Home Blog Page 1329

Sex.com For Sale in Foreclosure Auction

Elliot Silver
-
80

Sex.com

In exactly one month from today, we may see a new record set for the price of a domain sale. I just received an email from a friend with a link to a notice stating that SEX.com will be up for auction. The foreclosure auction will be held at the offices of Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf, LLP, 156 West 56th Street, New York, New York on March 18, 2010 at 11 am.

In order to bid on the auction, you must come prepared with a certified bank check in the amount of $1,000,000, made payable to “Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf, LLP, as escrow agent.” The auction may be open to the public.

The auction description is as follows:

All of Borrower’s interest in and to all right, title and interest in an undivided 100% interest in the internet domain name and related INERNIC registration of the URL www.sex.com, and 100% of all cash proceeds, accounts receivable, licensing rights and intellectual property rights directly associated with or derived from the ownership of such URL.

The tale of Sex.com is actually very interesting, and a book was written about it a few years ago. The Cliff’s Notes version is that Match.com founder Gary Kremen originally registered the domain name, but it was then stolen by Stephen Cohen, and a 10 year legal battle ensued. A company called ESCOM, LLC acquired Sex.com in January of 2006, although terms of the deal were not disclosed. There was an article that pegged the sale at $14 million, but there was no confirmation that this number is accurate.

More information about the auction can be found on the David R. Maltz & Co website, and you can also download the auction notice pdf for more information. One interesting note from the auction notice is that it comes from a Dom Partners, LLC at 2050 Center Avenue (Suite 600) in Fort Lee, NJ – the same address as Domain Capital, who reportedly provided part of the financing.

Where and How Are You Selling Your Domain Names?

Elliot Silver
-
15

After posting yesterday’s article discussing what names have sold recently, which was a follow up post to the post about recent domain purchases, Steve Morsa and a couple of others suggested a follow-up post. Although it’s very interesting to see what names are selling, it might be even more important to learn about where domain sellers are having luck making their sales.

For the most part, I have been selling my domain names in private to other domain investors looking. For me, the key is knowing what type of names my buyers are looking to buy and to present them with a very reasonable price. The people I sell to are contacts I’ve made over the years through my blog, at conferences, on forums, and in private. Maybe I could make more on individual domain names by targeting and finding end users, but I am comfortable with the sales I make.

I recently sold one domain name at the DomainFest Live auction run by Moniker (GunCollection.com). The sale didn’t yield as much as I had hoped, but it is what it is. I opted to not set a reserve price on the domain name, and it sold for the minimum.

Although I haven’t sold many names on domain forums, I did sell one recently on Namepros (iCookbook.com). The buyer made his first post on that forum by saying he wanted the name, which leads me to believe he had wanted this name specifically, and he signed up to buy it. His company is in that industry, so that would make sense. Maybe I priced it too low, but I sold it for a profit.

Finally, I sold a couple of names recently on my blog, although I haven’t listed many for sale here in a while. I generally try to limit my sales posts on the blog, but it’s been a good vehicle to sell domain names in the past.

I (and others) are interested in learning where you have sold some of your domain names recently, and how those sales materialized.

Idearc Making Play for “Super” Domain Names?

Elliot Silver
-
14

Idearc SupermediaIt appears like the marketing and Internet Yellow Pages company formerly known as Idearc, and now known as SuperMedia, may have recently made a strong play for “Super” domain names.

In this week’s sales report on DNJournal, it was reported that SuperElectricians.com, SuperMechanics.com and SuperPainters.com each sold for $10,000 apiece. All three of these are currently registered in the name of Sedo’s Escrow account, presumably awaiting transfer.

This morning, Eric Borgos of Impulse Communications announced (in a comment on my blog) that his company recently sold several Super domain names. The names his company sold were SuperMortgages.com for $7,500, SuperFlorists.com for $3,000, SuperMoving.com for $7,500, and SuperPrinting.com for $4,000. All of these domain names are registered to Idearc  Media, which is now known as SuperMedia.

The company also owns SuperExterminators.com and SuperCarRepair.com. In addition, SuperPlumbing.com looks to be at Sedo Escrow as well. There may be others, but I only checked a handful of names I thought would make sense for them to own.

Does this mean that “Super” names have more value now than before? Probably not. I wouldn’t advise going out to buy these names unless you can get great prices. It’s more than likely the company already went after the domain names they wanted, and if you buy them with the hopes of flipping them, you might be stuck.

Barack Obama on Twitter: Using Libya ccTLD for URL Shortener

Elliot Silver
-
8

Barack Obama on Twitter

I am not someone who is interested in politics or discussing politics. In fact, I strongly dislike political conversations with polarizing topics – it’s just not my thing. That being said, I came across President Obama’s Twitter page this afternoon and saw something that I think is pretty ironic.

Just about all of the URLs that are linked to from the President’s page use Bitly to shorten the URL. Although Bitly owns Bitly.com, it primarily uses Bit.LY for its shortened URLs, and .LY is the ccTLD for the country of Libya. For instance, http://bit.ly/bROnKn, http://www.bit.ly/9-l, and http://bit.ly/a-r were all recently used on President Obama’s Twitter page.

As you are may be aware, the country of Libya, along with Cuba and Syria was described by John Bolton as “Beyond the Axis of Evil.”   The government of Libya isn’t exactly on the friendliest of terms with the US government, so it’s somewhat humorous in an ironic way that the President’s Twitter staff would choose to use Bitly to shorten URLs.

From what I understand, it’s fairly simple to create a URL shortener on any domain name. There are plenty of short .US domain names that would make the perfect URL shortener for our President. Just some food for thought.

What Domain Names Have You Sold Recently?

Elliot Silver
-
55

I wrote a popular post a couple of days ago asking people what recent domain acquisitions they made, and that post has received 71 comments as of this afternoon. Steve Morsa followed it up with an email suggesting another post asking readers to post some of their recent sales.

At first, I was a bit hesitant to post this because I keep just about all of my sales and sales prices private. However, I don’t mind revealing some of my recent sales, albeit without sales prices.

  • Danvers.com
  • GolfBooks.com
  • BoroughPark.com
  • ParkSlope.com
  • GunCollection.com
  • RittenhouseSquare.com
  • UniqueInk.com
  • iCookbook.com
  • DeepWrinkleTreatments.com
  • ChristmasLawnOrnaments.com

If you’d like to post some of your recent sales with or without sales prices, feel free to do so. It’s an interesting look at what the aftermarket is doing.

Vegas.com Backed by County for .Vegas gTLD While City Backs Other Entity

Elliot Silver
-
1

Vegas.comAccording to an article in the Las Vegas Review Journal, the operators of the famous Vegas.com website won a key endorsement from Nevada’s Clark County board of commissioners to run the .Vegas gTLD if and when ICANN approves the introduction of these domain name.

The county vote was unanimous, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that Vegas.com’s operators will actually be able to manage the .Vegas suffix. The city of Las Vegas previously endorsed Dot Vegas, Inc., another organization that would like to run the .Vegas gTLD. I personally find it a bit odd that another entity won considering the strength of the Vegas.com brand outside of Las Vegas… but what do I know.

Of course, the big winner in this will be ICANN. I presume both entities are going to have to pay ICANN a LOT of money to apply for the gTLD, and then ICANN can decide whether Clark County or the City of Las Vegas has the greater right to select an organization to manage the registry. This is another big issue that ICANN will need to sort through before they make their decision.

With millions of dollars at stake, all of the minor issues will certainly become major. Since the Clark County commissioners have been told the .Vegas gTLD “eventually could generate millions of dollars in fees for the county,” they probably won’t take a rejection lightly and litigation could follow. I guess it’s a good thing that ICANN is charging so much for applications – the legal fees could become enormous (imagine if the State of New York wants a .NewYork while New York City wants .NYC).

No matter whether Vegas.com gets awarded the .Vegas suffix or not (if/when ICANN approves their introduction), they will still be the winners when people type in things like hotels.Vegas.com and vacation.Vegas.com

1...1,3281,3291,330...1,573Page 1,329 of 1,573