Category: News

The mystery buyer of Russia.com who purchased the domain name for $1.5 million in November 2009, still hasn’t done much of anything with the domain name except park it on Godaddy.  New Media Holdings Co who run a GeoDomain Network sold the name.  It seems like a waste to spend that much money, only to park it at Godaddy.  Unless of course, the buyer is an investor looking to sell the name for a much higher price – or, the buyer has big plans that just aren’t ready to unveil. 

In March 2010, traffic to Russia.com was a measely 1,350 unique visitors.  So despite the great domain, type in traffic is very low.  Search engine traffic on the other hand is huge.  Last month the global montly search volume for russia was 1,000,000.

Russia.net by the way, displays a mysql error page.  Russia.org is a parked page that displays sponsored listings.  Russia.ru, a developed website, gets about 30,000 visitors per month.

A reader suggested the owners of Vodka.com may have been the mystery buyers of Russia.com, but that no longer seems to be the case.

The name fetched a high price on the heels of the Group Buying craze – with companies like LivingSocial and GroupOn outpacing new competitors with millions of dollars in venture capital and the same amount of visitors to match.

Group Buying Puts Interest Back into Related Domain Names
 
Even Domain Guru Kevin Ham who launched BlackFriday.com and Vancouver.com, has thrown his hat into the business with his newest website GoodNews.com. 

Group Buying put the interest back in related “group buying” names that probably never would have been there unless companies like GroupOn and LivingSocial had thrived online as they have over the past year.  While many companies look to use social media to attract consumers, “group buying” could be another strategy used on varying scales — and you can guarantee there are plenty of companies looking to cash in on its popularity.

Buying and selling names isn’t anything new.  Sure, it’s domain names most people want but usernames on social media sites like Twitter can also be the target of companies and individuals.  According to Twitter’s Terms of Service, attempts to sell, buy, or solicit other forms of payment in exchange for usernames are violations and may result in permanent account suspension. 

So how do companies like CNN acquire usernames they don’t own? 

TechCrunch covered that story a year ago. 

According to TechCrunch, “CNN has confirmed that it has taken control of the CNNbrk account, though the company isn’t viewing it as an “acquisition”. Rather, CNN has signed James Cox to a consultant contract agreement, which included the transfer of the account as part of its conditions. Any financial compensation due to Cox is being offered for his services, which happen to include his Twitter account along with teaching social media workshops, among other things (though I suspect he’s getting paid substantially more than the market rate for his consulting).”

It’s not necessarily trademarked names that fall under Twitter’s policy. It’s any exchange of a user name where payment is involved.  But like TechCrunch points out, enforcing the rules might be hard.

@Tweetup and IdeaLab
 
In March the news of the domain name Tweetup.com selling to Idealab was broke on this blog after the owner confirmed the sale via email. 

But in case you didn’t notice, Idealab’s newest company Tweetup.com, also acquired (or acquired through a consulting gig) the @tweetup username from the operators of tweetups.org. 

And can you blame them?  When you run an entire business based off Twitter, you need the brand username, too.  Although, it looks as a backup, Idealab also register @tweetupdotcom (which alot of companies have done, who missed out on the Twitter landrush — adding dotcom to the end of the username).

You may not expect the rules to necessarily be enforced when it comes to generic usernames, but buying, selling and exchanging of usernames will be long running and like the domain aftermarket, the new social media real estate will become in high demand.

Can you really blame companies for spending cash (or paying for consulting) in order to build a presence in the social media world?

Plenty of companies and investors are throwing their hats into the “group buying” ring, including Domain Guru Kevin Ham with GoodNews.com, it seems at the moment, domain names that can help brand a group buying website are attracting lots of interest.

MassBuy.com expired on March 26, 2010, and it heads to private auction today.  At the time of this story, the domain has over 40 bids, with a current high pre-bid of $201.  While that might not sound like a lot, bidding usually gets much more competitive in the private auction phase.

Years ago, Group buying sites never quite had much success, but with millions of people using social media, Group Buying stands to be more than just a temporary craze.

GoodNews.com, appears to be Kevin Ham’s latest venture to kick off 2010. The web site is Coming Soon but it works on the premise of Group Buying. Group Buying is a strategy where people connected over the internet get a better deal on pricing, when the entire group purchases the same product.

CNN.com writes, “That’s the idea behind a new breed of “group buying” Web sites — at least one of which may be valued at more than $1 billion.”

Group Buying grabbed the attention of many domain investors when HomeRun.com sold for $131,200 Moniker and the owners launched a group buying site using the domain. As we reported back in February, the concept of group buying power has been back for awhile. Site’s like GroupOn have gone from about 1,000 visitors per month in June 2009 to nearly 3 million visitors per month in March 2010. HomeRun.com which has only been online a few short months hit almost 60,000 visitors in March.

Kevin Ham and Group Buying

Kevin Ham owns millions of domain names and like BlackFriday.com which he launched in 2009, he looks to take advantage of all the type in traffic by advertising GoodNews.com among his network of category-killer domains like Pajamas.com.

Elliot Silver of ElliotsBlog wrote, “A promotion like this, which will surely be seen by millions of people, would have cost another company millions of dollars to pull off. Of course, the company will certainly loose PPC revenue from people clicking away immediately rather than clicking through on the parking page links, but the sign ups they receive and revenue derived from those people will probably outweigh any lost revenue.”

Group Buying in the News

Earlier this week, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a story about Group buying startup LivingSocial raising $14 million in Series C funding. The announcement came just six weeks after the company closed on a series B round worth $25 million.

With group buying sites surging, Kevin Ham has picked a business that’s going to be great for his wallet.