MISSOULA (AP)
A top bid of more than $300,000 was a no-sale in an online auction for the Internet domain name montana.com that ended Monday. The bid failed to meet the reserve price of site owner Blackfoot Telecommunications Group in Missoula. "For us, the eBay auction was a chance to see what it's worth in that setting, and the price did not meet our expectations," Kevin Amazon, director of sales and marketing for Blackfoot Telecommunications, told the Missoulian newspaper in a story Tuesday. "So we're going to retain the site and we'll be looking at building a model for it that works for everyone," he said. The rights to montana.com went up for auction on eBay a week ago. By Monday morning, the domain name had drawn 31 bids, including the last one at $310,100. As noted on the eBay site, the seller's reserve price had not been met. A reserve price means the seller can accept the highest bid, but doesn't have to unless it reaches the amount set in advance by the seller. Amazon wouldn't specify Blackfoot's price, but said the bid was "quite a bit lower" than the company believes the site's value to be. "We believe the name is pretty valuable and that the auction didn't really value the site fairly, which is fine," Amazon said. "For us, it's really about doing due diligence as we set a value and try to make the site a workable site." Blackfoot acquired the domain name when it bought the financially troubled Internet Connect Services in December 2006. Amazon said Blackfoot has been retooling another site acquired in that sale mymontana.com and had recently turned its attention to montana.com. "It really sort of cries out to be a destination site about travel to Montana, and we've been talking with partners about the possibility of doing something along those lines," Amazon said. When the site belonged to Internet Connect, it also served as a portal for Internet customers whose e-mail addresses ended in montana.com. Some customers had questions when they learned the site name was up on eBay. "We've assured them that we are taking steps to ensure those addresses, even if we'd sold the site," Amazon said.
