New York based Internet media company, Acme Media, LLC, had a big day yesterday. Keith Levenson, CEO of Acme, attended yesterday’s Rick Latona TRAFFIC auction intent on one thing – winning Rio.com. By the end of the afternoon, the company prevailed in the auction, winning Rio.com for $450,000. The company plans to build a comprehensive website about the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro.
“Rio.com wonderfully complements Acme’s portfolio and will play a vital role in our strategic plan. We are eager to implement our innovative business plan and make this one of the premiere destinations on the web,” said Levenson. “We are also grateful for all the shared excitement and well-wishes from our colleagues, clients and competitors which, coincidentally, demonstrates the class, character and professionalism of our peers within and without the domain industry. Thank you to all and all I have to say is “stay-tuned and hold on to your seatbelts!“‘
In addition to scoring this great domain name at auction, the company achieved another milestone later on in the evening. Acme’s adult toy store, Vibrator.com, which pulls in seven figures in annual sales, had a successful re-design and re-launch. I know how stressful a re-launch can be, and I’m glad to see that it went well.
In addition to these great domain properties, the company also owns Audio.com, Devices.com, Therapist.com, HomeImprovement.com, Mortgage.net, and many other great domain names.
Congrats to Keith and his team at Acme.
Great name they picked up as any geo fan knows…scratching my head why no big gun domainers didn’t drive it higher.
A group purchase also would have been good on this one.
Congrats Keith for Rio.com
I am still frustrate you succeed to buy HomeImprovement.com a pair of years ago when I was looking for it for a long time… By the way the site is down.
A very good buy at that price. I did expect the domain to be north of half a million, so a little surprised.
If none of the guys who own big city domains bought Rio.com for Rio de Janeiro then I am NOT scratching my head.
Rio.com was a steal for 450K. I met Keith at the TRAFFIC party last night and have no doubt he’s found a home with this incredible Geo/brand. A big reason none of the other Geo owners (including us) did not buy the name is because building and maintaining Rio.com alone will be a 24-7 commitment. It will be a huge, huge project and we’re all already over-extended getting our present Geos where they need to be. I’m glad that Keith is bringing some fresh blood into the Geo game.
Besides not speaking portugese or living in south america, i can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want this!
I wonder if any attempt was made to engage the government of Rio.
@David J Castello – Not buying Rio.com because it would require a 24-7 commitment rings false to me. If you really believe the name is a steal, you could invest the unspent portion of the name’s real value on a development team. Or you could have purchased the name and struck a JV deal where the developer gets an ownership stake in the name.
There are lots of creative solutions to solve the time commitment problem. Fewer to solve a lack of funds or lack of ideas problem.
Eppie:
LOL It’s that easy? After 15 years in the business we must be missing something.
Speak to Dan Pulcrano, Skip Hoagland and all of the other major Geo players. They’ll all give you the same “false” answer I gave for the exact same reason. We all own thousands of premium names and have many still waiting for the right JV deal or trying to find the time to build them in-house.
David:
I didn’t mean to offend, and I hope my comment was not taken as a knock on your business acumen. I’m fully aware of your reputation within the industry — particularly this niche.
My point was that if the name was really a STEAL, it’s worthwhile to find a way to commit extra resources to the project. Buying a geo, by nature, means you’re buying a ton of work for yourself. I get that. But if the name is really undervalued and you’re well capitalized, you can afford to pay a lot more for development and have it all wash out in the end. That means you can get a serious development team working on the project and you won’t have to micromanage them.
Is it fair to say that the real problem is a lack of quality development partners? Maybe it’s a lack of awareness by good developers that they could engage in a JV with a premium name owner?
I’m very curious to hear your thoughts on this.
Eppie:
I don’t know if you own any large Geos, but I can tell you that building, launching and maintaining one is a 24-7 gig. And the keyword here is micromanage. Don’t micromanage one of these babies and you stand a good chance of having a disaster on your hands. And there’s even more to deal with if you add a JV scenario.
I’m not being facetious, but if you know any serious development teams who know how to build a Geodomain (and are available), please let me know. I know over 20 great teams and not one can build a Geo properly without Michael and I having to jump into the mix every two seconds. Put it this way, some of the best looking, high tech city sites are those for CVBs and most don’t make any money. They sure look great, though. I could write a chapter about this. The other chapters would be about dealing with investors, partners, sales, marketing, etc.
Put it this way, if Michael and I only had 5 developed domains we would have been all over Rio.com. But you can’t simply buy a Geo of that magnitude and hand it over to a 3rd party with a blueprint. Speak with Kevin in a year and I’m sure he’ll tell you that Rio.com is 1) t\Taking up most of his time 2) He’s a having the time of his life with his new “friends” in Rio and 3) He wouldn’t be caught dead letting anyone else manage it.