In April and again in June, BX.COM Incorporated published two separate press releases announcing that its domain name, BX.com, originally registered in 1994, was for sale. The asking price for the domain name was not disclosed, but interested parties were encouraged to make an offer via email.
I just learned that the buyer for BX.com was The Blackstone Group, “an alternative asset management and financial services company that specializes in investment strategies, as well as financial advisory services.” The Blackstone Group, with a reported market cap of just over $17 billion, trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol BX, so this acquisition makes sense.
With asking prices for 2 letter .com domain names ranging from low 6 figures to 7 figures (depending on the combination of letters), this was a fairly expensive acquisition for the company. Mike Berkens previously reported that the former domain owner had received a $272,000 bid for BX.com in June, although it’s unknown if Blackstone was that bidder or what the final sales price was.
Judging by Whois records from as early as June 29, 2011, the domain name appears to have been acquired by DNStination, most likely on behalf of Blackstone. The domain name is now registered directly to The Blackstone Group.
BX.com does not appear to be a customer-facing website. Instead, it is home to the “Blackstone Remote Access Portal,” where authorized users can log in to the site. Perhaps they are using it for email.
Thanks to George Kirikos for the tip.
Let’s think about this a bit.
why are short domains going for $Millions of dollars.
well, because you type fewer and fewer characters forever.
that is the key, fewer keys to press to get to their site
that means less, shorter, less coding characters, less to type to tweet, mobile, etc.
so 2 letter domains are out of reach for most mortals, but
3 letter domains are usually within reach for most people being between
$3,000 and up