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LastWillAndTestament.com

Elliot Silver
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2

I decided to sell my two legal domain names so I don’t lose focus on my main projects. I blogged about them to get opinions about which to develop, although I am going to sell rather than spend the time/resources developing.
LastWillAndTestament.com
1,120,000 Google results for “last will and testament”
Many top and side advertisers several pages deep
Aaron Wall’s Keyword Tool – 340 daily count
LegalZoom has a great affiliate program for these legal agreements
BIN price is $20,000.
UPDATE:
PrenuptialAgreement.com has been sold.

Domain Investment Fund

Elliot Silver
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10

I just read an article in the Wall Street Journal about a former UBS banker who recently started a wine fund. According to the article about former Wall St. banker Jorge Mora,

Mora joined with several former friends and clients to buy Italian Wine Merchants, an upscale New York wine retailer. He also is part of a new, four-man group that founded a $50 million investment fund, The Bottled Asset Fund, which will invest in “‘blue chip’ wines in inefficient markets,'” around 75% of which will be in Italy.

To me, the most interesting part of the article was the strategy of investing in inefficient markets. When I was in Italy, I saw first hand these inefficient markets. There are a ton of vineyards with great wines, but for someone (like myself) who likes wine but isn’t familiar with the different vineyards and various differences in the wine production, distinguishing a great wine from a good wine can be extremely difficult. I probably couldn’t tell the difference between a $40 bottle of wine and a $500 bottle.
This is very similar to the domain industry. There isn’t an MLS like in the real estate world, so the market is very inefficient. Unless you know the marketplace, it can be tough to tell the difference between a $5,000 domain name and a $50,000 domain name. Oftentimes, the main difference is how badly the buyer wants the name for a company or specific project. The wiser investor would own the more valuable domain name, while others would own the lesser valued domain name. This takes experience and deep pockets to make smart investments in various verticals.
Other companies have tried to create something like a domain fund, but more often than not, the domain names that were purchased were bought based on revenues that were generated from parking, and as parking decreases, the value of the domains and funds decrease, as there isn’t always value in the domain names beyond the revenue generated. Also, many large purchases have been riddled with domain names that have trademark issues. These are huge liabilities, as trademark holders see a company with deep pockets as a very large target.
If someone decides to start a domain fund like a wine fund, it won’t be based on PPC revenue. Like the wine fund, the value is in the actual assets rather than interest the assets are earning passively. Wines aren’t earning money as they sit unopened. They increase in value as people realize the value in the particular vintage. Domain names increase in value as people realize how important they are to businesses. Wines need to be marketed for people to realize the value, just as domain names need to be marketed or developed so people can see how they would help their business.
I see significant value in domain names, and this inefficient market could really be exploited if someone had the finances and time to wait to capitalize. It’s just a matter of time before an “under the radar” company buys the best domain names in the world for tens of millions of dollars. Perhaps that is already happening 😉

YouTube.mobi…

Elliot Silver
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3

…doesn’t have videos because Google doesn’t own it. If you want to visit YouTube on your mobile browser, you need to visit m.YouTube.com. I don’t understand why a major registry like .mobi (or any other new registry) would sell a clear trademark domain name to a private domain investor. In my opinion, a registry needs the leading companies (like Google/YouTube) to market their websites using these new extension in order for people to adopt, which would lead to the growth of the registry.
YouTube.mobi would have been the perfect way to show that Google had confidence in .mobi. Now, if a savvy web browser tries to visit YouTube on his browser using .mobi, he will be left with a website with no videos. Why haven’t they filed a UDRP or an injunction to stop the owner from using their trademark to get this important domain name? One reason can be seen in this article found in the Yahoo Tech Ticker. For comparison purposes, Google owns the rights to YouTube.tv, YouTube.asia, YouTube.me, YouTube.eu and many other newer TLD.
The point of this is to basically say that while I do believe that relevant domain names in alternative extensions are good if they make sense, I also think you need to consider exactly which extension to purchase. You need to see whether consumers are really adopting the extension, which would add value to your brand and domain investment. Also,
Likewise, the registries need to do all they can to make sure consumers adopt their brands. Consumer adoption will lead to investor adoption, and more domain names will be sold if people use them. When speculators own and don’t develop the prime domain names of a particular extension, consumers can’t adopt. If consumers can’t or won’t adopt, the domain names aren’t really worth much. The only sales will be to other investors, and eventually the bubble bursts when new money isn’t invested.

Domain Recognition – Buying Domains Smartly

Elliot Silver
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9

After spending two weeks in Europe and the UK, and now thinking about the industry with a new “set of glasses,” I really think that relevance is more important than the extension – when it comes to developed domain names. With the current domain parking and monetization options, domain names that receive traffic will typically have some value, but as PPC revenue continues to decline, the safest and smartest domain acquisitions are those that are usable and recognizable by Internet users.
With few exceptions, no matter what the extension is, I think domain usability and visitor recognition are two of the most important things to consider when making a purchase. If you or someone else would be willing to spend thousands of dollars building a website on a particular domain name, it might be one in which you would want to invest at the right price. Intuitive names like Enoteca.it (wine bar in Italian), Mapas.es (maps in Spanish), Homes.tv, Burbank.com…etc are all great domain names on which to develop a website as people will presumably type them in searching for something familiar. People know the words, and if they are familiar with an extension, they will have no problem visiting a website on that domain name.
Sure, a domain name that receives traffic may be good, but a usable domain name with little traffic may be much more valuable. While some may argue that a name with inherent traffic is the most valuable, I would argue that a usable domain could be more valuable. If PPC continues to drop as it has, direct to business advertising and/or domain sales to end users will be the best way to make money on a domain name in the future. While names that receive traffic for unknown reasons may have value now, down the road, when they are more difficult to monetize, they may be worth less.
I always think it is smart to buy non-trademark, product-related, service-related, geographical, descriptive and other similar generic domain names. People will always want to build on these domain names (if you don’t), and they will always be salable. In tough economic times, it is important to make wise investment decisions. The deals you make now will allow you to be successful in the future.
I am still recovering from the trip, so please excuse typos or if this doesn’t make complete sense 🙂

Back to Reality

Elliot Silver
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12

Karen and I had an amazing honeymoon, and I want to thank many of you for your emails and notes while I was away. Although I did spend a bit of time keeping up with the domain news while Karen was at the gym, I didn’t respond to emails. I now have a few hundred emails to go through, and I hope to be back at full speed by the end of the week.
For our honeymoon, we spent two weeks in Croatia and Italy and an evening in London. I am still recovering from the trip, especially that last night in London (barely made the flight home yesterday!) In the meantime while I recover and catch up on some business and emails, here are a few domain observations from my honeymoon:
Country code domains are MUCH more popular outside of the US   – I would estimate about 40% of the Crotian websites I saw advertised used .hr (Hrvatska) and about 85% of the websites I saw advertised in Italy used .it. I also saw several .gr, .eu, .info websites on billboards, television, trucks, boats…etc.   You don’t see much of that in the US with the .us extension.
Companies reaching out to a more global audience (tourism, international companies, real estate companies) used .com much more than other extensions.
Almost everyone we met spoke at least a bit of English, and most were able to understand what we were saying.
While buying country code domain names might seem to make sense, I think it’s essential to determine the proper spelling/meaning or foreign words before investing – (Yeah, I know… “Thanks, Mr. Obvious.”)
I saw quite a few Internet cafes in passing, but even the very nice places I stayed had limited wireless capabilities. Le Meridian in Split, Croatia had wireless in the lobby, but they didn’t have wireless in the rooms. Villa San Paolo in San Gimignano – Tuscany – (by far the nicest spa hotel I’ve visited) didn’t have any wireless that I found. Even the Copthorne Tara in London didn’t have wireless in the guest rooms.
After seeing many advertisements for villas and villa rentals in Croatia and Italy, I believe the recent sale of Villas.com could be considered a steal. Not only did I see websites advertising villas (DalmatianVillas.com and DalmatianVilla.com), many of them were targeting international travelers and used the .com extension.
I had great Blackberry mobile email service throughout the trip – even in Cinque Terre, Italy and Tuscany.   No, I didn’t do business while away, but I did get Red Sox scores and other news remotely.
The biggest domain surprise of the trip was seeing a billboard advertising a .tv website at the Dubrovnik (Croatia) airport. Not surprisingly, it was the only .tv website I saw advertised for the entire trip 🙂   Sorry, had to mention it.
Well, that’s it for now.   Time to get back home and get caught up with everything.

    Wedding Entertainment (.) com

    Elliot Silver
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    11

    While planning my wedding, I decided to develop WeddingEntertainment.com. Initially, I tried to sell the name, but I couldn’t find a buyer quickly. With my experience planning a wedding, I decided that I would build a site to increase the value of the domain name rather than settling and reducing my asking price for a quick sale.
    I got in touch with Rick Latona who told me about his new rapid website development service. Using some content I had written as well as a logo I had created, Rick’s team built a website for me in less than a couple weeks – probably closer to a week. While the site might not win any design awards, it has improved the CTR and is accomplishing its goal.
    With the support of Rick’s team performing various marketing activities to help support the new site, I am seeing some positive results – all of which couldn’t be achieved by parking the domain name. In fact, currently, the site is listed on the first results page for MSN. More work needs to be done by me to make the site read better, but it’s gotten off to a strong start.
    All in all, I think the new service is a reasonably priced way to launch a website on a domain name that has value, but just needs some TLC. While parked, the RPC for WeddingEntertainment.com was somewhere around $1.50, and I am seeing similar adsense results. There has been an increase in traffic, and I am beginning to see some SE traffic from Google. This has led to an increase in revenue, which obviously increases the value when I decide to sell the domain name/website.
    For more information, check out AEIOU.com or drop Rick an email. Now that the entertainment for my wedding has been well-executed, it’s time for the honeymoon!

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