Tag: the domains

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News Technology

No EarPods.com for Apple, but company acquires TheEarPod.com, EarPod.net

EarPods

Apple has a poor track record when it comes to owning the matching domain names to new products that it announces.

As pointed out by Michael Berkens of The Domains back in September, Apple missed out on acquiring EarPod.com and EarPods.com, nor did the company get AppleEarPods.com which was put up for sale on eBay.

The company has, however, been able to acquire two related names:  EarPod.net and TheEarPod.com.

According to WHOIS records, Apple is now the owner of the domains EarPod.net (WHOIS) and TheEarPod.com (WHOIS), both of which were under Domains By Proxy, Go Daddy’s privacy service, up until this week.

While the price paid for Apple’s latest acquisitions is unknown, can you guess how much it would cost for Apple to acquire EarPods.com?

Business Insider thinks the current owner could net $2 million.

Talking about this story: @RobinWauters

(Image of EarPod via Apple.com)

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News

Two-letter .com domain AY.com receives $100,000 bid on Flippa in no-reserve auction

AY.com

A couple weeks ago, domain blogger Mike Berkens over at The Domains wrote about the auction of the two-letter .com domain AY.com at Flippa, after the owner issued a press release announcing the sale. 

The auction followed the buzz created by news of Facebook purchasing the domain FB.com for $8.5 million. 

Today, the seller of AY.com has issued another slightly different press release, in which he notes that the domain has received 1 bid, for $100,000 in the no-reserve auction which ends 17 days from now, that is, unless the domain sells for the buy-it-now price of $2 million.

Here’s a look at the new press release.

(US NEWS SOURCE) January 31, 2011 – This month, an extremely rare LL.com domain name is up for auction on Flippa.com. The domain name, “AY.com” has a current bid of $100,000, and many domain appraisers feels it’s worth a lot more.

“It could be worth over $1 million if the right entities became interested,” said one domain name appraiser in an email reply. “The value on a domain name as rare as AY.com is based solely on what someone is willing to pay for it.”

So far, one bid has been placed on the LL.com (Letter – Letter .com) internet property for $100,000. The current owner, who purchased AY.com over 2 years ago has set no reserve on the auction.

The auction which can be seen at: https://flippa.com/auctions/120091/AY-com—Rare-Premium-2-Letter-Pronounceable-LL-com-Domain-Name is set to end on the night of February 17th, and will sell to the highest bidder, no matter what the price may be.

There are only 676 possible LL.com possible combinations on the internet for domain names, so this makes 2-letter domains like AY.com extremely rare. So far, according to the current owner, the auction has received over 2,400 views and has been added to 13 different users’ watch lists.

How much will the final sale price be?

“I have no idea,” said Eddie Krassenstein, the current owner. “I feel it is extremely valuable, so we will let the market decide.”

The owner of AY.com is heavily marketing the domain name, taking out a number of press releases and even changing the homepage of AY.com to plug the auction over at Flippa.

When AY.com sells at Flippa, it could be the company’s biggest sale in 2011.  And it could be the site’s all-time top sale to date.  While 2010 had a number of six-figure sales for the marketplace, S9.com at $400,000 was the biggest reported sale, confirmed by Flippa.

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News

Must-see website: Latest offers above $10,000 on domains that were rejected by Worldwide Media

worldwide media

Mike Berkens of the popular domain news blog, The Domains, has launched a new corporate site for his company WorldWide Media – wwmi.com.  According to a brief online interview posted on Elliot’s Blog: “WWMI will be part of a new company that will be announced early in January that will specialize in helping those seeking new extensions into making their extension successful”. 

The website, as it stands today, offers more insight into the domain world of Mike Berkens who owns over 75,000 domain names.

If you browse through through the different pages on the site, you’ll find recent domain sales, a monthly report on offers over $2,500, featured projects, news and more.

One of the most interesting discoveries I stumbled upon was the Recently Rejected Offers sections. 

Here’s a look at 13 offers over $10,000 that were rejected by Mike Berkens’ WorldWide Media.  What’s so amazing about these domain offers is that Mike Berkens had the foresight to buy some of these domains in 2010 for far less, like Kevin.me for $530 which received a $10,000 offer. 

D.tv  $125,000
iBill.com $100,000
VisitBerlin.com  $100,000
345.com  $75,000
Stuff.com $75,000
MotocycleHelmets.com $60,000
RestaurantSupply.com $50,000
Aili.com $40,000
TheTour.com $30,000
Kevin.me $10,000
Ayanna.com $10,000
FreshPrints.com $10,000
BettertoKnow.com $10,000

Interesting Notes

Some interesting notes on the recently rejected offers:

D.tv, if you recall, was hand-registered in March 2010 for less than $22, then acquired by Mike Berkens for $18,000 through Sedo.  

While Mike did turn down a six-figure offer for VisitBerlin.com, he did sell VisitStockholm.com  recently for $77,000.

RestaurantSupply.com was acquired in 2008 at Moniker for $22,500.

Kevin.me sold for $530 back in April.

There have been some great success stories in the Domain industry in 2010.

With Mike Berkens’ new corporate site, and a range of consulting services being offered, 2011 looks to be a promising year for individuals and companies looking for help, particularly for those stepping into new extensions.  In addition to branding and development tools and services, Worldwide Media will be providing consulting on new extensions.

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Movies News

Sean Parker’s biggest contribution to domain names: Drop the “The”

Sean Parker

TechCrunch has posted an article about the parody video on YouTube titled Drop The The (The Social Network Song) that was produced by Benji Samit and Dan Hernandez of Single Serving Films. 

Dressed up like Justin Timberlake and surrounded by bling, the fake Sean Parker raps about dropping the word “The” from Facebook and other companies like “The Gap”.

If you haven’t watched the movie “The Social Network”, in one scene, Sean Parker who co-founded Napster and was played by Justin Timberlake in the film, advises Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin during their first dinner meeting to drop the word “the” in the company’s name and web address: TheFacebook.com.   

It’s been reported that Facebook then bought the domain name Facebook.com in August 2005 for a reported $200,000.

It looks like the video may go viral with the help of TechCrunch, but at the time of this story it has just over 1,000 views on YouTube.

Categories
News

Seller who hand-registered Single-Letter Domain Name D.TV in March 2010 Earns Nice Return: $18,000

stack of money

In case you missed it on Michael Berkens blog or NamePros, the seller of D.TV who hand registered the domain name in March 2010, earned a nice return.  The name sold on Sedo to Michael Berkens who wrote about the name being registered for less than $22 on March 18 after the .TV registery released single letter .TV domains.  Shortly after writing about the remarkable hand-registered domain, Michael became the buyer and purchased the name from the owner for $18,000 through Sedo.

The seller of D.TV also hand registered P.TV – probably some of the most remarkable hand-registered domain name finds of this decade.  Sure, this decade just started, but these hand-registrations might be hard to beat, at least for some time.

We’re relatively new to this whole domaining thing, but Michael Berkens has been one of our favorite bloggers, along with dozens of others who can be found at Domaining.com. 

Michael regularly shares information on his website about his purchases, sales and more.  In the story, “D.TV & P.TV: How Did They Get Registered At Dynadot Last Night For Less Than $22”, Michael left a comment in which he published his .TV holdings (see below).  You can see more of Michael Berkens portfolio over at MostWantedDomains.com. 

2.TV
4.TV
D.TV
Advertising.tv
Airport.tv
Animal.tv
Animals.tv
Bob.tv
Clearance.TV
Craps.tv
Dining.tv
Fashions.tv
Fonts.TV
Garden.tv
Hungary.tv
Iceland.tv
Programs.TV
Psychology.tv
Relationship.tv
Relationships.tv
Repairs.tv
Saws.tv
Sells.tv
Spiritual.tv
Ted.tv
Volunteer.tv

As Michael writes on his blog, the “Acquisition price for each ranged from a low of $69- to a high of $18K for D.TV”.