Geographic Domain Names

My wife and I decided to spend a few days in south Florida before the Traffic conference begins. Yesterday afternoon, we took a short trip to West Palm Beach to visit the Green Market for lunch. I highly recommend checking it out if you’re in the area.

The visit reminded me to call David Castello (who owns WestPalmBeach.com) to ask if I’d see him at the conference, since he and his brother Michael attend many domain-related events. Unfortunately, he won’t be attending, but the call gave us a chance to catch up, and some big things are happening for CCIN.

On the business side of things, the company is close to finalizing a “major investment deal with investors in Toronto.” Aside from their well known geodomain assets (PalmSprings.com, Nashville.com, LagunaBeach.com…etc), David and Michael own a portfolio of descriptive domain names like Whisky.com, Kennel.com, Cost.com, Rate.com, and others.

The Castello Brothers just returned from a trip to Toronto, and this investment deal would certainly be big news in the domain space. I don’t have details about the type of investment deal that they’re discussing, but I was told it’s quite significant.

On the personal side of things, David is rocking and rolling in Nashville – for real. In February of 2010, David played a drum solo at the Hard Rock in Vegas at the Traffic conference. To warm up, he decided to jam at a night club in Palm Springs, where he met a couple of girls who six months later later introduced him to a musician named Bree (on her 21st birthday).

To make a long story short, Bree and David have been joined at the hip ever since and Bree’s career is taking off in Nashville in a big way.   David’s drumming for Bree and he’s also managing her career (David has a long history in the music business as a drummer, manager and promoter before he and his brother launched CCIN). For the last several months, David’s been burning the candle at both ends… living the life of a rock star!

I am bummed about not having the chance to hang out with David and Michael, but I am excited to hear about all of the goings on with CCIN.

What Will Happen to Boston.com?

Yesterday, The Boston Globe announced that it is launching a subscription based service on BostonGlobe.com. According to an article posted on Boston.com,  “the company has decided to split its news brands – Boston.com and The Boston Globe – into two distinct websites.”

It appears that the company plans to leave Boston.com free to use for now, and it will remain ad-supported. Boston.com will feature breaking news, sports, and weather reports, as well as classified advertising. It will also have travel, restaurant, entertainment, and hotel information. Essentially, it seems that Boston.com is going to be a beefed up version of many city .com websites found in the GeoPublishers.com network.

What will ultimately come of one of the best US city .com domain names remains of interest to me?  Could the Boston Globe ultimately sell off this prized website? Time will tell if the  subscription  based revenue model will work.

My gut says they will have a difficult time converting Boston.com readers into paying subscribers. I don’t think it would be wise to sell of the Boston.com brand, but who knows.

What do you think will happen to Boston.com and do you think the subscription model will work?

Yesterday, I reported that VisitCuba.com sold for $100,000 + stock worth around $11,000. Other Visit geodomain names like VisitStockholm.com, VisitBerlin.com, and VisitFlorida.com have sold for significant sums, and I know of a few pretty large sales and offers that are either private or haven’t been closed yet (like VisitTurkey.com).

I own a few Visit city .com domain names and have been interested in selling these and/or buying additional names (I own VisitSaoPaulo.com, VisitBogota.com, and VisitGrandCayman.com). I’ve done quite a bit of research to see what entities own other Visit domain names, and a considerable number of them are owned by tourism ministries, boards, and CVBs.

I think the usage by these organizations has given some authority to the “Visit” branding, which in turn has made them more valuable. As a domain investor, I see a downside being that when you use the call to action VisitXYZ.com, it sounds like you’re telling people to go and visit XYZ.com.

I want to share some of my research on Visit domain names which are owned by tourism boards of various cities, states, and countries. This is by no means a complete list. Feel free to post the ones you know about in the comment section.

• VisitCalifornia.com
• VisitFlorida.com
• VisitMaine.com
• VisitNebraska.com
• VisitVermont.com
• VisitVirginia.com
• VisitCharlotte.com
• VisitDallas.com
• VisitDenver.com
• VisitDetroit.com
• VisitJacksonville.com
• VisitHouston.com
• VisitLasVegas.com
• VisitOrlando.com
• VisitPittsburgh.com
• VisitPortland.com
• VisitSanAntonio.com
• VisitSanDiego.com
• VisitStLouis.com
• VisitChile.com
• VisitCostaRica.com
• VisitEngland
• VisitIceland.com
• VisitJamaica.com
• VisitJordan.com
• VisitMexico.com
• VisitMonaco.com
• VisitPanama.com
• VisitPortugal.com
• VisitScotland.com
• VisitSweden.com
• VisitBarcelona.com
• VisitBerlin.com
• VisitDublin.com
• VisitPuertoVallarta.com
• VisitStockholm.com
• VisitVancouver.com

One of my favorite cities in the United States is New Orleans, and I’ve always been a fan of NewOrleans.com. I’ve also had the chance to meet the team running the website at the GeoDomain Expo and via email afterwards. While  planning a June vacation in NOLA, I noticed that NewOrleans.com had undergone a major overhaul to almost completely focus on tourism.

I think this was a very smart move for the company, which previously employed many journalists and other overhead-intensive staff (expensive).

From my perspective, people who are doing the main searches for New Orleans are those who are planning vacations. They want to book hotels, make fight reservations, and research great restaurants. News and sports does drive traffic, but it’s difficult to monetize without significant sales staff (as I have experienced). Additionally, with New Orleans being somewhat of a gritty city, home page news articles aren’t as enticing as hotel and attraction images.

I’m not sure how I missed it, but NewOrleans.com and Vegas.com  announced a partnership in January “to launch a full-service New Orleans vacation booking site.” Vegas.com is probably the highest producing geodomain name, and I would imagine the tourism to local search ratio is probably similar for both cities. Smart move partnering up with a leading site like Vegas.com.

One of the best things about a city.com domain name (vs a city keyword domain name) is the versatility it gives the owner. Aside from what looks to be an  anomalous drop in traffic in April (only according to Compete), NewOrleans.com appears to be chugging right along with its new business model.

Kudos to the management team for trying out a business model and quickly changing when it became necessary. As they say in New Orleans, laissez les bon temps rouler. Looking forward to my trip in June.