Reuters: FB.com May Have Cost Facebook Up To $8.5 Million

Elliot Silver
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23

As reported late last year, Facebook was able to acquire the FB.com domain name from the American Farm Bureau Federation. The Farm Bureau now uses FB.org for its website, and Facebook uses FB.com for the company’s internal email system.

At the time of the deal, the price for the domain name was not released by Facebook or the Farm Bureau. According to a report on Reuters, “Facebook paid $8.5 million to acquire the Internet address ‘fb.com.‘” Reuters cites the Farm Bureau’s annual meeting as the source of this information.

The article further stated that the Farm Bureau had sold two domain names that netted the $8.5 million, although they were unable to state which names were sold by them. It is quite likely that FB.com was the bulk of the $8,500,000 in domain sales.

Assuming an $8.5 million sale, it would rank in the top 4 all time domain name only sales behind Sex.com ($13m), Fund.com ($10m) , and Porno.com ($9m).

Goes to show that the combination of a great domain name and a buyer in need with significant cash can lead to a monster domain deal.

Innovation HQ Acquires DUIAttorney.com in Seven Figure Deal

Elliot Silver
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47

DUI Attorney .comJust before the end of the year, I had dinner with Brian and Charlotte Gilbert, portfolio managers for Innovation HQ, the company that owns and operates Grants.com,  MortgageCalculator.com, Unemployment.com, WhatIsMyIP.com, Earth.com, and many more descriptive domain names. They were excited to share the news that their company had just acquired DUIAttorney.com in a “seven figure deal.”

This is much more than a domain acquisition though. Operating online first as an attorney’s website, DUIAttorney.com has been a legal directory for the past two years. It has become a leading website for people looking to hire a DUI attorney anywhere in the US.

Many lawyers and law firms who understand the value of marketing on a site of this nature have locked in exclusivity on their region, and the company continues to field inquiries about advertising on a daily basis. As a result of the category defining domain name, as well as smart SEO, the website ranks very well in search engines for a variety of DUI-related terms.

The website has become a cash cow, and Innovation HQ’s acquisition will help the website grow, both in terms of traffic and revenues. The company intends to put a significant investment into marketing, search engine optimization, and content. All of these things will drive a strong ROI and enhance the value proposition for current and future advertisers.

Although seven figures might seem like a lot of money, I understand that the revenue multiple on this acquisition was very fair, and the company should see a strong return.

An official press release announcing this significant acquisition will be sent out by the company in the coming days.

Congrats to Brian and Charlotte Gilbert and the team at Innovation HQ.

Telepathy, Inc. Puts Massachusetts.com on the Market with Sedo

Elliot Silver
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16

SedoSedo broker Dave Evanson has been given another domain name exclusive, as I learned his  company is currently brokering Massachusetts.com on behalf of Nat Cohen’s Telepathy, Inc.  A sales price has not been publicized. My best guess is that it will take a mid to high 6 figure offer to close a deal on it, although that’s just a guess.

Nat’s companies own a number of high value domain names (like OceanCity.com and Retirement.com to name just a couple), and it’s not a surprise that he would opt to sell.  I personally have found that to maximize the value of a geodomain name, it needs to be developed, and with so many one word descriptive/generic .com names, it would not be feasible to successfully develop them all within one’s lifetime.

With millions of dollars in advertising and marketing spend this past year, I could see the Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism upgrading its website from MassVacation.com. There really isn’t a better domain name for them to own, granted it will be an expensive acquisition. I also think it would behoove the state government to acquire this domain name, but I would imagine that would be a difficult acquisition to make in light of the dour economy.

I don’t recall seeing any state .com domain names on the market in quite some time. Just recently, Ryan Colby announced that Sedo had secured the rights to broker Austin.com.

To learn more about the sale of Massachusetts.com, Dave Evanson can be emailed at dave.evanson@sedo.com, and to learn more about Austin.com, you can email Ryan Colby at ryan.colby@sedo.com.

Opportunity with SmartTVs.com

Elliot Silver
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28

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.

Did Zynga Acquire Rewardville.com?

Elliot Silver
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3

Rewardville.com source code

According to the latest domain sales report put together weekly by Ron Jackson over at DNJournal, Rewardville.com was sold last week on Sedo for $4,500.

If you visit the current Rewardville.com website, it forwards to a subdomain on Zynga.com. Zynga is the company behind popular social games such as Farmville, Cityville, Frontierville, Petville, and many other games (some of which don’t have the “-ville” moniker.

Although the website is not resolving, when I visit Rewardville.com, I get an error message that says “The webpage at  http://rewards.zynga.com/ might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.” To me, that looks like the domain name is being forwarded to this Zynga subdomain, which does not appear to be resolving.

I am unsure if this is related, but there was  an article on TechCrunch at the end of November about American Express and Zynga teaming up. According to the article, “American Express is now allowing its customers to exchange their ‘membership rewards’ points for virtual goods and/or ‘game cards’ that can be redeemed for Zynga’s in-game currency.” Perhaps Rewardville.com will be used in relationship to this special partnership.

The domain name is currently privately registered, so there is no confirmation yet that Rewardville.com was actually acquired by Zynga. However, it would be strange for another entity to forward this newly acquired domain name to the Zynga website.

Thanks to David Bleaman for the tip.


InternationalFlowers.com Leads the Way at Afternic This Week

Elliot Silver
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10

Afternic just released their sales report from the past week, and the leading public domain sale was InternationalFlowers.com, which sold for $19,558.00. This domain name had been owned by NameMedia’s BuyDomains.

The second highest value domain sales last week was Drupal.net. According to a Whois lookup, it appears Drupal.net was acquired by Dries Buytaert, who also appears to be the owner of Drupal.com.

In all, there was over $320,000 worth of publicly released domain sales for $2,000+ (.com) and $1,000+ (.net and .org).

This week’s domain sales from Afternic:

internationalflowers.com $19,558.00
drupal.net $13,700.00
shy.org $7,800.00
workinglinks.com $6,500.00
oaca.com $5,978.00
londonsightseeing.com $5,800.00
mingdao.com $5,120.41
sonology.com $5,000.00
soky.com $5,000.00
levelingkits.com $5,000.00
nourish.org $5,000.00
Bicyclette.com $4,995.00
strangetimes.com $4,788.00
infoscout.com $4,480.00
resourceintelligence.com $4,288.00
offgridliving.com $4,200.00
rxrecall.com $4,000.00
the-globe.com $3,788.00
playtennis.org $3,588.00
lowenergydevices.com $3,500.00
onlyeve.com $3,500.00
sculpturegarden.com $3,500.00
verbel.com $3,500.00
animalproduction.com $3,388.00
saludmedica.com $3,388.00
vitae.net $3,351.00
bidwish.com $3,188.00
videodeals.com $3,188.00
dripfeed.com $3,100.00
look4me.com $3,029.31
smartmortgage.com $3,000.00
schoolscout.com $3,000.00
5million.com $3,000.00
livingpeacefully.com $2,988.00
phdprogram.com $2,933.00
farmersweb.com $2,921.00
childrenarespecial.com $2,888.00
pharosinternational.com $2,888.00
crps.com $2,800.00
goalpost.net $2,788.00
concentration.net $2,788.00
homedig.com $2,732.00
promotionalitemsdirect.com $2,688.00
medonly.com $2,688.00
porteira.com $2,677.00
marocco.net $2,612.00
italianfood.org $2,588.00
reaktiv.com $2,575.00
kittencaboodle.com $2,540.00
globalpropertysearch.com $2,500.00
mobilelawyers.com $2,500.00
artden.com $2,500.00
SolarChange.com $2,500.00
nourishingsolutions.com $2,488.00
aquaindex.com $2,488.00
yummilicious.com $2,420.00
shoppersolution.com $2,404.00
stateschool.com $2,393.00
rxsupply.com $2,388.00
studioprint.com $2,382.00
studiesonline.com $2,322.00
videobit.com $2,320.00
euromania.com $2,300.00
vatel.net $2,241.00
dsvending.com $2,239.00
pushreelmowers.com $2,200.00
retirementblog.com $2,200.00
interpretertraining.com $2,188.00
mainlounge.com $2,188.00
avgo.net $2,188.00
travessia.com $2,150.00
youthscience.com $2,135.00
bbqbriskets.com $2,100.00
theellisfamily.com $2,088.00
finallyfound.com $2,088.00
wedkiss.com $2,088.00
smithcorp.com $2,050.00
mailstorage.com $2,000.00
performancepeople.com $2,000.00
recorderofdeeds.com $2,000.00
fivemillion.com $2,000.00
adnx.com $2,000.00
ETravelGuides.com $2,000.00
usedrestaurantequipment.net $2,000.00
arrests.org $2,000.00
centralparking.net $1,988.00
antiqueprints.net $1,830.00
banknotes.net $1,788.00
tavoli.net $1,688.00
stopit.org $1,688.00
whitedragon.org $1,688.00
riskpro.net $1,588.00
militaryschools.net $1,588.00
b2k.org $1,558.00
globalsense.net $1,500.00
powertrade.net $1,488.00
mensclothing.org $1,400.00
toplife.net $1,388.00
oneofakind.net $1,350.00
ECentric.net $1,300.00
broadnet.net $1,300.00
keek.net $1,188.00
outletonline.net $1,188.00
sapconsultants.net $1,180.00
inspiredlife.org $1,171.00
myhomework.net $1,100.00
allsys.net $1,088.00
neuralsoft.net $1,088.00
weatherforecast.org $1,000.00
heslop.net $1,000.00

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