I was very surprised to receive such a large check in the mail a couple of days ago. Thanks to Brian Gilbert for following through on his word and sending me the money he owed plus interest…
It’s too bad the bank said there were not sufficient funds in the account.
I tuned in a bit too late this afternoon to see Jeff Reynolds of AmericanFlags.com live on Fox Business tv, but you can now see the video on the Fox Business website. In the segment, Jeff discusses how he acquired the domain name on Ebay and talks about the growth of his company.
I’ve been fortunate to chat with Jeff a few times over the years, and I had the opportunity to do an interview with him nearly three years ago. It’s really exciting and inspiring to see domain owners having great success building a business on generic / descriptive domain names.
It’s just as good to see mainstream media covering businesses built on descriptive domain names like this. Jeff is one of the smarter guys in this business, and he is someone I look up to when it comes to business development. He’s also given me some very good advice on development, which has been appreciated.
Congrats to Jeff on this great coverage, and I hope it leads to an increase in business.
I just bought a new Giro ski helmet the other day. Giro is a helmet company owned by sports equipment conglomerate Easton-Bell Sports. As I often do when shopping for a product, I researched who owned key category domain names related to my purchase.
I was impressed when I saw that Easton-Bell Sports owned SkiingHelmets.com and SnowboardingHelmets.com. These category defining names should either be used to funnel direct navigation traffic to the company’s main site, or smaller portals can be built, using the site as either SEO plays or to drive traffic to the main site.
When I visited both sites to see what the company was doing with them, I was disappointed. Not only are they undeveloped, but the Network Solutions landing page even has “Giro” related links. They are essentially paying for visitors to click their own ads!
In looking at the historical thumbnails provided by Domain Tools, it appears that there was a site before or possibly a forward to the main site. It appears that Network Solutions is now the primary beneficiary during this high season.
It’s a good strategy for a company to acquire keyword domain names, but it’s poor execution when those domain names aren’t being used.
I just read an Associated Press report on Bloomberg that said publicly traded Answers.com (ANSW on Nasdaq) has agreed to be acquired by Summit Partners (a private equity firm) for about $127 million. For those who are unaware, Answers.com is a search engine of sorts that people can type in questions in search of answers.
Of course this isn’t a “domain” deal since the acquisition is for a revenue generating company that was built on the generic domain name. However, from my perspective, it’s fantastic to see a deal like this involving a descriptive domain name. When you think of the Answers.com domain name, your immediate thought would be that it’s going to be a site that provides answers, which it does.
There are many domain investors that own domain names that are just as intuitive (if not more so) than Answers.com. IMO, we are going to some big deals involving domain investor-held domain names in the next few years that will rival this deal. Perhaps domain investors won’t be building these businesses on their own, but I can see some taking equity stakes with other companies that use their domain names.
I just learned about a beautiful new hotel and resort that is scheduled to open at Lake Las Vegas in Henderson, Nevada next month. The Ravella at Lake Las Vegas has luxuriously well-appointed hotel rooms and suites, a fantastic golf course, meeting rooms, a world class spa, and a number of other wonderful amenities. It looks like a place I want to be right now.
Unfortunately for the Ravella, someone chose a horrible domain name for its website. Believe it or not, the hotel has opted to go with the heavily hyphenated ravella-at-lake-las-vegas-hotel.com. Seriously. *** See Update Below ***
Unfortunately for the hotel, they didn’t even secure the non-hyphenated ravellaatlakelasvegashotel.com domain name. (I HIGHLY recommend readers don’t buy it either because you’re just asking for a UDRP or worse, a lawsuit). With such a beautiful hotel and website, it’s strange that they are opting for this cheap (and cheap looking) domain name.
In case you are wondering, the much shorter, easier to recall, and better looking on stationery domain name, Ravella.com, is owned by domain investment pioneer Gary Chernoff. To make it even easier for the hotel to try and acquire, the domain name is conveniently listed on Sedo, a leading domain brokerage and marketplace. They must keep in mind that Chernoff has owned Ravella.com for nearly a decade, so it obviously is an expensive and valuable asset.
I strongly recommend that the proprietors of the Ravella work out a deal with Gary to buy the Ravella.com domain name.
*** Update ***
I was just made aware that the hotel is marketing RavellaVegas.com to consumers, and it forwards to Ravella-at-Lake-Las-Vegas-Hotel.com. I was not aware that marketing materials use the shorter (and easier to remember) domain name.
A few weeks ago, I learned that Gambling.com was put on the market, and Sedo was named the exclusive domain broker for this category defining domain name.
According to an article in Bloomberg this morning, the price of the domain name has been released.
If you want to buy Gambling.com, you need to spend at least $9,000,000, although the owners are hoping to make more than $10,000,000 for the domain name. I think this is a very optimistic number, especially in light of the Slots.com sale price of $5,500,000 last year (to online gaming genius Calvin Ayre).
Gambling.com is currently owned by a privately held UK company called Media Corp.
