What Ticks Me Off The Most About Halvarez
I usually try to avoid reporting the same thing everyone else has, we have all read tons of stories today about the Snapnames debacle and Halvarez (Nelson Brady). As someone who has been up against Halvarez countless times and wondered who was the man (machine....) on the otherside I was not the least bit surprised that it was that specific account that was found to be a scam.
Now, obviously from a financial perspective it ticks me off, I would venture to bet the majority of the domain investors who focus on either quality generic or traffic drops have ran up against Halvarez before, many many times, but what really bothers me is the bigger picture issue with this situation.
As someone who spends a good portion of his time out working with customers on how to do business online, whether it be proper advertising, SEO, web development, etc. It makes it very difficult to be taken seriously when it comes to discussing aftermarket domain names when this is the type of news that is constantly seen anytime domains are in the media. This story was picked up by top news sites today and a portion of the general public will read this.
The industry is already tainted in many peoples minds because of a lack of understanding and no true face or message being given to the world other than stories like this and now the hole just keeps getting dug deeper for us.
The majority of business owners I speak with understand the value of a good domain after real estate is used as a reference, cybersquatter is a term that many have heard but they had never thought of names as real estate, they only hear the trademark stories. But all the education in the world on the value does no good if people see stories like this about the acquisition of domain names on drop or the secondary market.
As I said in an interview awhile back, we need to promote a professional face to the public, until that happens we will never be taken seriously. Right now, whether you want to hear it or not we continue to look like a bunch of amateurs. Even if the people are dead wrong just read the comments at TechCrunch (again) to see how the world views domaining, stories like today just put us back 10 steps....
Sure, the banks and financial institutions were (are) full of crooks too, but they are an accepted industry so they do not have to prove themselves as professionals, WE as an industry are not really considered *real*, how are we going to fix that?????
You nailed it.
Don’t be shy Bruce.
If domainers don’t want to hear your warning, tough luck.
It’s true, and maybe worse.
Everyone on the “outside” thinks it’s
a closed circle, or clusters of fixed schemes.
Heck the tiny/newer domainers know, er, I mean think it is.
Also, I wonder just how much extra money SnapNames made
with this scumbag driving up auctions?
I’d love to see the inflation charted for everything he didn’t win,
or resold at an artificial value to based on the snapnames final
price effect on perceived equity.
We need to find our edge !
If we have all the good domains in the world, so we have a lot of traffic…(Lets unite all the traffic).
What we need to do is point all the domains that are not develop for one week , to a page that gives information about the domain industry.
Thousand and Thousand of people will arrive to this page and will read the true behind domain names.
I suggest (Tia Wood) for the page development.
When you want to win a competition and you have very big opponents, you need to find your Edge.
Hope , this help.
@Arbel – I like your thinking! It is about time we starting thinking about how we move the industry forward rather than talking about all the past success and big domain sales.
@Ed – Thanks much. You hit the real question which I am not sure we will ever know, how much money did they profit from this even if it was not intentional…. I would love to see the real numbers. I do commend them on making it as public as they did though, that was a bit of a surprise coming from this industry.
There is a post coming soon I am sure will tick some people off but it is time….. Figure if it ticks a few people off so be it. I have never been good at towing the party line:)
I won several names in which halvarez was the only other bidder. I am never the first bidder, I wait to see if the domain completly drops and hand register it for a small fee. I have not read what snapnames plans to do in those cases, since I spent much more than I needed to, Is anyone aware of what they plan to do in these type of cases?
Bruce- Great article! I also like Arbel’s idea about uniting our parked domains for a few days to point to an informational web site about domaining. That would only work if the biggest players got involved.
Finally, I am in the exact same situation as JZ. I was the only bidder against Halvarez many times and other auctions in which there were a ton of bidders with Halvarez in the mix. If Vaxis or Ben Franklin did not win, it was usually me. Of course they deleted most of the bidding history and left only the registration history. This is very shady to say the least. If/when this data ever comes back it could have easily been tampered with. If anyone out there randomly printed bid history for patterns before they were removed it may be advantageous to everyone else.
I do not think Snap Names has the resources to refund everyone $50 for every name Halvarez bid on against one person. I am not a lawyer, but would think legally they may have to. If they are paying this 3rd party to handle this situation, they are working out the terms together which is also unethical.
I guess we need to wait a week to see what Snap Names offers us. I am expecting a nice pot of money if they are doing what they say they are planning to do.
“The industry is already tainted in many peoples minds because of a lack of understanding and no true face or message being given to the world other than stories like this and now the hole just keeps getting dug deeper for us.”
Couldn’t agree with you more Bruce. There are many people looking from the outside in at our industry, misunderstanding that there are domainers with integrity. The industry is more than just the money factor. We have built countless networks, some of which benefit people. We have networked with one another through our blogs and facebook pages. Some of us may never even meet one another, but we hold a mutual respect for everyone’s contribution to the industry.
All of this goes unseen, because it is not juicy enough for mainstream media to cover.
@Pimp Jason – Thanks, sooner or later a good face will be put forward, no sure when or how but it will happen.
@Stu – Hoping I get a nice pot of money out of it as well, wish I had all my auction data…..
Bulls Eye, Bruce.