General Domain Information

I had a post written discussing the Business Week article about the TeaParty.com domain name that is owned by a Canadian band of the same name. The band has owned it since the early 1990s, which is pretty cool considering that there are many great domain names that haven’t been registered for that long.

Anyway, Mike Berkens wrote a post pretty much covering what I wrote, so I am going to change the direction up a bit. Instead, I want to know what you think TeaParty.com is worth in light of the Tea Party movement, and I created a poll to find out.

I’d be interested in knowing your thoughts on whether the band should sell the domain name. If the Tea Party is a short lived “movement,” it could turn out to be a KerryEdwards.com situation, where the domain owner turned down a large offer and the domain name returned to its minimal value after the Kerry Edwards campaign ended. Should the Tea Party pick up more steam and become more mainstream, the domain name could have more value.

The band could move to something like TeaPartyBand.com or TeaPartyMusic.com or something they could hand register. What are your thoughts?

I was browsing through the Apple App Store this morning to see what domain name related apps you can purchase for your iPhone and/or iPad. There were more than I expected.

If you’ve used any of the apps listed below in ABC order, let others know what you think of them. I have an iPad but haven’t downloaded any of these apps yet.

• Deep Whois (free)
• DN Forum Mobile ($4.99)
• Domain Scout (free)
• Domainster Instant Domain Search and Suggestion ($.99)
• Domain Pro (free)
• Domain Storm by Network Solutions (free)
• DomainTools Whois, Thumbnail, Availability (free)
• Domain Tracker ($.99)
• GoDaddy Mobile Domain Manager (free)
• iDomain Monitor ($2.99)
• Instant Domain Checker (free)
• Name.com (free)
• NameDrive

Did I miss any apps that you’d recommend to others? If so, what purpose do they serve and how much are they?

It’s very difficult to predict what technology trends will be popular and which will fizzle. Buying domain names based on future technology trends is a bit like playing the lottery… except there are guaranteed winning tickets with the lottery.

Have a look at the first sentence from this New York Post article from September 5:

“The next big thing in TV — 3-D — is proving such a bomb with consumers, the first victim may be ESPN’s sports-in-3-D channel.”

Judging by the thousands of 3D domain names for sale on Sedo, Afternic, and other domain sales platforms, it looks like there are going to be a lot more losers than winners in the 3D domain lottery.  Based on what I’ve seen, some people justify these purchases as $8 lottery tickets, which is fine I suppose, but when people buy dozens or hundreds of names to cover their bases, it becomes a big problem.

I don’t want to sound preachy here, but think about the reality here when you’re buying domain names. There are gamblers and domain investors. Investing in domain names can be a bit of a gamble, but it shouldn’t be a total gamble.

When you buy a domain name, are you investing or playing the lottery?

I think Nat Cohen is considered to be one of the original domain investors. His two companies, Telepathy, Inc. and State Ventures, LLC, own top generic domain names like Retirement.com, Maryland.com, NorthCarolina.com, and hundreds of three letter .com domain names (just a small sample). Nat has developed several websites, including OceanCity.com, and he is quietly involved in a number of other web-related projects and properties.

Although Nat has been vocal and active in private, he has remained more reserved in public. His companies have had more than its share of battles with larger companies trying to poach its domain names (like Crew.com, Geometric.com, and PLA.com to name three off the top of my head), and likely as a result, Nat has been an advocate for the rights of domain investors.  Nat is a supporter and current board member of the Internet Commerce Association.

This is beginning to sound more like a  eulogy  than an exciting announcement, so let’s get to the good news…

I am excited to hear that Nat is going to be blogging, albeit irregularly, at  DomainArts.com.  There are a lot of good blogs covering domain names, but there aren’t a lot of people who have the same level of experience in the domain business as Nat.  I strongly recommend that you add this to your blog reader so you don’t miss an article.

Here are Nat’s first three posts:

• Beating a Dead Horse (I): .CO
• Beating a Dead Horse (II): new gTLDs
• How Big a Problem is Cybersquatting? How often do Domain Owners win UDRP proceedings?