Generic Domain Names

I’m not going to wade into the political and religious discussion behind the Chick-Fil-A news, but if you want to show your support for the fast food company, domain investor Warren Royal can help you with that.

Warren’s company, Royal Bobbles, has a line of Chick-Fil-A bobblehead dolls that can be purchased on Bobbleheads.com for $17.95. The regular price on the bobblehead is $22.95, but despite the increase in demand, the toy is on sale.

The bobbleheads have been available since well before the Chick-Fil-A controversy, but I am sure the news has caused sales to soar. There’s nothing like controversy to help sell product, and I am happy that Warren is the beneficiary of this.

You can read more about Warren Royal in an interview I did with him in October of 2008, just as his company was beginning to break out. Since then, he’s become more immersed in the bobbleheads business, and the company’s growth has been nothing short of fantastic.

I’ve written about Warren Royal and his Bobbleheads.com business a few times, and I want to share a link to an article about Bobbleheads.com on the  Huffington Post. The article was posted a few days ago, and it covers the development and growth of Bobbleheads.com.

The article touches on a number of topics, and I believe it’s good for the domain industry and owners of descriptive domain names, as it shows how important owning a name like Bobbleheads.com is good for building a business in the matching field.

Royal has done quite well turning a great domain name into a burgeoning business. Reading about the growth of Bobbleheads.com is certainly inspiring.

In last week’s sales report from Afternic, Adopted.com was the third largest reported sale, closing at $15,525. Although the registrant information is private, the doman name now forwards to IWasAdopted.com.

According to a cached page on the Buy Domains website, Adopted.com was listed for sale on the Afternic DLS network without a price. What likely happened is the buyer inquired about the domain name via a broker at Afternic, and they were able to put together the deal.

IWasAdopted.com seems to be a pretty neat website in a small niche market. The company helps adopted children re-connect with family members, including siblings and birth parents. The site boasts well over 200,000 member profiles, and it’s a subscription based site.

Clearly, Adopted.com is a great upgrade for them.

Thanks to Alan Dunn for sharing this with me.

Marijuana, Inc., a  publicly traded company, has announced that it changed its name and will now be known as Hemp, Inc. The company already traded under the HEMP stock symbol.

In the company’s press release, they also announced that it had secured the rights to use Hemp.com. According to the company CEO,    “With the acquisition of the exclusive licensing rights to the Hemp.com domain name providing a solid foundation for our stock symbol HEMP, it was a natural evolution.   Hemp.com is a significant asset for Hemp, Inc. and we intend to keep the integrity of Hemp.com intact as we implement a strategic marketing platform to greatly enhance the potential of Hemp.com.”

The company appears to have used MarijuanaInc.tv  for its previous website, so the Hemp.com domain name is certainly a major upgrade.

It is interesting to note that the company has a licensing agreement for the domain name, although terms of the license weren’t disclosed in the press release. A license agreement is another type of deal domain owners can use to generate revenue on their domain name.