GoDaddy Auctions, NameJet, and DropCatch.com are domain name expiry auction platforms that primarily cater to domain investors. These platforms are all open to the public, but I would imagine the vast majority of participants are investors seeking to buy domain names at wholesale prices.

When a domain name expires, most domain registrars place an expiry notice on the top of the landing page to inform visitors of the expired status. The notices typically contain a link to the auction for the domain name should it not be renewed by the registrant in time. These notices can be helpful to companies who may wish to purchase a domain name at auction once it goes through the expiry cycle.

Josh Schoen recently noticed an end user company bought a domain name via GoDaddy Auctions. Via Twitter, Josh mentioned that a company called McHale Performance bought McHale.com at auction for $10,000 (confirmed via NameBio) in early April:

An end-user was the winner of the https://t.co/Cu32jcAcwq expired auction at GoDaddy earlier this month. → Read More

In my daily DomainTools email, I noticed some interesting Coinbase-related domain name registrations. These domain names were registered via the DNStination privacy proxy service operated by MarkMonitor. Coinbase, Inc. uses Mark Monitor for its Coinbase.com domain name registration, so it seems highly likely that the company registered these domain names as opposed to a third party.

Some of the more interesting domain name registrations I noticed: (more…) → Read More

Steve Jurvetson is a well-known venture capitalist and was a co-founder of the VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ). Apparently, Jurvetson left DFJ last year, and Recode is reporting that he is starting a new firm called Future Ventures. Interestingly, the company is using the new gTLD domain name, Future.Ventures for its website.

The Future Ventures brand name sounded familiar to me because the exact match .com domain name, FutureVentures.com, was sold on NameJet about 2.5 months ago. I liked the name enough to bid $777 for it, but FutureVentures.com ended up selling for $1,009. There were 37 bidders who participated in the expiry auction.

When I did a Whois search for the domain name, the Registrar Status is listed (more…) → Read More

I read an Inc. article about a company called Swag, which uses the exact match Swag.com for its domain name. What grabbed my attention beyond the killer domain name was how they reportedly got the domain name:

"They also observed that no one owned the domain name swag.com, so they quickly grabbed it."

This stood out to me, and a couple of quick searches proved this to be incorrect (I imagine it is misunderstanding). The Swag.com domain name is registered privately, but Whois records show that it was created in 1995 and owned by someone else for quite some time. A search of my Gmail shows that this domain name had been brokered before - Swag.com was listed for sale for $275,000 in September of 2015 in the Media Options newsletter. In fact, in an interview 4.cn did with Andrew Rosener, he confirmed that his company brokered the sale of Swag.com.

That really is neither here nor there, but seeing Swag.com marketed for sale at $275,000 really emphasizes how relatively inexpensive domain names are.

Just about every business has → Read More

According to a news report on CNBC, a health insurance company called Oscar Health raised a $165 million round of funding from the likes of Alphabet, Founders Fund, and other firms. The company is now reportedly valued at $3.2 billion with over $725 million in total funding (per Crunchbase).

Unfortunately for Oscar, the company uses the less than ideal HiOscar.com domain name for its website. This isn’t great for a major health insurance company like this because of the potential for confusion. Yes, I think it is better than an alternative extension, but HiOscar.com could certainly be confusing to customers and prospects. Imagine being a customer and getting an email with a link to HiOscar.com. I think it could raise more red flags than the exact brand match Oscar.com domain name would raise.

So who owns the Oscar.com domain name? The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences owns the domain name. The organization uses it for it’s Oscar Awards, more commonly known as the Oscars. Oscar.com forwards to the Oscars landing → Read More

According to an article in the Wall St. Journal, IAC may be looking to sell two of its websites, which use exceptional domain names. Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com may both be for sale:

Word to the wise: Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp has put https://t.co/QBQ9fEkRR0 on the block https://t.co/0z8oorHybb

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) March 27, 2018

Here's an excerpt from yesterday's WSJ article:

"Dictionary.com is for sale—you can look it up.

The online definition resource is being put on the block by Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp , IAC -1.84% the company said.

IAC said it has hired investment bank Allen & Co. to explore a sale after two parties separately approached the company expressing interest in a possible acquisition of the property and its sister site, Thesaurus.com."

Obviously this would be far more than a domain name sale. Both Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com are well developed and have active websites. From the domain name point of view, both of these properties use exceptional exact → Read More