Opportunity with SmartTVs.com

Elliot Silver
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I’ve been reading about CES in Las Vegas on mainstream news channels, technology blogs, and Morgan Linton’s blog, and the thing that I’ve come away with is that “smart televisions” are going to be big in the foreseeable future.

I see companies like Intel and Samsung have “smart tv” products, as do a number of other leading television companies. I think “smart tv” is going to be a big buzzword, and consumers will look to purchase these smart tvs, probably in greater number than those looking for 3d tvs (just my own opinion).

The domain investor in me did some research, and I saw that a longtime friend of mine (Page Howe) owns SmartTVs.com and has it listed for sale at Sedo as a “make offer” listing.  I spoke with Page, and he let me know that he currently has a purchase price of $75,000 for the domain name.

I can only assume the price will increase if consumers and distributors adopt the term in similar fashion to smart phones (Samsung owns SmartPhones.com). Perhaps now is a time for Sedo brokers to jump on the phone and get this name sold. Some may look at it as a gamble, but for many of these companies, it could be a very good investment.

Take the DNW Industry Survey

Elliot Silver
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2

Domain Name Wire’s annual survey is now online and ready for you to fill out, and I encourage you to do so in the next few days.

I think it’s the most comprehensive survey that primarily targets  domain investors, and your answers will help give a more accurate picture of the state of affairs in this business.

The survey should take no longer than 10 minutes to fill out, and you can fill yours out confidentially if you’d like. The more people who fill out the survey, the more statistically significant the data.

Ravella at Lake Las Vegas is Beautiful, Chosen Domain Name is U-G-L-Y

Elliot Silver
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Ravella at Lake Las VegasI just learned about a beautiful new hotel and resort that is scheduled to open at Lake Las Vegas in Henderson, Nevada next month. The Ravella at Lake Las Vegas has luxuriously well-appointed hotel rooms and suites, a fantastic golf course, meeting rooms, a world class spa, and a number of other wonderful amenities. It looks like a place I want to be right now.

Unfortunately for the Ravella, someone chose a horrible domain name for its website. Believe it or not, the hotel has opted to go with the heavily hyphenated ravella-at-lake-las-vegas-hotel.com.  Seriously. *** See Update Below ***

Unfortunately for the hotel, they didn’t even secure the non-hyphenated ravellaatlakelasvegashotel.com domain name. (I HIGHLY recommend readers don’t buy it either because you’re just asking for a UDRP or worse, a lawsuit). With such a beautiful hotel and website, it’s strange that they are opting for this cheap (and cheap looking) domain name.

In case you are wondering, the much shorter, easier to recall, and better looking on stationery domain name, Ravella.com, is owned by domain investment pioneer Gary Chernoff. To make it even easier for the hotel to try and acquire, the domain name is conveniently listed on Sedo, a leading domain brokerage and marketplace. They must keep in mind that Chernoff has owned Ravella.com for nearly a decade, so it obviously is an expensive and valuable asset.

I strongly recommend that the proprietors of the Ravella work out a deal with Gary to buy the Ravella.com domain name.

*** Update ***

I was just made aware that the hotel is marketing RavellaVegas.com to consumers, and it forwards to Ravella-at-Lake-Las-Vegas-Hotel.com. I was not aware that marketing materials use the shorter (and easier to remember) domain name.

“Or Submit Your Best Offer”

Elliot Silver
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When inquiring to purchase a domain name, I often receive a reply that includes a price along with my favorite phrase in this type of scenario: “… or submit your best offer.”

Why do I love this phrase? From my perspective, it means that the price is flexible, and while the domain owner would like to sell the name for a specific price, it isn’t a firm price. Without a doubt, I always reply to this with a lower offer. It really makes no sense not to do that, unless you really need the domain name and can’t take a chance that the owner doesn’t reply.

One thing you can take from this is that when you’re asked about the price of one of your domain names, you probably don’t want to encourage the potential buyer to submit a lower offer. Perhaps he will do that anyway, but why encourage it? If he doesn’t respond positively to your price, you can always follow up at a later time and ask him what he was thinking in terms of price.

This may seem pretty obvious to an  astute  domain investor, but I see it happen all the time, and I love it when it happens when I am buying!

Oprah Launches Oprah Winfrey Network, Settles for OWN.TV, Doesn’t Own Own.com

Elliot Silver
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Oprah Winfrey NetworkWith the new year now here, Oprah Winfrey has officially launched her brand new Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), a television network created by the popular talk show host.

Winfrey’s company owns and operates OWN.TV, which currently forwards to Oprah’s website, Oprah.com/own. A message across the top of the website lets visitors know that Oprah’s regular website will return on Monday, so perhaps the new network will use OWN.TV as it’s primary url.

Unfortunately for Oprah, the network was either unable to acquire or not interested in acquiring Own.com, a domain name that has been owned by National A-1 Advertising for quite some time.

National A-1 operates one of the best portfolios of top descriptive domain names like Babies.com, Antiques.com, Free.com, Cash.com, Divorce.com, and many other great descriptive domain names.

Unfortunately for Oprah, the chosen acronym “OWN” has significant meaning as a generic/descriptive word, meaning that the domain name had tremendous value well before the OWN brand existed. Own.com is certainly a 7 figure domain name, if National A-1 was even willing to part with one of its key assets.

In my opinion, Own.com is a domain name that the network should make a significant effort to purchase, since it will probably want to have a premier web presence.

*** Update ***

Interestingly, on my way back to New York City today, I saw a HUGE Oprah billboard. It was promoting Oprah.com/OWN. I imagine that I am wrong and they don’t intend to use OWN.TV in marketing.

2011 New Years Resolutions & Goals

Elliot Silver
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The new year is coming, and I want to share some of the goals I’ve set for myself and for my company. Perhaps seeing some of the goals I set for my business can help you with your own goal setting.

– Grow the traffic and advertiser base on DogGroomers.com. Establish new partnerships with dog grooming franchises, similar to DogWalker.com. Inform dog groomers about the site and let them know about local advertising opportunities.

– Ensure that DogWalker.com renewals remain steady, and continue to promote the site to small businesses in underserved markets. Having at least one dog walker listing in every market is good for advertisers and visitors.

– Seek out advertisers for Newburyport.com and Lowell.com. Should advertising revenue remain low (under $1,000/month), look to sell these geodomain names and reinvest in category defining profession domain names that can be turned into directory websites like DogWalker.com, which has produced significant revenue.

– Build a website on BikeTour.com, in similar fashion to TropicalBirds.com (considerable content). Focus on the top 20 annual bike tours (like the 5 Boro Bike Tour) and 10 most popular city bike tours (like Paris and Amsterdam bike tours). Monetize with affiliate revenue, lead generation, and Adsense.

– Continue to add information to Bahamas.CO and integrate a travel affiliate API on the site to enable vacation bookings.

– Promote DomainQuestions.com within the domain community and to domain owners who have questions about their domain names or buying/selling domain names.

– Maintain steady domain acquisitions and sales revenue stream.

– Have fun and take extra time to enjoy life. Work on work/life balance. Try not to work everywhere I go – even when I am on “vacati

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