Tag: domain industry

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News

Will the sale of Gambling.com even come close to $20MM (its previous sale price)?

online gambling

Fusible.com was the first blog in the Domain industry to report about the auction of Gambling.com, shortly after reading a tweet sent through Calvin Ayre’s web site announcing Media Corp had retained Sedo to sell Gambling.com. 

Hours earlier, Media Corp had issued a press release through BusinessWire: ‘Whilst the Group has received a number of very significant indicative offers for www.gambling.com, the Board believes that a formal auction process with the World’s leading domain name broker will achieve the best possible outcome and valuation as Sedo is uniquely positioned to present the domain to global gambling brands and other qualified buyers.’

Purely a Domain Sale?

Gambling.com, if you recall, sold for nearly $20 million in 2005.  However, the sale wasn’t purely a domain sale. 

According to Sedo back in 2005: ‘The sale of Gambling.com turned heads when it hit the multi-million dollar mark and sold for 20 million dollars.  Also included in the sale were benefits of a direct mail database and affiliate program connections.’

In 2010, will Gambling.com even close to its multi-million dollar sales price from 2005? 

Back in 2005, Casinomeister wrote about the sale.

“Gambling.com is the number 1 listing on google.com for “Gambling” search and has over 500 other internet and affiliate sites linking to Gambling.com globally. It also has extensive expertise in direct mailing and has built a double opt-in database of over 200,000 members.”

Times have changed.  Gambling.com is no longer the number 1 listing.  Though type in traffic is always a nice perk, long term businesses want to own the search engines.

What are people saying?

Over at Gambling Portal Webmasters Association, the site that was originally tapped to auction Slots.com, members are a bit skeptical that Gambling.com will get anywhere near that $20 million price tag.  Here’s a look at some of the comments:

Christoff says, “Superb domain but will never get $20m for it”
 
Brean78 says, “For what its worth, I think Gambling.com has suffered from a bit of an identity crisis for a while now. It appears to be heavily focused on sport (for traffic I presume), but I don’t know too many people that associate gambling with sports betting.”
 
Graham says, “20 million?? I just don’t see this as good of a domain as something like onlinecasinos.com, sportsbetting.com, casinos.com, etc. where the people are coming to the site knowing exactly what they want to do. Gambling is too broad and I don’t think would convert that great, nor have the player value that some other terms might carry.”
 
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News

Still Working on Updating the Fusible Web Site

Last month we switched Fusible.com from a custom-built web site to WordPress, a much needed makeover.  The move to WordPress gives us access to hundreds of thousands of plug-ins and tools and gives us the flexibility to make changes without paying  for development costs to perform routine maintenance or upgrades.

This is a progressive task, that should take another few weeks as we manually upload hundreds of stories to the new platform here on WordPress. 

Everything will return to normal, including our coverage of the Domain Industry, once we have finished.

When we’re short on time, it’s challenging to get stories posted, so if you have ideas, send all your Domain Story tips to webmaster at fusible dot com or submit your story tip here.

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News

Sedo Press Service: Backlinks from a Major Domain Company to Domain Industry Blogs

"Sedo Press Service"
With more than 1.4 million member accounts from around the world, Sedo is the world's leading marketplace for domain names. Sedo's own Press Service backlinks to Domain Industry blogs including the popular DNJournal written by Ron Jackson.

If you weren’t aware of Sedo’s Press Service, it’s a page on Sedo’s website that provides up-to-date news on hot topics and domain industry trends.

The page includes backlinks to a number of Domain Industry stories written by bloggers listed on Francois Carrillo’s Domaining.com – including Mike Berkens’ TheDomains.com, Elliot Silver’s ElliotsBlog.com and a number of other sources including Business Wire. 

If you are planning on starting a blog or whether you already write a blog, getting backlinks from a reputed company like Sedo can help you get traffic and it’s great overall exposure for your website.

Our recent story on the sale of Oink.com for $17,000 and other interesting sales was well received by Sedo, judging by the backlink on Sedo’s Press Service page.

Starting a Domain Industry Blog

While there’s no shortage of blogs written about SEO and web development, there is a shortage of blogs covering the Domain Industry. 

If you want to start a blog, one of the first steps to building an audience is getting listed on Domaining.com.  Getting listed isn’t free, but it’s well worth the cost, as Francois Carrillo’s website aggregator will keep readers returning to your site, again and again.

To submit your blog for consideration to Domaining.com, email [email protected]

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News

The Perks of Writing a Blog about Domain Names

 blogging

You can read blogs about the domain industry, however, if you spend the time to write a blog about the domain industry, there are quite a few perks that often get overlooked.  Of course, getting long term sponsors like National A-1 and Domain Tools is a big plus, but the list of perks goes much further than just sponsorships.

Running a blog gives you a chance to promote your own products and services to a relevant, targeted audience.  With your own website, you have the power to market all you want.  While the idea is not to make every post a product pitch, readers who are on your site might find your writing interesting enough to browse around. 

When you can’t find an advertiser to fill a spot, you can create your own ads for your own products and services.  Beyond this, you can fill up spots with third-party ads like Google adsense or search out relevant affiliate offers that are tailored to your audience – such as discounts on domain registrations.

You can connect with readers, domainers, developers, and other people within the domain and marketing industry quickly who are willing to share advice and opinions.  I’ve had a chance to chat with Stephen Douglas, Bill Kara, Andrew Rosener, Shane Cultra, and a number of people in the domain industry.  Despite being anonymous, lots of people find the content acceptable.  Sure, it’s hard to build up trust when you’re anonymous, but people build up trust through their writing also, not just throug their name.

I started this blog in September 2009 and thanks to Francois Carillo (Cybertonic), I was able to quickly reach an audience by getting listed on his widely read Domaining.com website.  As a result of the listing, traffic to Fusible soared from 0 visitors in September to over 20,000 unique visitors per month.  The site has been mentioned in The Guardian, Calvin Ayre, and on a number of well-respected domain industry blogs.

To blog or not to blog?
 
If you’ve got a domain blog and you’re looking to reach an audience, I’d highly recommend getting set up on Domaining.com.  The set up fee is well worth it.

If you enjoy writing about domain names, you owe it to yourself to get a blog up and running.  It’s basically on the job training that gives you a chance to learn about the industry by writing about it.

Some might argue that blogging is a waste of time, but if you really enjoy it, you can reap a lot of benefits, even if it’s not all money.

Categories
News Video Games

Coincidence? Shortly After our Story on Glitch.com, Flickr Founders Launch Site, TechCrunch Runs Story

glitch home pageThe massively-multiplayer game “Glitch”, which is playable in the browser and built in the spirit of the web according to the website has launched their official website announcing the soon-to-launch game which will be in Private alpha shortly. 

 Though it’s most likely one heck of a coincidence, the website announcement just went online today – a day after we revealed Glitch.com was acquired by the former founders of Flickr for their secret project Tiny Speck. 

Our story ran on the popular Domain Industry web site Domaining.com.

We tweeted @Stewart, one of the founders of Tiny Speck yesterday and also emailed the News Tip to TechCrunch yesterday as a follow up to their July story that discussed the Tiny Speck project. 

AND TODAY: TechCrunch’s lead story is none other than –

Tiny Speck Uncovers Glitch, A New Flash-Based Massively Multiplayer Game

A quality backlink from a web site like TechCrunch never hurts, but unfortunately there was no mention of the News Tip we sent yesterday afternoon.

While it looks like the folks at CNET have been eagerly awaiting to publish their story, it seems to be quite the coincidence that after we post our story, that TechCrunch puts out the news today. 

Either way, the premise for the game looks interesting and for the seller of the domain Glitch.com, they made a $16,000 profit before fees.   Below is a screenshot from the Glitch Teaser video. 

glitch teaser

From the Domaining angle, there are a lot of great backstories to domain names: Glitch.com is another excellent example.