One rainy morning in March 2004, I took my quarters at Sedo for a period of graduation I did not know where it takes me. The program, classic coffee around the owner, team presentations. In a corner of the large flat Rudolfplatz an office a little searching and a cable network that seemed to await his master wisely.

I timidly asked my boss:

- "Who sits there?"

- "Matt, an American who speaks a little French, which was Stanford with Larry and Sergey"

- "Sergey and Larry?"

- "The founders of Google, I'll explain. I think he was away on business in the United States to mount a subsidiary Sedo "

- "Oh, cool. I hope to meet him one day "

- "I hope for you" (I will not say the pressure ...)

A few months later was officially announced the creation of Sedo LLC in Boston, headed by Matt and Ulrich, a German doctor in the converted domain names. During that time, another founding finished his studies in philosophy and new recruits in crowded offices happily ever closer. Something irrational floated in the air, as if the start-up riding the perfect wave which no longer believed since the bursting of the dotcom bubble a few years earlier.

This wave, he had to find. This had been done 4 years ago 5 young German friends by navigating the murky waters of a student project. Discover the wave is one thing, but no ship without a crew Popular welded and the founders had come to complete the dream team with the hiring of Matt. And in this crew, Matt was definitely one who held the telescope. He had discovered that the wave in the wave: the parking domain names. And who would guide Sedo on rough seas of globodomaines (...)

Two years, a strategy of internationalization, creating a cap and SedoPro Product Manager / Chief Strategy Officer later, Matt returned to ask her suitcases at Cologne for the German headquarters bring his vision, experience and market knowledge and ... German stammering his work. Not content to be the eyes of the company, he gradually became the voice. Because if Matt was very reserved in life, his eyes brightened and his tongue was loosened when there was any talk among market experts around the Earth. Among his favorite jokes "[..] because that's where the market will be in 5 years, so you might definitely consider jumping in now unless you want to be left aside".

Matt was also responsible for the birth of the departments Marketing and Business Development. For it was understood before many others that two keys to establishing long-term market is education first, and in comparison with the first market on the other. More recently, he had somehow completed his work with the creation of a Product Management department dedicated parking with the aim to draw the product car of the future - certainly one product based on solid foundations but evolve considerably --

In 4 years, I can speak at any and every 2 hours filled with Matt. Admittedly, I'm not the chatty type or fan meetings repeatedly. That's good, Matt was not often in the office during business hours "classic" and often came with a half-hour late for meetings sometimes leave without a word before they expire. Not negligent, but because it was already light years further in its thinking. Anyway, 5 minutes to exchange with Matt often enough to sweep away the fog sometimes thick marine market.

Matt was just one of those people who, without really being there, were there. Everywhere, all the time. Behind each local strategy behind each change of course, behind every success behind each page parking behind every click behind us.

"Come on, it's not a funeral!" Said Matt to Tim after the official announcement of his departure and the acceptance speech with praise bestowed on him. I'm going to thank Mr Bentley sober and stop talking about the past.

Because Matt is leaving us without really leaving us. He will initially until the end of the role of senior strategy consultant. As he says (so) himself "after all, things will not be so much different"

I do not know what Matt does in the coming months and will let rumors run the most crazy. But I know he left Cologne at the end of the week to return to the "Fatherland." Knowing him, I can well imagine climbing over the beautiful cliffs of the United States or make a round the world yacht ... in search the perfect wave. We wish him fair winds!

The term "brandable" we have given enough hard time following my last note, I propose now to return to matters more mundane and analyze the weight of the commercial potential of domain names in their recovery .

It is with amusement that I noticed that the word "merchantable" has been proposed as a translation of "brandable". This will suffice to remind us that "brandabilité" and the commercial potential criteria are very close to recovery that some professionals also include under one name.

I'll offer a personal approach more colorfully, saying that "brandabilité is the seller side of a domain in the figurative sense of the term, and its commercial potential is its vendor later literal sense.

Assess the commercial potential of a domain, so it's trying to answer the question: to what extent will he help - or help my buyers - to sell property / more / better? " Then of course the fans under artificial (non-generic) can still cling to the branches of the "brandabilité" to support adamant that their domain names "sell" (sell) even better than the best generic. Just look the quarterly results from Google to be convinced. After all, Google Search is not called (or Money)

This non-polemic aside, we can easily move forward on more empirical considerations. The first of them - always the same - is that generic domain names are generally those that are the most commercial potential. Why? Because a company does not sell the catchy, it sells products or services. From materializes, then. Ask someone who has never set foot on the Internet what they expect to find in kijiji.fr and you will be his eyebrows frown, or raise his eyes to heaven. Ask him the same thing for annonces.com, and its response should be more spontaneous.

Read more from "The recovery of domain names - commercial potential"

It is time to focus on the now traditional auction results Sedo Premium month!

The picture in a glance:

• success rate: 37% => 2 points compared to June
• Sales volume: 443,440 EUR => 120% compared to June
• distribution gTLD / ccTLD Sales Rank: 92% / 8% => roughly equal to June

• part of. com: 50% of sales / 56% sales gTLDs => roughly equal to June
• part of. net sales 23% / 25% sales gTLDs
• part of. org: 8% sales / 8% sales gTLDs
• part of. info: 5% sales / 6% sales gTLDs

• 13% of areas have not received offers => -2 points compared to June

Turn the page for detailed results!

Read more of "Premium Sedo Auctions / July 2008: Results"

PRESS RELEASE ++++++++++ ++++++++++

COLOGNE, Germany, July 24 / PRNewswire / - Domain names and auto.fr voitures.fr were sold for a total of 150 000 on Sedo. These two transactions set a new record for sales published in the French expansion. Com. The palm was previously owned porn.fr, sold for 30 000 in January 2008.

The respective amounts of transactions amounted to 50 000 for voitures.fr and 100 000 for auto.fr. The same person bought both domain names to different vendors.

"We have a number. Fr on which we have developed over the years of thematic sites which we monétisons traffic through various affiliations and other advertising links" said Jérôme Mouthon, President SOLORUN SA and founding partner of WEB618, French company holding more than one hundred domain names as beaute.fr, or mode.fr etudiant.fr. "We decided with our partner in WEB618 - the company Digitalents Capital - to sell at least one to two names per year (as auto.fr) for test marketing." He concluded.

"The popularity of French expansion has grown in recent years, embodied most recently by the passage of the symbolic million. En filed. Today, this trend also affects the secondary market for domain names. Businesses, in particular, are discovering the virtues of generic domain names, "said Remy Sahuc, Area Manager at Sedo.

About Sedo

Sedo, an acronym for Search Engine for Domain Offers, is the second leading global market for domain names. The company, based in Cologne (Germany), London (UK) and Boston (USA), offers - with 12 million domain names and websites offered for sale by their owners on its platform more than 3 million in parking - the largest global choice in the matter. This success has convinced nearly 700 000 members. Sedo is a subsidiary of AdLINK (ISIN D E0005490155 / German WKN: 549015), a division of the German United Internet AG (ISIN D E0005089031 / WKN 508903). Sedo offers regional versions of its website in French (Sedo.fr), English (Sedo.co.uk), German (Sedo.de) and Spain (Sedo.com). For more information, visit http://www.sedo.com.

Moniker has released the first results of auction held Saturday, July 12, 2008 in Chicago as part of the conference "GeoDomain Expo" organized by Associated Cities and Keysey Group.

Interestingly, this series of auctions was only reserved for "GeoDomain. Kesako? In the jargon of the soft domaining, it calls GeoDomain domain names that correspond to or incorporate in their root names of continents, countries, regions, cities etc..

The GeoDomain are without doubt part of the domain names the second most popular market and often enjoy a status of "special ones", just the same way as LLL.com (domain names 3 letters ). They are considered safe securities for several reasons. The first of these is that geography is no or very little dependent on fads. The second, that the world population is steadily increasing and that few cities that cut apart. The third, that all those owners who crowded - especially in big cities - are all potential consumers. And not just information. Add to that the tourism aspect of the thing, and you have all the ingredients to make good areas.

So as soon as hospices Moniker auction organized in the framework of a conference dedicated exclusively to GeoDomain: vendors in search of liquidity would be a great opportunity to sell some of their best nuggets, and sophisticated investors conscious that it is in the old pots you make the best soup, were ready to sign checks on the fly.

Read more from "GeoDomain Expo Moniker Auction - the results»