Archive for December, 2010
Domain seller may lose big at Flippa looking for a fast sale
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.netThe 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
Top 10 domain sales of 2010, add up to more than $27 million
The Top 10 2009 domain sales pale in comparison to the Top 10 publicly reported domain sales of 2010.
Total sales for the Top 10 domain sales in 2009 reached $18,150,000, while the Top 10 domain sales in 2010 topped $27 million for a total of $27,060,705 USD.
Sex Sells
Sex.com, which sold for $13,000,000 in November accounted for nearly half the total. After a long, sordid history going back to 1994 when Gary Kremen (Match.com founder) first registered the name, the domain name finally has a new owner in place for 2011. Exactly what is the plan long-term, is yet to be seen.
The purchase of Slots.com for $5,500,000 by Bodog’s founder Calvin Ayre, was the buzz of the gambling world in 2010 and straight from the mouth of the billionaire: “Slots.com purchase is one of the best deals I’ve ever made“.
New to the Top 10 list this month, was Ringtones.com which sold for $750,000 at Sedo.
From sex to slots, dating to flying, all in all, it was quite a year for domain names.
Top 10 Domain Names Sales of 2010
Here’s the Top 10 domain sales of 2010 (publicly reported), according to DNJournal. Keep in mind, a lot of sales between sellers and buyers remain under the radar, behind closed doors. Actual sales are higher than $27 million, there’s no doubt about it. But what’s reported in the Top 10 is $27,060,705 USD.
Learn more about the Top 100 sales of 2010.
With one more day left in 2010, the Top 10 chart could still change, but it would take a minimum of $750,001 to do so.
Another domain sale for $10,000, another group-buying startup in the works
If you’re like me, chances are you pore through DNJournal’s Weekly Domain Sales Chart that tracks the top 20 domain sales for the previous week, along with additional sales in country codes and other global contenders. While this week saw strong sales with JF.com for $101,000 leading the pack, there were several other interesting domain sales for the week of Dec. 20, 2010 – Sun. Dec. 26, 2010.
A sale that jumped out at me was a catchy group-buying domain, DayBuyDay.com, which sold for $10,000 at AfternicDLS.
Earlier this year as the group-buying craze really started taking off, names like DailyBargains.com were still selling at bargain prices. DailyBargains.com sold for just over $10,000 on Sedo in May. The trend in the last several months, following the lead of GroupOn, has been for companies to use catchy names to brand their group buying businesses.
Last month, uScoop.com sold for $7,000 and the website has since launched.
Day Buy Day
I dug a little deeper to see where this name was headed, and it turns out DayBuyDay is indeed another group-buying startup in the works.
A few weeks ago, the group behind DayBuyDay ran a logo contest on 48hourslogo and a winner was selected (pictured above). The company describes itself as new Shopping Club that offers Group Deals for much lower prices.
Expect to see another group-buying startup, among the hundreds if not thousands launched in 2011.
Will NAMedia’s social networking app Note.com, go public in 2011?
Frank Schilling’s NAMedia syndicated Note.com, an experimental social networking app, across thousands of his domain names in early October. But the Note.com notepad widget, which allows visitors to post a note on any website it’s installed on, has only been available on NAMedia’s network of parked domains.
Will that change in the coming year?
In the past week or so, the Note.com notepad widget has started displaying notes once again from 1000s of NAMedia’s domains after displaying notes from only a handful of sites for several weeks.
There are plenty of social networking startups creating a buzz these days, could Note.com create the next big buzz in 2011?
I guess we’ll know Note.com is for real, once the TechCrunch or Mashable cover story is published.
For now, you’ll just have to be content with reading or leaving notes if you happen to stumble upon one of NAMedia’s domain names like HeyThere.com or Cupcakes.com.
As Call of Duty: Black Ops sets records, BuyDomains increases prices of Warfare domain names
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.
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.
Predictions on the next Facebook game title by Zynga
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.
If you spend $100,000+ on a Promoted Tweet, should you spend $10 for the matching domain?
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.
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.
Calvin Ayre offers up 8 predictions for the gambling industry in 2011
If you’re a gambling domain investor and are curious about what Calvin Ayre has to say about the gambling industry, today he offered up 8 predictions for what’s to come in 2011.
The buyer behind Slots.com and Slots.ca in 2010, Calvin Ayre didn’t hint at the sale price of Gambling.com, or specifically anything about domain names, but maybe that’s because he’s eyeing the category-killing domain for himself.
He certainly has the cash to do so.
In July, the self-made billionaire behind Bodog, purchased Slots.ca for $206,906. Shortly before that, he purchased Slots.com for a deal totalling $5.85 million.
Calvin Ayre’s 2011 Predictions
Calvin Ayre opens his article on the less serious side with predictions like “Harry Reid will attempt (and fail) to slip a 1,900 page online bingo bill into a Senate roll call” and “At least one major poker company is killed by the cruel hand of the marketplace; two others commit ritual suicide after being bullied once too often on CalvinAyre.com.”
But if you scroll to the bottom of the story, Calvin Ayre offers up several serious predictions:
The launch by (at least) one US state of its own online gambling operation will set in motion a process that ultimately undermines any attempt at instituting online gambling at the federal level
2011 will see a continued increase in global stature for privately-held, London-based online gaming companies like Bet365 at the expense of publicly-traded companies and private companies based in less professional jurisdictions (where it’s much harder to build world-class teams).
Europe will continue its Balkanization trend, with each country having its own set of rules (also referred to as walled gardens in some reports).
Read Calvin Ayre’s full list of serious and not-so-serious gambling predictions for 2011.
Will Sex.com make a play at the adult market in 2011?
Of course, it’s still early, but the $13,000,000 domain name sex.com is still undeveloped. At the time of this story, sex.com is parked with ads that send visitors to competitors like AdultFriendFinder.com and Cams.com.
Not much is known about Clover Holdings Limited the buyers of sex.com, but it will be interesting to see how the Clover team ends up using the name to compete with adult heavyweight sites that cost a fraction of sex.com to get started.
It’s not unhread of for companies to sit on high priced domain names.
Of the top 10 domain sales of 2009 over $4 million worth sits unused. Call.com, Russia.com, Webcam.com, and Server.com all remain undeveloped.
Going back to 2008, the only top 10 sale that sits parked is Invest.com. iReport.com which sold for $750,000 started re-directing to ireport.cnn.com earlier this year.
There is hope for Sex.com
Although the adult market online is dominated by sites offering free content, there is hope for sex.com.
As 2010 comes to a close, Sex.com will most likely remain the top domain sale, unless of course, gambling.com somehow sells and closes in the next week.
As you can see from the annual sales charts provided by DNJournal, #1 sales have gone on to much bigger things. One of the bigger success stories was a similar domain name: Porn.com.
Porn.com which sold in 2007 for $9,500,000 had nearly 2 million visitors last month according according to a rough estimate provided by Compete. The site also owns the #2 spot in Google Search for the keyword porn.
Must-see website: Latest offers above $10,000 on domains that were rejected by Worldwide Media
Mike Berkens of the popular domain news blog, The Domains, has launched a new corporate site for his company WorldWide Media - wwmi.com. According to a brief online interview posted on Elliot’s Blog: “WWMI will be part of a new company that will be announced early in January that will specialize in helping those seeking new extensions into making their extension successful”.
The website, as it stands today, offers more insight into the domain world of Mike Berkens who owns over 75,000 domain names.
If you browse through through the different pages on the site, you’ll find recent domain sales, a monthly report on offers over $2,500, featured projects, news and more.
One of the most interesting discoveries I stumbled upon was the Recently Rejected Offers sections.
Here’s a look at 13 offers over $10,000 that were rejected by Mike Berkens’ WorldWide Media. What’s so amazing about these domain offers is that Mike Berkens had the foresight to buy some of these domains in 2010 for far less, like Kevin.me for $530 which received a $10,000 offer.
D.tv $125,000
iBill.com $100,000
VisitBerlin.com $100,000
345.com $75,000
Stuff.com $75,000
MotocycleHelmets.com $60,000
RestaurantSupply.com $50,000
Aili.com $40,000
TheTour.com $30,000
Kevin.me $10,000
Ayanna.com $10,000
FreshPrints.com $10,000
BettertoKnow.com $10,000
Interesting Notes
Some interesting notes on the recently rejected offers:
D.tv, if you recall, was hand-registered in March 2010 for less than $22, then acquired by Mike Berkens for $18,000 through Sedo.
While Mike did turn down a six-figure offer for VisitBerlin.com, he did sell VisitStockholm.com recently for $77,000.
RestaurantSupply.com was acquired in 2008 at Moniker for $22,500.
Kevin.me sold for $530 back in April.
There have been some great success stories in the Domain industry in 2010.
With Mike Berkens’ new corporate site, and a range of consulting services being offered, 2011 looks to be a promising year for individuals and companies looking for help, particularly for those stepping into new extensions. In addition to branding and development tools and services, Worldwide Media will be providing consulting on new extensions.
