…Or is it more like wrangling? Point is, it’s anyones game when your in the wild west.

Funny Story.

The AIGA is America’s most popular design association and has thousands of members nation wide. We have worked frequently with the AIGA on various events, and regularly attend their events throughout the year . They own all the other domain names .com, .net etc..

One day while searching for usable domains, we came across a domain that was surprisingly not purchased, AIGA.US.

So we bought it for $9.99.

Knowing that AIGA is a fairly well known business, we figured that someone would buy it up sooner rather than later. We also figured that we knew enough AIGA Boston people that someone could get the domain back to AIGA corporate. Well, before we had the chance to get a hold of corporate, we had someone contact us to buy it for $500! Out of the blue! Now this is interesting…

A domain that we bought for $9.99 was now worth $500, instantly. To avoid an old fashioned domain bidding war, we gave AIGA a chance to make an offer of at least that, and if they could match it, then we would sell it to them. I mean, we were planning on transferring it to them anyway at some point.

They did in fact match it, and will soon own the new domain. The economy is down, cash is tight, and 500 bucks is 500 bucks. Who knows what the mysterious bidder wanted to do with the AIGA.US domain. Maybe they wanted to re-sell it. Maybe they wanted to give AIGA some competition. Those details are unknown. We’re just glad the domain is now in the right hands.

Just another example of the speed and state of infancy the web is currently in. We always say that the web is still like the wild west, and in this case, domains are like nuggets from the California gold rush.