It seemed safer to show people something new than show them the sites that really make the money – I don’t like giving away all of my secrets and to date, I’ve managed to keep the best of what I do out of the public domain. You’d be surprised at some of the niches that can be tapped into – and not an affiliate program in site!

In amongst all of the excitement of the past week, it’s almost possible to forget about all of the other stuff that continues to happen.

I’ve sold a couple of domains, brought in some nice surveying work and a site I built for my son to promote his extension planning service (www.extensionplan.co.uk) has brought him two nice jobs.

Each of things are only small, but it’s the small stuff that accumulates daily, that provides me with my income and allows me the freedom to choose when I want to work and the ability to pick and choose what I want to get involved in.

Almost time the phone rings, somebody starts by saying, “I have just been looking looking at your web site…”

To me, that’s a small success and it’s always interesting because I never know which web site they’ve been looking at.

It’s those calls that give me the buzz, as I never know which direction they’ll take me, or which people I’ll get to meet as a result.

The money is secondary. Sometimes, there is no money. People just want advice or help.

Yesterday, I received the strangest call of the week. It was from a health and safety training company asking if they could buy asbestos samples to show course delegates on their asbestos awareness training courses.

In the UK, asbestos has been banned and cannot be bought and sold, but oddly enough, I was able to help! My advice was to search ebay for the word asbestos, because there are actually people selling asbestos memorabilia, which is incredible. Who’d be interested in such stuff?

Well actually, around the new year, I managed to find some asbestos snow. This was a box of the stuff that used to make up Christmas shop displays. Shop keepers would sprinkle it over the displays and paste it to windows in the 1950′s. I didn’t buy it. The box was torn and there was some leakage.

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