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Professional poker player Dutch Boyd, still finds time to build minisites

how to play darts

Professional poker player Dutch Boyd, whose total live tournament winnings exceed $1,900,000 since the age of eighteen, still finds time for buying and developing domain names. 

Despite winning two World Series of Poker rings, one in 2006 in a short handed no limit hold’em tournament and more recently in 2010 in a six-handed limit hold’em game, Dutch develops and regularly writes about his domain and mini-site exploits.

I’ve been trying to whip out more of these mini-sites. They’re a lot harder than they look. In theory, I should be able to whip out about three or four of these mini-sites every day and get them to the point where they’re making a couple bucks a month. In practice, though, these sites just aren’t taking less than a half-day to do. Even with all of the components outsourced through oDesk, it still feels amazingly slow.

In a recent post on his blog (dutchboyd.com), Dutch writes about setting up mini-sites on howtoplaydarts.com and smoothies.tv.  He even breaks down the cost analysis of building smoothies.tv.

$80 – Domain Registration so far (two years)
$22.50 – Four articles, 400 words each
1 hour – Installing WordPress, matching the theme, entering content
2 hours – Fiddling with .php to include Google adsense code, amazon links, and analytics code
1 hour – Managing copywriter and writing this blog

So in order to break even, this new smoothies website has to make about 13 cents a day and to recover my investment so far in any sort of reasonable timeframe, it will have to do more like a quarter a day.

When it comes to domain names, it’s not often you hear about public figures or celebrities dabbling in domain names. 

In 2009, Chris Bosh, the professional basketball player, successfully went to court to get ChrisBosh.com and nearly 800 other sports and celebrity domain names.  He has plans to unveil a new web site soon and knows a thing or two about the web.

Chris is a co-founder of Max Deal Technologies, which recently switched names from MaxDealTechnologies.com to MaxDeal.com.   Here’s an excerpt from his original web site which is now parked at GoDaddy.

Founded in June 2007 by Chris Bosh and Hadi Teherany, Max Deal Technologies offers web design and technology consulting to clients who demand to stay current with the fast paced world of online communication.  We provide individuals with the ability to solve all their technological needs in both the personal and professional realms of life.  Unlike other companies who specialize in only one area, Max Deal Technologies handles web design, e-commerce, audio/video production, and hosting all under one branch.  Our goal is to create a cutting edge Web 2.0 online presence for our clients.

Mini-sites

Many people are not a fan of so-called mini-sites, but if you’re looking for examples and information as to how one person in the domain community is doing it, you can always pay a visit to DutchBoyd.com to hear his story.

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FantasyNews.com sells at Sedo for $8K on the heels of FantasyFaceoff.com sale

fantasy football

On the heels of FantasyFaceoff.com selling for $12,500 earlier this week, the domain name FantasyNews.com has sold for $8,299.  The sale price of $8,299 is a nice return for the seller, who purchased the domain name on Sedo in December 2009 for $1,900 according to DomainTools.

While the new owners of FantasyFaceoff.com are unknown, the URL now resolves to a “Coming Soon” page.  “Fantasy Face off” is one of many fantasy type games where players match up ”real people” such as sports stars and the players win based on the actual performance of the sports stars. 

The domain name FantasyNews.com is currently registered to “Bloggy Network”, a home grown blog network that is 4 years old and according to the site’s home page: serves 3 million+ pageviews per month.  The network’s properties include tipz.com, bustedplay.com and nearly a dozen more properties.

$8,000 seems like a smart investment, especially if development plans are in the works.  According to a recent article that appeared on SFGate.com, fantasy sports is a $2 billion market.

There are between 20 and 30 million people in America who play fantasy football during the 17-week regular season with some of them participating in several leagues. But what do millions of loyal fans who spend up to nine hours a week on their team all have in common? They are part of an estimated $2 billion fantasy sports business that is growing quickly and has already caught the attention of advertising executives
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Facemash.com sells for $30,201 at public auction on Flippa

facemash

As reported in early October, Facemash.com the domain name once owned by Mark Zuckerberg was put up for auction by its owner with a minimum starting bid of $8,000.  The domain name has been sold at public auction on Flippa for $30,201, a hefty profit for the owner who purchased the domain for just $799 in 2009.

At the time of this post, Facemash.com re-directs to FinancialEducation.com, a domain name that is currently parked at Sedo.

FaceSmash.com, the incorrect spelling of Mark Zuckerberg’s “Face Mash” was put up for auction by its owner, too.  The owner tried capitalizing on the buzz surrounding “The Social Network” movie as well, but didn’t fare too well at eBay auction

The winning bid pulled in just over $200.

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Kevin Ham’s Reinvent continues to evolve

Reinvent

As Kevin Ham’s company Reinvent continues to evolve as new ventures are launched, the company’s web site has been receiving facelifts.

The new web site look, showcases the company’s domains and now links to Reinvent’s developed properties on the Our Lab page – with clickable links to GoodNews.com, BlackFriday.com and Vancouver.com.

According to the company’s site, Reinvent wants “to move fast and capitalize on opportunities, so we hope that we can get working prototypes in approximately six weeks or less.” 

What’s next for Reinvent?

There hasn’t been news on any additional startups.  With Black Friday right around the corner, Reinvent has been working to partner up GoodNews.com (the company’s group buying service) with BlackFriday.com for the 2010 Holiday season. 

It’s anyone’s guess what’s next for Reinvent.  The company owns nearly 600,000 domains including category-killing names such as:

Laptop.com
Backpacks.com
Vouchers.com
Notebook.com
BabyGifts.com
Suits.com
HDTV.com
CarSeats.com
Earrings.com
CheapTravel.com
LCD.com
DigitalCamera.com
God.com

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Logo.com sells for $500,000 at Sedo

logo

This week, the category-killing domain name Logo.com sold at Sedo for $500,000, tying IPO.com for the tenth highest domain sale in 2010.  The previously top “logo” domain sale that was publicly reported was logoonline.com for nearly $40,000, which also sold at Sedo in 2005.

Logo.com was originally listed for $1.2 million, which was the priciest of Sedo’s top domain names for sale in May 2010.  Since that time, other names for sale have been listed for more.  Currently the priciest name is racquetball.com for $1.5 million, followed by trailers.com for $1.4 million and brakes.com for $1.3 million.

Here’s a look at top 10 sales in 2010 according to DNJournal:

1. Slots.com $5,500,000 Moniker/SnapNames 6/2/10
2. Dating.com $1,750,000 Moniker/SnapNames
DOMAINfest FTL 6/16/10
3. Photo.com $1,250,000 Moniker/SnapNames 5/5/10
4. Flying.com $1,100,000 Pvt Sale 4/7/10
5. Poker.org $1,000,000 Sedo 2/23/10
6. Credit.fr €587,500 =$851,875 Sedo 1/12/10
7. Guns.com $800,000 Moniker/SnapNames 3/10/10
8. Files.com $725,000 Sedo 3/31/10
9. Jerusalem.com $510,000 Sedo 9/9/10
10. IPO.com $500,000 Sedo 9/29/30

At $5.5 million dollars and with only about two months left before the new year, the sale of Slots.com is not likely to be challenged for the top spot.