Fresh Afternic tries to create a sense of community

Completely revamped Afternic.com brings back the sense of community and marketplace.

Remember Afternic back in the day?

I mean way back in the day. Like around 2000, when the site served as both a marketplace and a popular chat room for domainers (even though they weren’t called that then)?

It was a community. An active marketplace.

In recent years Afternic became more of a utilitarian device; a tool to list your domains for sale to get them syndicated on other sites.

Afternic’s completely refreshed site, which will be released later today, brings back the sense of community and true marketplace that once existed.

(Thankfully, the chat boards have not returned).

The first thing that will strike you regarding the site is that it’s trying to become a place to buy domains again. It brings community aspects to the forefront.

Each domain listing is tied to a seller. You can see the seller’s username, photo, when they joined, and how many domains they have listed. One click takes you to view the entire seller’s portfolio that’s listed for sale. You can even follow a seller’s activity.

Sellers essentially get their own listings page on Afternic. They can even choose domains in their portfolio to feature on their page.

There are also “trending domains” that are attracting attention. The home page lists recently sold domains. And it even looks like auctions are making a return to Afternic.

You can also see the up-to-date number of domains for sale on Afternic. As of this morning: 5,556,237.

A completely revamped dashboard makes it a lot easier to see your activity at a glance, too.

It will be interesting to see domain industry reaction and how it takes to the community and marketplace features.