Generic Domain Names Archives - Page 20 of 35

Oprah Launches Oprah Winfrey Network, Settles for OWN.TV, Doesn’t Own Own.com

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January 1, 2011

With the new year now here, Oprah Winfrey has officially launched her brand new Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), a television network created by the popular talk show host.

Winfrey’s company owns and operates OWN.TV, which currently forwards to Oprah’s website, Oprah.com/own. A message across the top of the website lets visitors know that Oprah’s regular website will return on Monday, so perhaps the new network will use OWN.TV as it’s primary url.

Unfortunately for Oprah, the network was either unable to acquire or not interested in acquiring Own.com, a domain name that has been owned by National A-1 Advertising for quite some time.

National A-1 operates one of the best portfolios of top descriptive domain names like Babies.com, Antiques.com, Free.com, Cash.com, Divorce.com, and many other great descriptive domain names.

Unfortunately for Oprah, the chosen acronym “OWN” has significant meaning as a generic/descriptive word, meaning that the domain name had tremendous value well before the OWN brand existed. Own.com is certainly a 7 figure domain name, if National A-1 was even willing to part with one of its key assets.

In my opinion, Own.com is a domain name that the network should make a significant effort to purchase, since it will probably want to have a premier web presence.

*** Update ***

Interestingly, on my way back to New York City today, I saw a HUGE Oprah billboard. It was promoting Oprah.com/OWN. I imagine that I am wrong and they don’t intend to use OWN.TV in marketing.

Publicly Traded Banks.com Enters Into Agreement with Domain Capital

Elliot Silver

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December 16, 2010

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I just learned that Banks.com, a company that is publicly traded on the American Stock Exchange under ticker symbol BNX, has entered into a “sale-leaseback” agreement with domain financing company, Domain Capital.

It appears that Domain Capital financed the Banks.com domain name for $600,000, and Banks.com is required to make monthly payments of $14,273.96 for 5 years. With interest, the total amount Banks.com is required to pay over the course of the agreement is $856,437.60.

For me, it’s good to see publicly disclosed deals like this because it shows others that there are options for domain financing. I would imagine it could be tough to get a bank to give a loan on a domain name without a significant amount of red tape (if at all).

The guys at Domain Capital attend virtually every domain conference and tradeshow, and they know the market better than most, allowing both companies to strike a fair deal for a valuable domain asset. This allows a domain owner to get liquidity more easily.

The company filed a SEC Form 8-k to announce the details of this agreement.

Smart Marketing for Stowe Vacation Home

Generic Domain Names

Elliot Silver

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December 5, 2010

2

Every year, I try to plan an annual meeting. It’s smallish because I have a small company with only one employee, but I like to hold it to get away and take a few friends to brainstorm some new ideas for the upcoming year.

I decided to hold the February meeting for an extra long weekend at Stowe Mountain’s Stonybrook Resort in Stowe, Vermont. I searched for a vacation home to rent on HomeAway.com and VRBO.com, two vacation rental websites I hadn’t used before.

I also searched Google for vacation homes in Stowe. As it turns out, the owners of the home that I chose have a website specifically to market the home: StoweVacationHome.com. The home was also listed on VRBO.com, which I used to facilitate the agreement.

I can’t say that the only reason I chose this home was because of the domain name, but there were three I was considering, and the generic domain name was the deciding factor for me.

It also spurred me to hand register KillingtonVacationHome.com, SquawValleyVacationHome, SnowmassVacationHome.com, and WhistlerVacationHome.com. Not sure if I will get into that business, but I do know that HomeAway owns names like VailVacationHome.com and DestinVacationHome.com.

Maybe some day, I will trade each of those domain names for a week’s vacation!

Photo: Flickr

I Love Vegas (Generic Domain Names)

Elliot Silver

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November 17, 2010

11

We made a last minute decision to take a trip to Las Vegas, and we landed last night. My wife has never been to Vegas before, and I have never been for anything other than a bachelor party. It’s been a long couple of weeks (new site, dissertation defense, marathon…etc), and we needed a short respite.

When I was looking into booking options, I decided to support the companies who operate on generic domain names. We got a great deal on a round trip JetBlue flight and hotel room packaged together at Vegas.com. They offer a ton of deals at just about every airline and hotel in the area. I saved a couple hundred dollars by not booking on the airline website and Hotels.com… not bad.

I then did some research on restaurants in Las Vegas. As you might expect, LasVegasRestaurants.com ranks at the top of Google for a search of Las Vegas Restaurants. The website had photos, menus, and reviews of many restaurants in Las Vegas, and I was even able to make a dinner reservation right on the site. An hour later, the reservation was confirmed, and we are good to go.

Just like I prefer to shop at family-owned stores, I also like to patronize websites that understand domain names when all else is equal. Gotta respect the domain intelligence.

Parent Company of Diapers.com & Soap.com to be Acquired by Amazon

Generic Domain Names

Elliot Silver

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November 6, 2010

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Fortune is reporting that Amazon is acquiring Quidsi, the parent company of Diapers.com and Soap.com, in a $540 million acquisition. This is a cash deal, and the founders of Quidsi have been reportedly signed to employment contracts by Amazon.

I think this is a very smart move by Amazon, and it follows the company’s acquisition of online retailer Zappos, which was announced about 15 months ago. The two companies have continued to run separately after that acquisition, and I would imagine Amazon will continue to leverage the Diapers.com and Soap.com brands as separate business entities.

It was just a few months ago (in July of 2010) that Quidsi launched Soap.com. At that time, it was reported that Diapers.com had revenue of over $300 million annually.

As I mentioned previously, Quidsi’s business model seems very similar to TABcom, LLC (known before as PetsUnited), the $100 million+ company that operates Dog.com, Horse.com, Garden.com, Fish.com, and many more e-commerce websites on generic domain names. I wonder if Amazon will give Alex Tabibi a call in the near future.

Dallas Cowboys Suck, But Cowboys.com Now Available for Sale via Sedo

Elliot Silver

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November 4, 2010

27

It looks like rookie Sedo domain broker (but veteran domain investor) Dave Evanson has scored a touchdown with this recent catch. According to the landing page on Cowboys.com, the domain name is now for sale with Evanson quarterbacking the transaction.

The Cowboys.com domain name has had an interesting recent history. Previously it was a country western website, and it then went to auction at the TRAFFIC conference. A representative for the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys had the winning bid of $275,000 at the live auction, but it turns out that he apparently thought the price was $275 rather than $275,000. It was later sold at the silent auction to a group of domain investors.

The group originally had some big plans for the domain name, but any time you get a group of A-type personalities on a project, it can be difficult to make headway. As the saying goes, it looks like there were “too many chiefs, but not enough firefighters.” You can see two videos from the Cowboys.com party embedded below (via YouTube).

If you are interested in bidding on the domain name, you can visit the Sedo listing or contact Dave Evanson by sending an email to dave.evanson@sedo.com or by calling 1 (617) 499-7222.

Rick Schwartz, Darren Cleveland, and a fake horse.

Eric Rice and Darren Cleveland

Generic Domain Names

Oprah Launches Oprah Winfrey Network, Settles for OWN.TV, Doesn’t Own Own.com

Publicly Traded Banks.com Enters Into Agreement with Domain Capital

Smart Marketing for Stowe Vacation Home

I Love Vegas (Generic Domain Names)

Parent Company of Diapers.com & Soap.com to be Acquired by Amazon

Dallas Cowboys Suck, But Cowboys.com Now Available for Sale via Sedo

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