Powered by the popularity of Citizen Journalism, YouNews.com sells at Sedo’s GreatDomains for $40,000

It can’t be confirmed until the name transfers to the new registrant, but I’m guessing YouNewsTV a site that lets people share videos, photos and stories has purchased the domain name YouNews.com from Sedo’s GreatDomains.  The name is currently in Sedo’s Transfer Service.

GreatDomains reported the sale of the domain name for $40,000 USD earlier today on its web site.

Broadcast Interactive Media, which owns and operates YouNewsTV, also owns the trademark on “YouNews” for the purpose of: providing customized on-line web pages that allow users to post and view messages, photographs, videos and audio recordings, and that allow users to post and view user profiles and information and to communicate with other users; and creating and maintaining customized web pages for radio and television stations.

YouNewsTV was initially launched in June 2007 in 25 different markets in conjunction with TV station partners.  The site experienced spikes in traffic shortly after its launch when citizen journalists submitted videos of tornados and photos of thunderclouds during severe weather that hit Iowa in July.

Based on a rough traffic estimate provided by Compete, YouNewsTV.com receives well over 100,00 unique visitors per month, and in Dec. 2009 recorded over 250,000 visitors.

Citizen Journalism

Citizen journalism (news reported by everyday people, not professional journalists) has become extremely popular with the rise of social media services and tools like blogs, Twitter, and YouTube.  YouTube itself, has helped domain investors cash in on domain names with the word “You” or “Tube” in the name. 

According to Alexa,  YouTube is the #3 most visited site in the world.   Adult sites have fared very well since YouTube’s rise.  YouPorn, is #74 out of the Top 500 sites in the world.  Of the Top 200 – RedTube is #119, FilesTube is #121, YouJizz is #146. 

“News” Domain Sales

One of the most notable sales of a domain name used for the purpose of citizen journalism, was the sale of iReport.com to CNN by Rick Schwartz for $750,000.  Rick Schwartz who sold Candy.com for $3MM+Equity, originally bought the name iReport.com for “$70 to $100.”   In mid-2010, CNN decided to redirect the URL iReport.com to ireport.cnn.com.

CNET News runs on the domain name news.com.  According to Wikipedia:

CNET owns many domain names, including download.com, upload.com, news.com, search.com, tv.com, mp3.com, chat.com, computers.com, help.com, shopper.com, radio.com, and com.com.  In 1998, CNET was sued by Snap Technologies for its use of the snap.com domain

According to the Sales History database over at DomainTools, there have been a number of “news” domain sales in 2010.  FantasyNews.com sold in Oct. for $8,299.  News.net, the biggest reported “news” sale of 2010, sold for $150,000 in late September.  The site is a directory of news organizations from around the world.

Other noteworthy sales in 2010 include: RacingNews.com for $5,000 which redirects to 123racing.com, and newsbackup.com for $10,000.  For a full listing of “news” sales, refer to DomainTools.com.