Brian Norgard is a tech leader who is perhaps most well-known for his role as Chief Product Officer (CPO) at Tinder. In fact, TechCrunch published an article about his departure from Tinder in November of 2018. Yesterday morning, Brian posted a tweet sharing his opinion about premium domain names while referencing the $30 million sale Voice.com, which was announced last month:
I’ve always thought of premium domain names as Internet beachfront property (Voice dot com sells for > $30mm).
It’s interesting how the value of the top names continues to rise even in era of mobile (less type in traffic) and a multitude of TLDs. Wild. https://t.co/pW8HSORjbX
— Norgard (@BrianNorgard) July 4, 2019
I agree with Brian on this. There is a limited supply of beachfront property, just like there is a limited number of “premium” domain names. Like beachfront property, high value domain names do not come on the market all the time, and when they do, there is typically great demand from a variety of prospective buyers.
I also agree with Brian about the rising prices of value of the best domain names. I am regularly in contact with some of the top domain brokers and the best of the best domain names regularly sell in private for serious amounts of money. Most of these domain names end up in the hands of companies that will use them for brands, and they are “off the market forever,” as Andrew Rosener regularly proclaims.
There are lots of domain name options available right now, but the best of the best are hard to find for sale and continue to increase in value.
And it couldn’t go without a nasty comment, of course. I just wrote email to Justin Whitman offering him generous $10 for his domain. Gonna call him a squatter if he refuses to sell it.
If you actually did that, it was pointless and a way to make someone dislike domain investors even more.
Pfff… they don’t “dislike domain investors”. They just have this attitude.
For me, it has been not so much time since I decided to go into domaining, however, I’ve been online since past millennium, and as a digital person, I would own a handful of domains for like twenty years. Not with the purpose of selling, I never ever thought of that for a long time, and I did not identify myself as “domain investor”, just for some ideas of online projects. Of course I couldn’t make all of them into reality and most of these domains would stay undeveloped or unresolving. And as an owner of domains, I had this experience multiple times – someone contacts me and wants my domain on their terms and then it all ends with me being insulted, why? It can happen to anyone with a domain, while views like that are pretty popular.
Maybe some taste of their own medicine makes such people realize what is wrong. When someone starts deciding whether they deserve their online property or not, and then insults them, and also threatens with some kind of legal punishment.
Naa.. you did good moo! I came across guys with his mindset many many times.
“Our legal team filed an icann dispute resolution request after several “value based” offers were ignored with zero response”
“value based offers”.. lol
If I don’t want to sell you won’t get an answer. Deal with it. Just another guy that thinks he is entitled to a domain name because some other guy isn’t using it. Pathetic.
The biggest problem is these people really believe there should be some kind of regulation to judge the price.
Yes, most of the times these guys are hardcore capitalists and all about property rights until someone comes along that owns something that they would like to own.. And all of a sudden they become fans of regulation and government intervention, 🙂
Hopefully not this kind of beachfront: https://repeatingislands.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/beach-sargassum.jpg?w=768
Say it with me…”Valuable” domain names.
Not premium.
Fantastic endorsement for the industry and an excellent post Elliot!
I just spoke with Uncle Trump and he is directing the IRS to send all the premium domain owners a hefty internet real estate property tax bill.
Since you all equate these domains as real estate, so just tax like any physical real estate…property tax.
So , Elliot, you owe $5millon USD and for the Domain King, it will be 5 trillion dollars.
Damn, they appraised my “BUllS” domain and website to be 10 trillion so I have to pay 6 million$$ internet property tax
BullS hit by tax 🙂
Yupper because BullS is the most valuable domain and the website of the year.
It has helped billions of people not to spend money and wasting time on the internet.
Now go play outside and watch the clouds
Correct Mark Thorpe. I only use the description GENERIC when writing about names like Voice.com, Apple.com, Amazon.com and Room.com.
While premium addresses can garner high prices, it’s the generics like Wine.com and Toys.com that have a long-term high-priced legacy and future.
DNAmtch.com is what I would consider a premium address.
DNAmatch.com is what I meant
DNAmatch.com is definitely not a premium domain name. Dream on…
Michael’s company owns some “valuable premium” domain names: http://www.ccin.com/global-brands/
I think the word “premium” no longer has the value it once did. It’s been so overused for any kind of name or seller interpretation. One word generic, even valuable generic, are what they are described to be. I no longer use the description “premium” anymore. I’m not going to convince a buyer to purchase using that term. I never have.
William, are you just trolling, or are you out of touch? DNAmatch.com most certainly is “premium.”
Here’s the simple reality:
All generics are premium, but not all premiums are generic. And both are “valuable,” though obviously some more than others – in *both* directions.
It is worth something but hardly a premium name, if so we are setting the bar low.
DNAMatch.com is a stellar name, for sure. & very valuable.
In my sales pitch i don’t use the term “premium” for the reasons I wrote about earlier. So, you are correct. 🙂
Voice.com is a generic one-word .com brand. Everyone else can call it premium. That’s fine but I’m won’t.
Most of the domains that owners are calling premium, are not.