Hexonet now offering premium .tv back orders and drop catching

By: RH

Hexonet getting into the Premium .tv backorder arena.

In July of 2011 we wrote an article that explained what was going on with .tv with regard to back ordering premium .tv names. The article I got your back, I mean backorder explained that a few people had scooped up all the back orders using Name.com. Name.com has been the only company to offer drop catching for premium .tv domains. So if you owned a legacy premium and were paying $1000 a year, the strategy if you wanted to keep the domain would be to let it drop and pay a one time fee. After that if would be regular renewal pricing. Well a few people went in and got all the backorders, so the legacy owner would have to pay them, or keep paying the premium pricing.

Name.com does not allow for multiple backorders, so only one person controls the backorder.  In the 2011 article I wrote how,

What
came of this was back ordering roulette.  Others started back ordering
at Name.com who has been the number one registrar for .tv back ordering
and drops.  So now someone paying $1000 a year for a name was looking to
secure the back order for $49.99 at Name.com.

When
they got there, the name was already back ordered.  So this put the
registrant in an interesting position, abandon the name, seek out the
back order holder, or renew for $1000.

Jim
Holleran a long time .tv investor posted a thread on Namepros offering
$200 to the holder of the back order for georgia.tv.  No one contacted
him so he paid the $500 and kept the name.

Dr.
Chris Hartnett in an exclusive interview at Allthings.tv talked about
how he dropped a bunch of premium names he wanted to keep but could not
justify the premium renewal.  Michael Berkens picked up a bunch of the
domains up on the drop.

I asked another premium holder what he was doing ? " Renewing them all, fuck these vultures, fuck every single one of them."

Well now the game is changing. Hexonet caught some premium names lately including Sanfrancisco.tv and Hamburg.tv. I contacted them and they explained they are now approved for premium .tv sales but the process is not yet automated. Robbie Birkner explained to me they hope to have that process completed by the end of the year.

For now it will work like this:

Unfortunately we do not offer .TV Premium Domain Backorders in an
automated fashion yet.  This is planned for the first quarter of 2013.
 In the event you are interested in any .TV Premium Domain Backorders,
then the temporary procedure is as follows:

a.) Whenever you are interested in a premium .TV domain, kindly send the domain to rbirkner@hexonet.net and CC jwagner@hexonet.net

b.) Once received we will confirm the VeriSign Premium Price to you +
20%. If you agree, then we will place the domain in our backorder script
and hope for the best.

c.) If the domain is registered successfully, then you have 4 days to
provide payment otherwise the domain will be deleted again.

d.) If there a multiple backorders for the same .TV Premium Domain, then the domain will enter a private auction via premiumsale.com.

Robbie explained that for now you only want to place your interest on names close to expiring, without the system being automated they will not take a backorder for a name expiring next year. Right now you will not have to deposit any money, just email him your interest in a name, if they win it you have 4 days to pay, if more than one person has interest it goes to auction the way it should.

Competition is certainly good imo and its nice to see Hexonet providing some in the .tv space. I can say there are other registrars currently looking to jump in as well.