Boston.net on Auction at Sedo

SedoThere was an article in this morning’s Boston Herald about the Boston.net auction currently taking place at Sedo. Although the owner had turned down nearly 50 offers for this domain name via Sedo, it’s now for sale in an auction, and the reserve price  is somewhere between $10,000 – $24,999.

The current bid price is $13,800, and the auction ends on Thursday, April 28, 2011 at noon (eastern).

I am  bit partial to Massachusetts geodomain names, although .net wouldn’t be my first choice for a geodomain name. However, I think this .net is particularly good, and the reserve price range seems to be excellent for it. My prediction is that this domain name will meet the reserve price and sell at auction.

As you are probably aware, Boston.com is owned and operated by the Boston Globe, and it’s my main source of news and sports information. As a Boston sports fan, I am on Boston.com many times a day.

Earlier this year, Telepathy, Inc. put Massachusetts.com on the market, also using Sedo as the broker.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

26 COMMENTS

  1. Given that Boston.com would be very enormously expensive and may never come available, Boston.net presents an interesting opportunity. Also, based on the population of Boston, Boston.net could offer a very different online focus & experience for Boston residents and businesses. I don’t believe the bidding will stay this low. Not for “Boston”.

    Don’t forget the band of the same name. A tribute site operates at Boston.org.

  2. I always liked .net …

    Question.

    If the .com is worth $1,000,000, will the .net continue to be

    worth a fraction of the .com or drop further in value in the

    future ?

  3. How many tech buffs in Bostin that can afford to throw 25k at this just to own the vanity name, if you don’t have $1M to buy the .com, $25K for the .net is a good deal.

    BullS I am sure you stick with your fundamentals, but you shouldn’t be so closed minded, sometimes you may suprised yourself.

    • “How many tech buffs in Bostin that can afford to throw 25k at this just to own the vanity name, if you don’t have $1M to buy the .com, $25K for the .net is a good deal.”

      @ Ryan

      A few things

      1) It’s Boston, not Bostin
      2) There are plenty of very valuable tech companies that could afford $25k, but it will only take one.
      3) You are out of your mind if you think the Boston Globe (well, NY Times since it owns the Globe) would actually sell Boston.com for $1m. Not only is it a top tier geodomain name, but it has a ton of traffic, links and brand value. You likely couldn’t even get Dan Pulcrano to sell Dallas.com, Seattle.com, Philadelphia.com, or one of his other city .com names that aren’t close to the size of Boston.com for $1m.

  4. I’m expecting this one to easily hit reserve and end at high $xx,xxx if not low $1xx,xxx.

    Even as someone living in Canada, Boston.com is extremely well-known for their amazing photography sets. It’s safe to assume that Boston.com will never hit the market, so Boston.net would make an *ideal* travel website.

  5. “Can’t wait who the sucker is buying dot net”

    I would rather pay $25K for the .NET than millions for the .COM

    Take a look at any popular auction site, there are “suckers” daily paying big amounts for very average .COM domains.

    Brad

  6. Elliot,

    I was replying to Anthony who had stated Boston was worth $1M, I am not out of my mind, and I never signed a notarized appraisal for Boston.com, it is worth $1M+, how much, nobody knows, I never said it was worth $1M on the dot, but when you have to raise $100K compared to $1M+ big difference in bottom line, also easier to have a nice revenue stream from a generic .net which you only have $100k, invested in rather than millions, rate of return wise.

    I am not even saying Tech companies, but techies who work and create companies, to own a vanity of their hometown, in that price range is a steal, I am not sure why you are trying to say, I think we are on the same page here. There can only be one .com, and if I can’t have that, I would want the .net/.org

  7. @Ryan…

    I take this Domain business crap as a BS word game….. I am just having fun -that it and the more fun I have the more money I get. Isn’t it ironic?

    All websites to me are pure self serving BS…and I have never bought anything from any websites.

    It is just pure enjoyment.

  8. this reminds me of the guy who bought searchenginemonetisation dot net for $67k and…doing nothing

    what happens to symbolic? doing nothing

    LMAO

    I love this BS domain game

  9. IMO Boston.net could make for a great brand. Any domain investment has to be justified by the potential revenue stream one can generate off the developed site. So the .Net could make for a more attractive acquisition. However, the challenge is that the .COM is already a well-established website. If the .COM were just another pricey parked .COM domain, the .Net would have an easier time gaining traffic and advertisers. It would be more of a challenge, but for someone local and motivated it could make sense if the development offers something unique not found at Boston.com.

  10. @Brad

    I strongly disagree- .COM is more than just an extension, there are many other factors at play whether you realize it or not.

    It’s all about brandability and credibility, and having the .COM signals to your customers that you are serious. A generic .COM is like an ivy league/grad school degree, sure you don’t NEED one to do well and build a successful business and customer base, but it makes you more credible and trustworthy. Everyone has heard of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, and a person with those credentials doesn’t have to waste time convincing clients about their capabilities- it’s automatically signaled to them. Same with .COM, everyone has heard of it since virtually every major successful online company/network is built on one.

    For a multi-million dollar company, corporation, start up, website, or whatever, $XXX,XXX is nothing for this type of status. Even $X,XXX,XXX is nothing when you are talking about a generic .COM for a company. It cuts down your PR and marketing costs and immediately builds cred.

    For a domainer building a site – sure, .NET is fine, you don’t need these invaluable, nontangible features for a small operation. But for the big guys, these are important.

    The .NET cannot be compared to the .COM, but it will still fetch some nice money from a small entity (or domainer).

  11. KansasCity.net recently sold for $6700. While no Boston, the KC dot com is also owned by the paper and off market. Many peoples email are .net with Comcast, Verizon , cox.

  12. @M

    There are far more buyers for a domain like Boston.net @ Mid $XX,XXX than there are for a domain like Boston.com @ Mid $X,XXX,XXX

    There is a reason the largest car dealers are brands like Toyota, Honda, Ford, and not Ferrari. It is where the average buyer is.

    There are thousands of average buyers for every 1 major company buying domains.

    It is also about ROI, so acquisition cost also matters.

    Sometimes it is hard to justify a 20 – 100x higher cost for .COM over an extension like .NET for “branding”. This is especially true if the .COM comes with limited direct navigation traffic.

    Brad

  13. Gentlemen … I never said Boston.com was worth $1M :))

    I asked a general question on where the value of .nets are

    going to go in relation to the .coms 🙂

    Here’s the question re-phrased …

    We know the .net is worth a fraction of the equivalent

    .com in todays market … Will the value of .nets

    keep dropping, remain stable for years or is there hope

    for any relative appreciation ? 🙂

  14. Why would someone pay $15,000 or more for Boston.net when you could get any of these for reg fee today:

    Boston.io
    Boston.vc
    Boston.la
    Boston.hn
    Boston.ac
    Boston.li
    Boston.tl
    Boston.sc

    People are funny.

    • @ Yup

      You really think some random ccTLD extensions are better than .net? I am no .net fan and I do think ccTLDs have their place in other countries, but I would never recommend someone register one of those ccTLD domain names over buying the .net for a serious project. There’s a reason those names are still unregistered.

      BTW, you sound like that Big Cheese guy who promised he wouldn’t post comments on my blog again.

  15. I don’t know who the Cheese guy is, but I don’t understand why someone would pay this much money for a non .com. Just my opinion.

  16. @ Yup

    Ok, enough of the charade.

    There is absolutely nothing wrong with a ccTLD domain name if you are targeting people in that particular country, or if Google allows you to geotarget other countries (in the case of .co).

  17. @ YUP

    It is one thing to have the GEO in the native ccTLD. Something like Boston.us would be very attractive to many buyers, but something like Boston.io has virtually no value.

    Brad

  18. The values we put on these types of geos years ago was and still is

    undeveloped

    1M to 2M (.com)

    .net 25%

    that’s end user to develop

    Then the wholesaler value is 10% of each domain

    boston.com undeveloped would have been 1M to 2M and 100K to 200K wholesale

    boston.net undeveloped is 250K to 500K end user and 25K to 50K wholesale

    sedo is a wholesaler boneyard

    so 25K to 50K is the value on sedo

    case closed

    NEXTZ

  19. @ Domain Lords

    You still buying names? I am selling a few…

    HousekeepingService.com
    BoracayHotels.com (#2 beach in the world according to Trip Advisor)
    BikeTour.com
    BikeTours.com
    BloomfieldHillsRealEstate.com
    WinnipesaukeeRealEstate.com
    MonthlyPaymentCalculator.com

Comments are closed.

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