Bidding From A Bar…My Mobile Experience With NameJet

Wrecked. It was a bar I visited twice on my recent disappearance to Mexico. It’s right on the ocean and a great place to drink and get, well, wrecked. They don’t serve food, just $2 beers and shots, or a bit more for my Don Julio’s. After several of each there’s  a great place 200 feet down the street where my waiter fed me fish tacos and acted as pimp, offering to hook me up with a “really good looking” girl in town. Granted, I had just broken up with my girlfriend, but the idea of bringing something undetectable through customs really didn’t seem like a great idea, so I passed.

While I sat in Wrecked and was served drink after drink by a very attractive mexican girl from New Jersey of all places, I was lucky to pick up on some free wifi from somewhere in the port. I decided to use this to my advantage and check up on a few domain auctions at NameJet. It was really my first time using NameJet’s mobile site and I’m happy to say it went pretty well. Signing in was a breeze and searching for names is just as easy. An easy to use ‘My Account’ section updates any current auctions you may be involved in.

I was interested in placing a bid on HowToGetRidOfWarts.com. If you remember, Shane featured this domain in his daily list and that was the first time I knew it was up for auction. Instead of asking him not to promote it, I figured I’d roll with the rest of you on it. I don’t have warts or have any interest in how someone would get rid of them, but as far as a development name goes I think this one is top notch. The term ‘How to get rid of warts’ has 10k exact Google searches per month, most of the sites on the first page of Google for that search term have a PR ZERO, and there are a ton of e-books to sell on wart removal from Click Bank.

I decided to place a small proxy bid of $200 on the name and wait it out to see what happened. I didn’t want to sit there and stare at my phone hitting ‘refresh’ over and over…if you forgot there was a very attractive barmaid to stare at. I successfully placed my bid and felt decent about my chances considering there were only 5 bidders on the name. I planned on checking on the name with about 5 minutes to go just to be sure.

With about 5 minutes remaining, I refreshed the auction page only to find out that the wifi had fizzled. I just couldn’t pick it up anymore and when I got back to the hotel and jumped on their wifi, I found out I had been outbid to $210, which ended up winning the name. I wasn’t too terribly upset. After all I was in Mexico, in my hotel room, and with the barmaid from Jersey… Ok Ok I’m kidding about the last part, but the fact remains that if I really wanted the name I could have had it. Congratulations to whoever won, that is a great (and cheap) development project you picked up. If you want to earn a quick flip to double your money…let me know.

Overall I was pretty pleased with NameJet mobile. It is uncomplicated, easy to use, and overall a good experience. I think that perhaps a mobile app is in store to make the bidding process just a bit easier, but in the meantime the mobile site works pretty well.

So just know that if you’re out of the country, out of cell range, and sitting in a bar getting wrecked…all it takes is a little wifi to keep you up on your domain auctions. You may not win, but hell you’re on vacation, anything on top of that is a bonus.