Media Options Flips White.com

Media OptionsI just learned that Media Options successfully flipped White.com, a domain name the company privately acquired in December of 2012. The company acquired the domain name for $195,000, and “sold it for a substantial 6 figure amount,” according to Media Options CEO, Andrew Rosener. White.com had not been offered for sale in the company’s daily domain newsletter.

Although the Whois registrant information is private, the website appears to belong to Polish artist Tomasz Gudzowaty. Prior to hearing about this sale, I had not heard of Gudzowaty, but he appears to be

Domain Name Sales: Always Test

One of the most important aspects to a direct marketing campaign is to always test everything. Whether you’re testing your offer, your message, your listing, or your creative, you should always be testing everything to see what provides a lift and what is hurting your campaign. I think we should do the same with domain name sales.

This week, I started to hand off warm leads on inbound inquiries generated from my Internet Traffic and Domain Name Sales landing page. I pride myself in being able to find out who is inquiring about my domain names while extracting the highest price possible. There is a pretty large list of domain brokers who are available to close deals on the DNS platform, so I am going to give the DNS brokers a try.

Sometimes I feel like I am a bit too close to the inventory to objectively price my domain names. Yes, it would be nice to get $75,000 for a particular domain name, but maybe it’s really only worth $40,000. A broker can advise as well as negotiate on my behalf in order to close the deal.

I hate chatting on the phone, unless it’s a discussion I want to have. Using a broker opens this channel of communication when I probably wouldn’t have taken the time to do it myself. I know it’s an effective way to discuss and close a deal, so it’s great to have this negotiation tool.

A little over a month ago, I had a $20,000 deal on DNS, and the buyer didn’t end up paying for it. I would assume the DNS broker has access to back end information about buyers and they might be able to see if a buyer has the potential to back out of a deal. If that person had agreed to 5 other deals and never paid, they might be able to save all of us time and cut off the negotiation. In this business, there aren’t many worse feelings than closing a large deal and having the buyer back or not pay.

The nice thing about DNS is that I can monitor the progress of negotiations to see where things stand. I can also assist the broker if I see something of interest – perhaps additional information about a new service or that the buyer has funding.

I haven’t yet closed a deal with the assistance of a domain broker on DNS, but I will be sure to provide an update with results when I have more insight. If you’ve worked with DNS brokers or another broker on DNS, I welcome you to share your personal experience.

Can CrunchBase Help You Find a Buyer for Your Domain Name?

I’ll start this post off with a caveat. I have a couple of CrunchBase listings for my companies, and I hate it when I receive the exact same email from people who are using CrunchBase to send out emails that are not even remotely of interest to me.

That being said, I could see how CrunchBase could help domain investors find buyers of premium, relevant domain names. One reason for this is that the listings share information about the company. You can also see how much funding was raised, who invested, and when the company was created. There is a considerable amount of insight you can glean from CB listings.

Here’s how you might be able to find someone that would want your exceptional domain name:

Domain Name Sales Launches Re-Designed Website

Domain Name Sales has rolled out a totally re-designed website this evening, and because of its considerable end user reach, it will likely have an impact on all of us.

After spending about an hour checking things out, my first reaction is “wow” this is pretty cool.  I want to share some of the things I’ve noticed about the new website, and I welcome you to share things I missed. I think you’re going to be impressed with the changes.

B52 Media Appears to Sell e.CO

e.co whois

According to current Whois records, it appears that the e.CO domain name was recently sold by B52 Media. The domain name is currently registered to Sedo’s escrow account, which would indicate that a sale recently took place. I am not sure who acquired this domain name, but once the Whois information changes again upon completion of the sale, I will follow up (unless the registrant is uses Whois privacy).

I reached out to Lonnie Borck, CEO of B52 Media, and he couldn’t offer a comment on the status of the e.CO domain name.

Lonnie’s company originally acquired e.CO for $81,000 in 2010 at a charity auction run by Sedo and the .CO Registry. I was at the auction with Lonnie, and I always felt he would make a great ROI from this acquisition. In the past three years, Lonnie has turned down many inquiries for the e.CO domain name, and I am sure he got a solid number for this domain name asset.

Congratulations to Lonnie on this apparent sale. His company still owns great domain names like Funding.com, Winter.com, Shock.com, and others.

Is.com and Prices.com Listed on Sedo

Sedo  just issued a press release this morning announcing that the company locked up the Is.com and Prices.com domain names under exclusive brokerage contract, with Dave Evanson serving as the broker. The asking prices for these two domain names were not shared, so the best way to find out is to contact Dave directly.

The domain names show Domain Capital as the registrant, but the press release quotes Mike Bahlitzanakis as the owner.

In 2006, the Ottawa Citizen posted an article about domain names, and