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New York City Set to Cash in on .NYC

Elliot Silver
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17

With the economic crisis causing a major impact to New York City’s revenue, the city is hoping to cash in on the .nyc extension, which they hope will be approved quickly and available to sell by next summer.

According to an article appearing today in Crain’s, “City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced during her state-of-the-city address Thursday that the “.nyc” domain will start generating a fresh stream of revenue for the city next summer.” Quinn also said that the .nyc extension will generate millions of dollars per year in licensing fees for allowing the group to create the extension.

With the uncertainty of gTLD approvals, I certainly hope the city isn’t counting on the revenue too soon.   My biggest question related to the .nyc extension… who is going to get RaysPizza.nyc?

Be Prepared for Tax Time

Elliot Silver
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4

It’s only February 12, but I am already thinking about tax time in just a couple of months.   I am not a finance or numbers guy, so I use an accountant to file my taxes, although I keep very good records of sales, expenses and other transactions.

One thing that made my life easier a couple of years ago was Sandy Brooks’ Domain Tax Guide. When I first explained to my accountant what I did as a hobby, he understood it, but I don’t think he knew anything about it.   At the time, I had made about $1,000 in profit, so it really didn’t matter at all.

As my income continued to rise, the tax impact did as well.   A couple of years ago, when domain revenue became a significant income stream for me, I sent him a copy of the Domain Tax Guide and asked him to read it and use it as a reference when doing my taxes.   If you are making a few thousand dollars or more, you should know the advantages and disadvantages of doing things certain ways.

A few things I think are important that are discussed in the Domain Tax Guide include:

  • Benefits of forming a LLC or other legal entity
  • When to consider domain sales inventory revenue
  • Whether domain names are assets
  • Depreciating domain name assets
  • How capital gains taxes work with domain names

There is a lot of value in the Domain Tax Guide, and although these are affiliate links, I strongly recommend using the tax guide as a reference – whether you file your own taxes or you have an accountant filing them for you. I’ve definitely saved a lot more money than this e-book cost.

WhyPark Monetization Changes Announced

Elliot Silver
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2

WhyPark announced some changes to their monetization model today, and these changes should lead to higher payouts for domain owners who have sites with WhyPark. It’s also a good way to test your ad system vs. their feed in a vacuum environment (testing is the best way to see what works and what doesn’t).

Personally, I used WhyPark for my wine-lovers website, Oenophiles.com. I was very pleased with the support from WhyPark, and the name is doing better with them than it was doing parked (by a lot).

I will be publishing an interview with WhyPark CEO Craig Rowe next week, and I am sure industry veteran Stephen Douglas will have some good input as well.

Good Strategy, but Poor Execution

Elliot Silver
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2

Buying domain names that are confusingly similar to your brand or product is a smart move that many companies don’t consider. However, owning domain names that are confusingly similar to your brands, but not forwarding that traffic to your main website is just plain stupid!

Extra TV, an NBC television show and a Warner Brothers Entertainment production has a feature called Luxaholics, and WB owns the corresponding domain name Luxaholics.com. Thumbs up to them for inventing a term, buying the matching domain name, and then branding the term. They also showed intelligence by purchasing the domain name Luxaholic.com as well.   Unfortunately, this domain name goes to a dead page.

Come on WB!!   Smarten up and forward the alternative domain name to the main page!   It might not mean much additional traffic, but it certainly doesn’t cost anything extra to do it.

Updated Top Drops at Snap

Elliot Silver
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0

I just did some searching on Snapnames, and I updated my Top Snapnames Drops page. I don’t usually buy .org domain names, but there are a couple of nice ones that will be dropping.

Tucows Sells Million Dollar Portfolio

Elliot Silver
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1

According to an 8-K Form filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission late yesterday, Tucows entered into an agreement to sell a small portfolio of 2,553 domain names for an aggregate price of $1,000,000.   Payment will be made in all cash, with $900,000 being paid at the close of the sale, $50,000 in August and the final $50,000 being paid in one year.

An interesting note in the filing, states “The agreement further provides that the purchaser will be entitled to purchase up to an additional $1.8 million of domain names from Tucows.com Co. between today and June 2010 on terms similar to the Agreement.”

It would be interesting to know what terms are included in this agreement, and whether the names were sold because of their intrinsic domain value, or if they were sold based on a revenue multiple.   If it was the later, I would be curious about how much of a revenue multiple it is.

Congratulations to Tucows!

Also, I want to note that I was “tipped off” to this great sale after following Tucows GM Bill Sweetman on Twitter.   You can also follow DomainInvesting.com too!

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