Tag: 2011

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News Video Games

Top 10 Stories of 2011: #10 Rainbow 6 Patriots revealed by domain registrations

Rainbow 6: Patriots

Several of this year’s Top 10 stories here on Fusible have to do with video gaming. 

So it’s no surprise that the story of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6 Patriots is number ten on the list. 

After noticing that Ubisoft registered eight different domain names on October 27, like assassinscreedrecollection.com and horsehaventhegame.com, also among the names were two that stood out because there was no information or news on them at the time — rainbow6patriots.com and rainbowsixpatriots.com.

I speculated that the next title in Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six series would be Rainbow 6: Patriots.

Well, as it turned out, my speculation was soon confirmed by -BLITZ-, a member of the popular NeoGAF forum.  -BLITZ- had seen the logos, arts, covers and rendered game screens for Rainbow 6: Patriots.

The story got a lot of play online, with some of the biggest video gaming sites like Kotaku, Game Informer, Joystiq, Gamespy.com, and more than a dozen more news sites, citing the story.

Days after my story went online, Ubisoft officially confirmed the title on November 3.

Here’s a look at the reveal trailer by Ubisoft.

 

Categories
News Video Games

Who paid $500,000 for Gamesforgirls.com, the top-selling domain so far in 2011?

Games for Girls

One thing is for sure: Bill Kara of Hallpass Media didn’t pay $500,000 USD for the casual games domain name, gamesforgirls.com. 

While the buyer may not be known as of yet, the seller is.  As pointed out by Jamie Zoch over at DotWeekly, what is known, is that the domain name was sold by Garry Chernoff, of NetIncome Ventures Inc, an established domain investment and web development company.

Casual gaming domain sales create buzz

Like the buzz the domain industry had in early 2010 after cookinggames.com sold for $350,000 to Bill Kara, the price paid for gamesforgirls.com in early 2011 is sure to be the topic of many discussions after the owner is revealed.

I contacted Bill Kara, the CEO of Hallpass Media, which operates one of the largest networks in the United States ) including Girlgames.com (a site roughly estimated by Compete to receive nearly 400,000 unique visitors per month), to see if he was the buyer – after speculation by many that he may have purchased the domain despite owning girlgames.com. 

And the answer was as I expected: No.   

So who paid $500K for gamesforgirls.com?

At the time of this story, the domain name still remains in Sedo’s Domain Transfer Escrow Service according to Whois, so we won’t know anything until the name is in the hands of the new owner. 

But you can bet after the new owner or website is revealed, it’ll be reported quickly.

Readers: Who do you think purchased the domain?

Categories
News

Hot Trends: Cloud domain names in 2011

cloud computing

cloud computing

A lot of writers are predicting hot trends for 2011 and one trend in particular that seems to stand out among many of the stories is “cloud computing”, a term that refers to accessing computer services over the internet or “cloud”.   The terms internet and cloud are interchangeable. 

Google Docs is a well known example of a cloud computing service.

While some critics say cloud computing is overhyped, it’s hard to argue against it with major service providers like Google and SalesForce.com taking to the cloud.  Earlier this month, SalesForce.com unveiled Database.com, the enterprise cloud database. 

Domain bloggers Andrew Allemann of Domain Name Wire and Mike Sullivan of Sully’s Blog have written about the Cloud.com domain.  The domain Cloud.com was purchased earlier this year by VMOps after it was put up for sale by Meetup Co-founder Scott Hieferman. 

Back in September, Peter Ulander, Chief Marketing Officer at Cloud.com (formerly VMOps) spent time answering Mike Sullivan’s questions on the domain and the business, which Mike posted online.  According to Peter Ulander, the decision to acquire the name has been paying dividends with traffic: “While I can’t share the specific volume, we are pleased with the increase in traffic since launching under the cloud.com domain.  Our core traffic increased by more that 500% and, when compared to similar companies in our space, we are outperforming them on inbound traffic and time spent on site – meaning that we are hitting the decision makers in our space.”

Will Cloud domains be a hot trend in 2011?

Though the price of Cloud.com remains undisclosed, there were dozens of domain sales in 2010, with many looking to be bargain buys.  It will be interesting to see whether any of these names end up selling for a bigger return in 2011. 

 

Domain
Date Sold Price Location
cloud-computing.de Aug 4,2010 $38,280.00 Sedo
cloud-computing.de Sep 11,2010 29000 Sedo.com
cloud.me Sep 11,2010 $22,500.00 Sedo.com
cloudcomputing.com.au 2010 $8,000.00 NetFleet.com.au
cloudcomputing.in 2010 $5,000.00 PvtSale
cloudbot.com 2010 $4,000.00  
cloudcraze.com 2010 $4,000.00  
cloudexchange.com Sep 11,2010 $3,900.00 Sedo.com
cloudcomputing.info Sep 13,2010 $3,500.00 Sedo.com
cloudbook.de 2010 $3,075.00  
publicclouds.com Sep 17,2010 $3,000.00 Sedo.com
clouddb.com Sep 13,2010 $3,000.00 Sedo.com
cloudgames.com Sep 11,2010 $3,000.00 Sedo.com
myclouds.com Sep 11,2010 $3,000.00 Sedo.com
cloudtree.net 2010 $3,000.00 Sedo
cloudgames.net Sep 15,2010 $2,500.00 Sedo.com
instantclouds.com Sep 11,2010 $2,500.00 Sedo.com
cloud.ly 2010 $2,500.00  
oncloud9.com Sep 13,2010 $2,300.00 Sedo.com
cloudsaas.com Sep 12,2010 $2,250.00 Sedo.com
becloud.com Sep 13,2010 $2,000.00 Sedo.com
cloudbook.net Sep 12,2010 $2,000.00 Sedo.com
cloudnine.org Sep 11,2010 $1,883.00 Sedo.com
cloudblue.com Sep 12,2010 $1,700.00 Sedo.com
cloud.be Sep 14,2010 1500 Sedo.com
cloudgames.co.uk Sep 11,2010 $1,500.00 Sedo.com
cloudside.com Sep 11,2010 $1,200.00 Sedo.com
cloud365.com Sep 21,2010 $1,000.00 Sedo.com
letscloud.com Sep 11,2010 $1,000.00 Sedo.com
vclouds.com Sep 24,2009 $1,000.00 Sedo.com

Do you own any cloud domains?  The only “cloud” name I own is CloudShapes.com, which I purchased on NameJet back in June 2008 after it had expired.

Categories
News

Hillcrest Media has plenty to be happy about with their purchase of Fiction.com domain for $90K

fiction

With Patrick Ruddell poised to take the sci-fi world by storm with the soft launch of ScienceFiction.com, there’s a lesser-known group in the domain development world getting ready to do the same in 2011 with fiction:  Hillcrest Media Group, the owners of several media properties including Published.com and Fiction.com. 

Earlier today, TechCrunch broke the news to their readers that Patrick Ruddell, domain investor and blogger (better known as Chef Patrick), dropped $175,000 for the domain ScienceFiction.com in order to launch the “TechCrunch of Sci-Fi”.   TechCrunch writes, “The domain name had been held back by a finance company called Domain Capital due to a defaulted loan, and Ruddell contacted two sci-fi geek friends to turn it into a business.  Fast forward to today, and ScienceFiction.com has launched as a way for fans to access information about all things science fiction, ranging from movies, TV shows, games, books, comic books and technology.”

If Hillcrest Media Group has been following the news, they have to be delighted to see the price of ScienceFiction.com selling for $175,000.

Why?

Back in July, Hillcrest Media Group acquired the domain name Fiction.com for a mere $90,000 in a private sale brokered by Moniker. 

As we wrote about in July, the company even boasted of the domain name acquisition. 

2011 looks to be an exciting year for online sci-fi and fiction enthusiasts. 

And it’s defintely exciting times for domain investors, young and old.  Patrick Ruddell only entered the domain industry in 2008 and as Ron Jackson writes, “Now here he is, less than two years later, at the helm of ScienceFiction.com.”

Patrick Ruddell also managed to secure the matching vanity URL @sciencefiction on Twitter and on Facebook (facebook.com/sciencefiction) – something many big companies have been unable to do as they expanded their reach into social media.