Month: December 2010

Categories
News

Domain seller may lose big at Flippa looking for a fast sale

Raffaella Fico Italian Model

A domain seller at Flippa may lose big on the auction of the domain name Italian.net.  Advertised as a “Premium Domain – Fast Sale – 326,000,000 Results”, the owner looks to have acquired the name via Sedo in June 2008 for $15,682.00.  However, the way the auction is going (which closes in an hour), the high bid is only $5,000 – and it’s already over its reserve price.

As with most auction houses, Flippa’s guidelines on bids and offers are clearcut.  According to Flippa: “accepted bids that meet or exceed the auction’s reserve price are legally binding for the buyer and seller, and enter the running to win the auction.”

If the name sells at $5,000, the auction is resulting in a quick sale for the seller, and a bargain price for the buyer.  The seller appears credible, so one lucky winner may get a domain name that is roughly valued at $69,000 by Valuate.com, the free domain appraisal service by Cybertonic.

Here’s a look at the listing description:

You’re bidding on a premium domain that was registered in 1996 and hasn’t been dropped since. Nothing has been done with the domain and it is currently offline. When it was online just displaying a parked page, it managed to get a page rank of PR4. There are many possible things to rank the domain for, or you can just hold on to it for real estate value. Some possible idea :

Learn.Italian.net
Cook.Italian.net
Travel.Italian.net

The search “italian” on Google yields 360,000,000 results. I need to sell the domain quickly so it’s priced extremely under value.

The auction closes at midday, unless of course additional bids come in, which could cause the auction to be extended for hours or even days.  In the last four hours of an auction on Flippa, the end time of that auction is extended by four hours if a higher bid is received.

Final sale price: $6,400

Categories
News Video Games

As Call of Duty: Black Ops sets records, BuyDomains increases prices of Warfare domain names

space warfare

With Call of Duty Black Ops setting a record for Activision as the company’s best selling game, Warfare-related domain names owned by BuyDomains continue to increase in price. 

It’s a safe bet that Activision’s next installment for Call of Duty will take place in outerspace in a Halo-like environment. 

As I wrote about on my military gaming blog, Chris Morris, a writer with Gamasutra, first broke the news on Nov. 9 that Activision could be headed towards a future landscape (with space marines) for its next game title.   But that wasn’t a big surprise for many Call of Duty fans.  The Gamasutra story confirmed what many already thought about the possibility of a futuristic Call of Duty last May, after domains registered by Activision were uncovered by superannuation.  The registrations included names such as callofdutyfuturewarfare.com, callofdutyfuturewarfare2.com, callofdutyfuturewarfare3.com, and a number of variations including codfuturewarefare.com, codfuturewarfare2.com, and codfuturewarfare3.com.  The company also registered secretwarfare2.com and secretwarfare3.com, as well as spacewarfare2.com and spacewarfare3.com.

Prices of Warfare domains

As reported in early December, BuyDomains upped the price of SpaceWars.com from $50,000 to to $63,200.  As of today, the price tag now sits at six-figures: $102,000.

 spacewars.com

And Spacewars.com isn’t the only War domain that saw a price increase. 

In late November, FutureWarfare.com was listed for $3,788.  Now the buy-it-now price has risen to $6,000.  SpaceWarfare.com, another BuyDomains name and candidate for the next Call of Duty game installment, also leaped in price to $8,000.

Warfare Domains

Warfare domain names are generic in nature, so BuyDomains is doing what many of us might do by increasing the list price.

But amid all the hype of Call of Duty Black Ops, no one has acquired the names, not even Activision.

As demand for Call of Duty Black Ops remains strong, prices for warfare domains look to inch higher and higher, as speculation for the next Call of Duty title picks up in the news and blogs.  And BuyDomains owns one of the best lots.

Even I got caught up in warfare domains, hand registering airbornewarfare.com in November. 

Odd Warfare names, you may have heard of

Some of the oddest warfare names are “Flower Warfare” and “Cardboard Warfare”.  

And if you’ve heard of Freddie Wong, chances are you’ve heard of these phrases.  Freddie recently released his “Future First Person Shooter” video, which has already hit 7 million  views on YouTube in a week’s time.  Here’s a look at “Flower Warfare” in case you have never seen a freddiew film.

Categories
News Trademarks Video Games

Predictions on the next Facebook game title by Zynga

facebook games

With Zynga’s latest Facebook game Cityville topping the charts as the most popular Facebook game in 2010, I thought I’d offer up a few predictions on Zynga’s next blockbuster game title in 2011.  With Cityville, Farmville, and Frontierville numbering daily users in the millions, one can only guess what’s next for Zynga, like another game with “ville” in the title.

Back in late 2009, the game publisher went on a trademarking spree as pointed out by Games.com.  

Libe Goad, wrote: “Zynga, the social game publisher responsible for FarmVille, PetVille, Mafia Wars and more, went on a trademarking spree during the month of December, securing 21 names for potential new games. Of course, many of the names follow the end with ‘ville,’ including TreasureVille, FrontierVille, CrimeVille and AnimalVille.”

The complete list of trademarks (which can viewed easily over at Trademarkia) included: Pet Hospital, Poker Blitz, Safari World, Treasureville, Zoo city, zoo island, mafia world, hotelville, hotel world, hospital world, hospitalville, frontierville, frontier world, frontier, crimeville, crime world, casino world, casino blitz, bountyville, animal world and animalville.

While FrontierVille ended up as one of the top Facebook games, it wasn’t until June 23, 2010, that the company purchased the domain name Cityville.com for $38,225 at Moniker – in what would turn out to be the single biggest game ever on Facebook.

The game title Cityville, has spawned hundreds of domain registrations and websites with “cityville” in the name, ranging from CityvilleGuide.com to CityvilleGamecheats.net.

Zynga is known for using a myriad of companies and individuals for registering domain names, so predicting the next big game title might prove to be much harder.  For example, the company used IP Cybercrime LLC to register its Cityville.com domain. 

Predictions

What are your predictions for Zygna game titles in 2011? 

Will the game developer go with a “ville” name? A “world” name?

Is the company somehow behind the recent buys of Songville.com, Dreamville.com, or Slotsville.com on Sedo? Or maybe RestaurantWorld.com (which was purchased for nearly $8,000 in September)?

The company has plenty of names to choose from, but who owns those names is the question.  As I wrote about before, though Zynga might use a certain title for a game, it doesn’t always own the domain (even after launching the game).

Petville.com was launched in 2009 by Zynga, and the company acquired the domain name Petville.com from its previous owners for an undisclosed amount.  Visit Petville.com, and a message at the top of the site reads: ‘the content that was previously found at petville.com can now be found at ipawz.com’. 

Though Zynga owns Petville.com, Farmville.com and other ville domain names, it doesn’t own Fishville.com – which saw a spike in traffic according to Compete when the site launched in November 2009.   It appears Zynga and the owners of Fishville.com couldn’t come to an agreement, but Zynga is doing just fine – its Fishville game owns nearly all the top spots on Google, and the company does own the .net which it uses for the game’s home page.

Why Cityville is so hot

If you’re wondering what Zynga is doing to make its’ games so popular, Gamasutra the online gaming magazine, has an interesting write up titled: How Zynga’s CityVille Has Compelled 70 Million Players.

If you still haven’t checked out Cityville yet, here’s some gameplay footage provided by IGN.

Categories
News

If you spend $100,000+ on a Promoted Tweet, should you spend $10 for the matching domain?

twitter for business

Over on my Twitter blog, I’ve written about Promoted Tweets and domain names before, but it’s still surprising to see companies spending six-figures for a Promoted Tweet without spending a dime on the domain name that matches the hashtag included in the promoted tweet. 

Earlier this month, Twitter launched a revamped version of its business.twitter.com – a site that provides the basics on how businesses can use Twitter effectively.  Though Twitter’s promoted products have been available for months, they were only open to a limited number of companies while Twitter experimented with the model. 

It’s now been open to the public.

Adult Swim is the latest company to buy a Promoted Tweet and include a hashtag for a domain name that wasn’t registered at the time of the tweet.  Though tweets are short-lived, you’d expect companies to include a clear hashtag that promotes their company.  In the case of Adult Swim, the company went with #adultswimcam, and up until an hour ago, the domain name wasn’t even registered.  As I started writing this post, the name got registered.  

promoted tweet

With 175 million registered users, you’d think that a company paying for a Promoted Tweet would spend a few bucks for the hashtag domain, but that’s not the case with most Promoted Tweets that stream across Twitter each and everyday.  Instead of planting a seed for users to remember, many companies are using confusing hashtags instead of hashtags that mirror their web address, or in the case of Adult Swim and Radio Shack – hashtags for domain names that aren’t even registered.

If the type in rate is low from a hashtag (which is most likely the case), it’s no big deal.  But why risk losing traffic?

I still find it funny that Twitter is marketing its advertising products like Promoted Tweets, Promoted Accounts and Promoted Trends (which are bundled under “Promoted Products” on its Business page), without buying the domain.  At the time of this story, PromotedProducts.com is available for hand-registration.  So are other phrases the company is using for marketing purposes like OptimizeActivity.com.