Month: January 2011

Categories
News

Aron Meystedt’s Tablets.com gets another new look and feel

Tablets.com

Aron Meystedt’s Tablets.com web site has received another small makeover in recent days. 

The internet site still has a blog section, but now when you type the URL tablets.com into your address bar, you’ll be presented with a redesigned home page with affiliate advertising from the affiliate marketing company Commission Junction, who has partnerships with top-tier advertisers, including Apple itself.

The domain name Tablets.com was purchased by Aron Meystedt’s company XF.com in late 2010 for an undisclosed amount, which owns a number of premium domain names like Copier.com, March.com, and the first .com ever registered –  Symbolics.com. 

Tablets are one of this year’s hottest products, after Apple announced the launch of its tablet device the iPad nearly one year ago today – and as expected, they’re taking a bite out of PC sales. 

As Geoff Duncan, a writer for Digital Trends pointed out this week, “Microsoft posted better-than-expected financial results for its holiday quarter, but admits Windows sales are being impacted by the popularity of tablets.”

Categories
News Video Games

Nearly a month after acquiring domain name, Microsoft starts redirecting Kinect.com to Xbox web page

Xbox Kinect

Earlier this month, I was the first to report that Microsoft acquired the domain name Kinect.com for its controller-free add-on for the Xbox. 

However, if you typed the URL, kinect.com, into your browser’s address bar in the past 30 or so days, you were taken to Bing’s search engine results page for the keyword “Kinect.”.  The exact URL: http://www.bing.com/search?q=kinect&form=MSSRPD

Today, Microsoft released its second-quarter results which were helped by the success of its Kinect game device. 

“Sales at the company’s entertainment-and-devices division jumped 55% on the success of the company’s Kinect motion-based controller, which were a hit during the holiday season and boosted sales of Xbox 360 consoles. Operating profit for the division has surpassed $1 billion so far this fiscal year.”, writes The Wall Street Journal.

Though the change looks to have taken place in the past week, redirecting the domain name Kinect.com from Bing’s search engine results to the Xbox Kinect page appears to coincide with the release of the company’s second quarter results.

Categories
News

Writers, Cartoonist, Graphic Designer: The “TechCrunch Of Sci-Fi” ScienceFiction.com is hiring

ScienceFiction.com

Patrick Ruddell, aka Chef Patrick in domain circles, who soft launched the fledgling ScienceFiction.com blog just over a month ago, is hiring for a number of work-from-home positions. 

Creative writers, with vast knowledge of Science Fiction and Fantasy. 

A graphic designer to do design work on the web site.  

And a staff cartoonist, who would add an original Sunday comic strip. 

Patrick Ruddell’s soft launch of ScienceFiction.com received exposure by TechCrunch in a story entitled: ScienceFiction.com Aims To Become The “TechCrunch Of Sci-Fi”. 

The story written by Robin Wauters, discussed the goals of the web site, and also mentioned the purchase price of the domain name – $175,000.

According to the Sci-Fi Help Wanted article, the site aims to officially launch in mid to late February.

Categories
News

Flippa releases its 2010 Year in Review

flippa

Some are skeptical about the sales numbers and auctions over at Flippa, but even the most doubtful have to be impressed with the site’s success in 2010.  Despite a number of failed auctions reported as “Won” like Fiverr clone Zeerk.com, Flippa has some pretty good stats to show for the past 12 months.

Flippa, which launched in June 2009, released its year in review Tuesday and the site is growing fast.

How did things look in 2010?

Over 150,000 bids placed.  $21MM worth of websites and domain names sold.  2 million unique visitors.  1.6 million logins.  

Philip Ferreira the President of WebCorp, was one of the site’s biggest users selling off a number of online properties including Debate.org which sold to Juggle.com. 

And the company is trying to battle shill bidding and other problems that regularly plague online auction sites.

“…the team suspended or banned over 2,300 user accounts in 2010, primarily for registering duplicate accounts, shill bidding or not following through on a won auction transaction – the types of users the rest of the Flippa community won’t miss.”, writes Andrew Knibbe on the Flippa blog.

Six-figure sales, a bright spot for Flippa

But not all was bad for one of the top marketplaces for buying and selling websites and domains.  The company was involved in a number of high profile six-figure sales, including the sales of: s9.com, retweet.com, list-of-companies.org, debate.org, and blogtopsites.com.  The company issued a press release after selling Retweet.com for $250,000 – but it was the sale of s9.com that set a new sales record at Flippa, selling for $400K.

Other high points in 2010 include the sales of Audioo.com, Qwitter.com, Song.ly, and Facemash.com for $30,201.

As Andrew points out, “The precedent set by these terrific websites in 2010 is already looking to continue through 2011 with exciting listings of the likes of Links.com, ay.com, songbright,  dirt.com and twaud.io.” 

The listing of Dirt.com, could turn out to be a news maker if a deal is struck with NewsCorp, but according to a number of tips I’ve received by readers, the listing of Dirt.com for $3 million is nothing more than a publicity stunt for the website’s eventual launch which is rumored to have people at Sundance 2011.

Read Flippa’s recap of 2010.

Categories
News

Best sales year possible for domains in 2011? Another big gambling domain goes up for sale

tournament

2011 could be the year gambling domain names hit the mega millions jackpot with properties like gambling.com already up for sale, which some expect could fetch as much as $20 million (its previous sale price back in 2005). 

What looked like a good year in 2010 with the sale of Slots.com  for $5.5 Million, could only be getting better in 2011, as online gambling developments take place in the United States with New Jersey being the first state to license and regulate online gambling. 

Billionaire Calvin Ayre, the buyer of Slots.com, still hasn’t commented on whether he’ll bid on gambling.com.

But with more options on the market, Bodog Brand could have its sights set on a number of properties.

Tournament.com up for sale by Mandalay Media Group

Today, Eric Bianchi of Calvin Ayre’s Tablog is reporting that Costa Bingo and Casino Choice (Mandalay Media Group), have put the domain name Tournament.com up for sale.

Tournament.com is the latest name to come on the market, after creators of Costa Bingo and Casino Choice, Mandalay Media Group, put the domain up for sale.

Owners of Mandalay, Richard Skelhorn (pictured) and Alex Holt, said: “The word ‘tournament’ is very descriptive and generates over five million Google searches per month. It could be developed into a very powerful brand in the right hands.”

As far as what it was used for before, the site hosted pay-to-enter video game tournaments for games such as CounterStrike, but Skelhorn and Holt explained that is no longer a viable option.

“We believe that unless a content owner like EA approach it themselves and therefore remove the license fee element we will not see a third party operator again on the scale Tournament.com achieved.”

If you pay a visit to Tournament.com, you’ll be asked to fill out a short form asking for your name, company, email and a message.

Read more about the sale of Tournament.com.