Generic Domain Names

Domain Holdings Hires Ryan Colby as SVP of Product Management

DomainHoldings.comIn the past year or so, Ryan Colby sold a number of high value domain names as a domain broker at Sedo, including Jerusalem.com ($510k), GamesForGirls.com ($500k) Logo.com ($500k), Consolidation.com ($220k) and many others. Colby was also instrumental in landing one of the nicest portfolio exclusive listings  I’ve seen, with domain names like Holidays.com, Spain.com, Italy.com, Dad.com, and many others.

A few months ago, I learned that Colby resigned from his post at Sedo and recently learned that he took a position at Domain Holdings, where he is Senior Vice President Of Product Management. Domain Holdings is the rapidly growing company in south Florida founded by Secret Millionaire, John Ferber, and domain industry veteran, Chad Folkening.

Ryan’s primary role with the company is to drive revenues and oversee various product lines within the organization.   “Domain Holdings Group   provides a true life-cycle management solution for domain owners which includes domain acquisitions, development, monetization and divestment.   We are bridging the gap in the marketplace by bringing these four areas together like no other company,  ” he explained.

Although Sedo has lost several key brokers in the last several months, I was surprised that Ryan left given the high value exclusive brokerage agreement he had just secured, as well as his success with the company.

I  asked him what led him to his decision, and he shared some insight.  “Sedo is a first class organization where I had the unique opportunity to learn the fundamentals of high value domain name brokerage,” said Colby. “I felt like it was time in my career to take a pause and re-evaluate new opportunities on a broader scale if they presented themselves.”

One big change the Ryan will surely experience first hand is the warm Florida weather.  Ryan told me that  “the culture of South Florida is much different than what I’m used to and has been a welcomed change. I’m enjoying the amazing weather and restaurants in downtown Delray Beach.”

Ryan is active on Twitter, and you can follow his feed: @rjcolby. I wish him all the best success in his new position at Domain Holdings.

Recent Domain Acquisitions

Every now and then, I like to share some of the domain names I recently acquired. Below are a handful of domain names I bought in the aftermarket, which includes private purchases and auctions. Feel free to submit your recent acquisitions in the comment section if you’d like.

Unfortunately, all of my purchase prices are private. I am on vacation in Florida, so comment approval may be slow. Perhaps I will see you at TRAFFIC next week?

DogPark.com – Bought the website and domain name, which sees around 12,000 visitors a month right now.

Nightlights.com – My Dad owns a retail store, and when I went to the New York International Gift Fair in August, the one thing he wanted me to look for was a line of nightlights in the $20-30 range. These make popular gifts and retail anywhere from $5 – $100, depending on the nightlight. Probably will re-sell instead of develop.

WeddingEntertainment.com – I owned this name back in 2008, and I was able to re-purchase it this week. There are a lot of bands, djs, and other wedding entertainment companies out there, and I may either develop one of my directory sites on it or re-sell it.

LinkwheelService.com – Link wheels seem to be popular SEO tools, and there are a lot of companies offering link wheel services. I will probably re-sell it.

CallCenterOperations.com – When I worked at AIG, my team worked with a number of call centers. On large campaigns, we hired call center operations companies to help manage the programs. It’s a fairly small niche, but there’s a lot of money.

SciaticaTreatment.com – At 27,100, “sciatica treatment” has pretty significant exact match results according to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. There are also several extensions developed and a number of affiliate programs.

MemoryBoxes.com – Companies sell these so people can put important items into to save them for the future.

How Hipster Acquired Hipster.com

Hipster is a fairly well-funded start up company that has received quite a bit of good publicity in tech circles. Until recently, the company was operating on the domain name, UseHipster.com, since Hipster.com was owned by another company.

In May of 2011, Hipster announced  funding of $1 million, and I recommended that the company use some of this money to purchase the Hipster.com domain name. My belief was that as the company continues to grow and increase brand awareness, the price to acquire Hipster.com would grow as well.

Not surprisingly, the company had been trying to acquire the domain name for quite some time, and the effort finally paid off, as Hipster now owns Hipster.com.

According to  company founder, Doug Ludlow, acquiring the domain name took quite some time. “Obtaining the domain was a 7 month process of going back and forth with the original owner.  Lots of negotiation and discussion.  In the end, we reached a combination of cash and stock that worked for both parties,” said Ludlow in an email to me. “Also, a little Pabst Blue Ribbon was thrown in for good measure :)”

The price and terms of the deal remain confidential.

The company is now forwarding UseHipster.com to Hipster.com. In addition, the company already uses the @hipster Twitter account. Congratulations are in order for Ludlow and his Hipster team. I think the acquisition of the domain name now will pay big dividends.

RealEstate.com Sold for $8.25 Million?

Robin Wauters at TechCrunch is reporting that RealEstate.com was acquired for $8.25 million. I assume the site, which ranks #3 in Google for the term “real estate,” was included in the deal. In my opinion, this is a hell of a deal for the buyer. I don’t entirely trust the accuracy of Compete, but they peg the traffic at 600k+ visitors a month and growing.

RealEstate.com is the category defining domain name and has a bunch of traffic, and I am surprised it sold for under $10 million. Of course I don’t know any financials behind the company so my opinion is simply based on the domain name and traffic.

Based solely on the merits of the domain name, do you think $8,250,000 is a fair deal for RealEstate.com or do you think it’s worth more or less?

We Know About Cheesecake, But What About Other Food .Com Domain Names

I posted an article about Cheesecake.com going on sale, and I wanted to see what companies own other popular food .com domain names and whether each domain name is developed.

For this article, I chose food items that can be shipped / delivered since there are millions of food domain names out there. If you know of other food names that I missed, especially if they are owned by a

  • Brownies.com – Fairytale Brownies (developed)
  • Cake.com – Private (landing page)
  • Candy.com – Melville Candy Company (developed)
  • Chicken.com – DigiMedia (parked)
  • Chocolate.com – Chocolate.com, LLC (developed)
  • Cookies.com – Cookies.com, LLC (developed)
  • Cupcakes.com – Name Administration (parked)
  • Fish.com – Tabcom (developed)
  • Fruit.com – Fruit of the Loom (not resolving)
  • Fudge.com – Sabre Corporation (developed)
  • Grapefruit.com – PA Gordon (parked)
  • Hamburgers.com – Vertical Axis (parked)
  • HotSauce.com – Private – (developed)
  • IceCream.com – Dreyers (developed)
  • Jelly.com –  Fischer and Wieser Specialty Foods (developed)
  • Lobster.com – Lobster.com Interactive (developed)
  • Oranges.com – National A-1 Advertising (parked)
  • Pasta.com –  Ingis & Company – (developed)
  • PeanutButter.com – Unilever (developed)
  • Popcorn.com – Popcorn.com (does not resolve)
  • Pudding.com – Reflex Publishing (parked)
  • Sauce.com – Unilever (developed)
  • Shrimp.com – Scott Holdings (developed)
  • Steak.com – Web Development, LLC (developed)
  • Vegetables.com – Nunes Vegetables, Inc (forwarded)

Gust.com: Domain Sold by Tucows Now Used for a Brand Relaunch

AngelSoftFor a number of years, Gust.com was owned by Tucows  and based on its 2004 registration information, it appears that the domain name was a part of its Net Identity portfolio. These domain names, consisting of popular last names, are primarily used for vanity email addresses, although I am not sure how Gust.com was used.

In May of 2011, the domain name appears to have been sold to DNStination and it was registered at brand protection registrar, Mark Monitor. The terms of the deal were undisclosed.  Just recently, the Whois information for Gust.com changed again, and the domain name is now registered to Internet software firm, AngelSoft.

TechCrunch is now reporting that Gust.com is the new name for AngelSoft. According to the article, “Gust will serve as an investor relations platform that matches entrepreneurs to investors, while also providing search and filtering tools for investors that allow them to narrowly target startups that match their interests.”

Interesting usage for this descriptive domain name. If I learn anything more about the Tucows transaction, I will be sure to post it.

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