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Main Page  »  Work  »  Domains
View Article  Check out my other blog!
Please also take a look at my blog about and for the Domain-Industry:
http://DomainEditorial.com/
View Article  Coming Out: The Domainers Industry
As the domain monetization and domain investing space gains more and more (negative and positive) attention, I think it's time for a reminder that I do have a separate blog about the domainer industry:

Domain Editorial: About and for Domainers

View Article  Domain Editorial - a new blog
I have recently started a new blog, which I would still consider in Beta Status. You will see fewer posts on domain name related issues here, since those are being moved to the "Domain Editorial", which is located at http://www.domaineditorial.com/ .
View Article  economy.com sells for $27 million
Moody's Corporation Acquires Economy.com not just the domain though:

Moody's Corporation (NYSE: MCO) today announced that it has acquired Economy.com, a leading independent provider of economic research and data services, for US$27 million. The acquisition will deepen Moody's analytical capabilities to broader areas of economic and demographic research, expand the range of products and services offered to institutional customers and introduce new customers to Moody's. It will provide Economy.com with access to Moody's extensive client base, deep product marketing capabilities, and other resources needed to expand its business. The transaction was funded by cash on hand and closed today. Additional terms of the transaction will not be disclosed and the financial impact to Moody's is not expected to be material.
View Article  Business 2.0 on Domainers and Domains as an investment strategy
Quote:
But considering that Schilling’s traffic generated more than 1 percent of Yahoo’s $3.6 billion [...]

The December issue of Business 2.0 features an article about the Master$ of their Domain$ by Paul Sloan. A great piece and well worth the read. As Peter Ejtel already hinted in his blog, the publicity of recent sales was only the start. There also was an article in the Wall Street Journal, entitled "Thanks to web ads, some find new money in Domain Names".

The article overall is written in an entertaining and positive style, so it should help to promote the industry. However we probably don't have to wait a long time to see more articles, some of them probably not this positive. All in all a great start for the big wave of publicity that this industry is going to receive. Maybe even I can find the time to write an article.

Some exerpts:
Today, Schwartz owns about 5,000 names, with less than a third falling into the “adult” category. [...] he claims, that[’s] are earning him $2 million a year.

[...]

The secret? It has to do with what’s known as type-in traffic, or, in Wall Street jargon, direct navigation. Though it may seem odd in the era of powerful search engines, it turns out that millions of Internet surfers don’t use search at all. Instead, they type what they’re looking for right into the top of their Web browser. Looking to buy candy? Type in Candy.com, a name Schwartz bought in May 2002 for $108,000. A page filled with links to candy-related products comes up. Click on one of the ads and the advertiser pays Google, which in turn sends a share to Schwartz and the company that runs Candy.com. Some days Candy.com makes Schwartz $300 in profits; the site paid for itself in a year and a half.

[...]

Besides some of the more or less well known domainers, the UltSearch portfolio sale, the "factcheck.com" story, the article also features an investor in this industry, one of the founders of Internet REIT (Internet Real Estate), also featured in the Wall Street Journal article.

Rabin teamed up a year ago with a Harvard-trained finance whiz named Bob Martin and domain speculator Marc Ostrofsky. They named their company Internet REIT and, according to Ostrofsky, are spending $250 million, probably far more, buying out domain owners as fast as they can find good names. (Ostrofsky, for the record, was the man who pulled off the much-publicized sale of Business.com for a reported $7.5 million in December 1999.)

[...]

Ostrofsky pulls aside Bahlitzanakis, the Ye worshiper. Bahlitzanakis, who works from his apartment in Queens, N.Y., owns fewer than 100 names, but at least one is a gem: Cellphones.com. The site -- a plain page with relevant links --
makes an average of $1,300 a day.
[...]
He returns to his hotel room in the early morning to find a contract under his door. Total price: $4.2 million. He paid $90 for the name in 1996.

Very good timing, considering Rick Schwartz has just announced his preliminary schedule for the Silicon Valley TRAFFIC conference.
View Article  Domain Name Sales picking up
While one person wants to get into the Guinness Book of World Records by selling TheRecordBreakingDomain.com, someone else has ...   more »
View Article  Domains for fun?
While in North America and Europe more and more people are starting to realize that investing in domains is a fulltime job that yield quite lucrative returns,
Scoop: Internet Domains a Fun Outlet
View Article  A different Business model for release of .EU
.EU is coming - Let the money-making begin: I was just checking the list of accredited registrars on the EURid website, when I noticed several applications from one Austrian city. All of those also have the same address details:   more »
View Article  Interesting changed in the ccTLD space: AU does not like PPC
Domain registration rules face change amid protests: ZDNet Australia: News: Communications

In 2002, auDA -- .au Domain Administration -- introduced the "close and substantial connection rule", which allowed companies to register domain names that, although not derived from their own company or business name, are connected to their business in some way. For example, it would be acceptable for a real estate directory service to register names such as houses.com.au, apartments.com.au, land.com.au, estateagent.com.au.

However, on Friday, auDA issued a statement saying it is considering changing the rule after some companies were found to be "using this interpretation of the close and substantial connection rule to register large numbers of domain names apparently for the primary purpose of capturing Web traffic and/or selling click-through advertising".


Interesting - they are going in the opposite direction, compared to the gTLDs and wanna-be gTLDs.

[via ZDNet]
View Article  MSN to launch PPC search ad service
Looks like they are finally ready.

Investor's Business Daily: MSN Ready To Rumble In Search

The most interesting part:

But ...   more »

This blog is maintained by Frank Michlick of Earth.

The views expressed are entirely my own, unless marked otherwise. All trademarks belong to their respective owners.

If you are looking to read more about the Domain Name Industry, I'd suggest visiting my Domain Name News blog.

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