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Domain Branding Mistake by TicketReserve.com

Elliot Silver
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TicketReserve.com offers a unique service, allowing fans to purchase ticket options for future sporting events. For example, a fan could have purchased an option to buy a New England Patriots Super Bowl ticket at face value for around $300 at the beginning of the season, which is less than 10% of the current market price on StubHub. If the Patriots didn’t make it to the Super Bowl, the option would be worthless, and the person would have lost the cost of the option. TicketReserve.com counts CBS as an investor, and they have relationships with many professional sports teams in the NFL, NBA, NHL as well as college sports teams.
Recently, TicketReserve.com announced that they will be rebranding, and the company will be known as FirstDibz.com as of February 1st, 2008. From the January 7th press release,

“We needed a new identity, a fresh approach,” said Daniel Lotzof, TicketReserve.com president. “This ideally will allow fans to understand better what we’re offering. I think there was some confusion in the market, some areas where we weren’t received with a fully open mind. This also allows us to expand our focus a bit and also get into things like hotel accommodations for these events.“

I believe TicketReserve.com is making a critical domain branding mistake. While the spelling of “First Dibz” may seem unique, it is probable that customers and potential customers will think of “First Dibs,” and may consequently type-in FirstDibs.com, a domain name owned by another company since at least 2001 (according to the Whois history). I believe this will cause much more confusion to customers than the market confusion the company believes currently exists.
If the company is content with FirstDibz.com as a new brand, it is essential that they do what they can to purchase FirstDibs.com as well. Unfortunately, FirstDibs.com currently has privacy guard in place preventing easy access to contact the owner, however, with a few minutes of detective work, they should be able to get in touch with the owner relatively easily. Making an offer worthy of accepting, after they already began promoting their brand, will presumably be much more difficult than had they attempted to purchase the name prior to rebranding.

Hollywood… Here I Come!

Elliot Silver
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It’s official. I just booked my trip to Hollywood for DomainFest. I will be headed out to California after my meeting on Tuesday and will be there until Thursday.
Hope to see you there!

Responding to a Domain Name Offer

Elliot Silver
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Like nearly any piece of property or other asset, almost all domain names are technically for sale for the right price. There aren’t many domain owners who would pass up on a high seven figure cash offer for a domain name, with the exception of developed businesses or very few exceptional domain names. If you sincerely have the ability to pass up on a $5,000,000 for a domain name, I congratulate you, and you can probably stop reading this post and go back to your bottle of 1926 Macallan.
For those of you who have more of a Budweiser taste, please continue.
The problem I see is the way some UDRP proceedings have gone recently, where domain owners can potentially be penalized if they receive an offer and attempt to negotiate a better deal. It seems that some UDRP panels consider an owner’s contemplation of selling a domain name a sign of bad faith. This is dangerous for domain owners, and I know it causes many people to think twice whenever an offer or solicitation is received. Just about everything in this world has some sort of price, and simply because a person would consider selling a possession doesn’t mean that they owned the possession for the sole purpose of selling it.
That said, I think domain owners might be well suited to respond to certain domain email inquiries and offers with an agreement to waive the right to file a UDRP or lawsuit if anything about the domain name is discussed. The person making the inquiry or offer would have to waive his rights to any future legal action before ANY discussion about the name can take place. Any person who is interested in buying the name should be willing to sign, and if someone isn’t willing to sign, it probably means they have ulterior motives, or perhaps they are just kicking the tires.
I am not an attorney, so this isn’t a legal opinion, but the point of this post is to discuss the question of whether this type of agreement would protect domain owners and if it would be a legally binding agreement. Since most domain owners would be willing to sell names in their portfolio for a price (even though that price could be sky high), it might be something worth considering before future negotiations.

Glad I'm a Domain Investor

Elliot Silver
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The US Dollar is weak and real estate values are dropping in most parts of the country. To make matters even worse, the stock market has been tanking of late. With the value of domain names continuing to rise, I am certainly glad to be a domain investor at this point.
Who knows how much farther real estate values will decline or how much more the market will slide, but a common sentiment among people I know is that if anyone needs to liquidate their generic names to generate cash, there are plenty of people willing to buy them at fair prices. The Internet continues to grow, people are growing their online presence, and as the economy struggles, more people will move online to make money.
Down Jones

CNN Buys iReport.com for $750,000

Elliot Silver
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Following up on a post from a few days ago, it was revealed that Rick Schwartz sold the name iReport.com to CNN for $750,000.   Also included in this price is the hyphenated version, i-Report.com. These great domain names will be used by CNN to supplement their i-Report program.
Founded in August of 2006, i-Report encourages viewers from around the country to send their own videos and photos of breaking news stories in their cities and neighborhoods. This user generated media feature has become popular, and it frequently allows CNN to break news stories before other networks are on the ground.

Perfect Domain Auction Email Marketing Tactic

Elliot Silver
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The best direct marketing tactic for a live domain auction I’ve seen didn’t come from an auction house. Nope – it wasn’t from one of the major companies actually hosting the auction. Today I received an email from someone who has a domain name listed for sale in the upcoming DomainFest Snapnames Live Auction.

“To Whom It May Concern:
Wu.net will attend the Domainfest auction (in person and also online) from Jan. 22, with reserved price of only US$ 10,000.
If you are interested, please visit their website as soon as possible, and make all the necessary preparations:
https://www.snapnames.com/liveAuctions.do
Thank you and good luck!
Meken”

I’ve seen many complaints from people who have names in various live auctions, and many of them are related to the auction house not doing a good enough job of bringing potential buyers to the auction. This seller isn’t going to simply rely on the auction house to bring a buyer for his name. He is going through his past emails, finding people who have inquired about this name in the past, and encouraging them to sign up and bid. I had sent him an email in October of 2006 when I was in the market for a 2 letter .net domain name.
I applaud Meken for not relying on Snapnames to bring potential bidders to the auction for WU.net (although with their fantastic auction inventory, I don’t think it will be a problem). I also happen to think he has a reasonable reserve price of just $10,000 for this nice domain name. I would bet that WU.net will have a new owner in a couple of weeks.

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