Bruce Marler pumped both fists in the air. “It finally loaded,” he shouted.
Bruce is among the many domainers waiting more than three hours for pages to load while he tries to register domain names today.
“It’s insane,” he says with a glazed look in his eyes. “Me and Chef Patrick have been waiting since 3am this morning to register the new line of .me domains. The page finally loaded and I am on page two of checkout.”
Other domainers were not so lucky.
“I got mauled.” Aron Meystedt, owner of XF.com and Symbolics.com stated. He sits quietly on a bench with bandages wrapped around his head. “Some guy in a Rick Latona mask broke into my house and smashed me & my PC trying to get to my $4.99 GoDaddy coupon.”
At Google headquarters, the line extended around the block based off a “prank” initiated by Yahoo for free adsense promotion. Meanwhile, thousands watch the madness from Google Earth as the same scenario repeated itself across various internet corporate locations.
Some domainers prefer to skip the madness.
“Me and Arbel Arif just phone our bids in.” Morgan Linton of Domainvestors.tv shrugs. “It is the same way every year: slow loading pages, fights over domain coupons and anonymous name calling in chats. So, we just phone our Sedo bids in.”
Linton says the key to successful domaining on Black Friday is to think ‘offline’. For instance, in addition to phone bidding you can:
- Register domains by snail mail
- Use domain coupons by telegraph
- Post to message boards over a TDD phone
“You just have to think outside the box to get through the day,” He says smiling while uploading his latest video to YouTube via a modified microwave.
Domain Gang wishes you all a safe and happy Black Friday!
