Earlier this morning on Twitter, James Booth reported that his company sold Picture.com for $225,000. The buyer is reportedly Brent Oxley, although the Whois registration information is private at Namecheap, and the nameservers are not yet updated:
https://t.co/lqWXuQJ0m9 sold for $225,000! Great price for the buyer @Chain
— James Booth (@DomainBooth) November 7, 2020
I want to share a bit of a weird story. Yesterday afternoon, I received an Auction Start email for a domain name I had backordered at NameJet. When I saw that I was the High Bidder, I was surprised because I am pretty sure I placed this backorder after seeing it had already received at least one other bid. I was expecting to be an underbidder, giving me additional time to decide whether to bid further. This happens, and bidders should always be prepared to be the high bidder.
When I visited the auction page, I saw that it was a “Direct Lister” auction, meaning that it was privately listed for auction and was not an expiry auction. I was curious to see who listed this domain name for sale, so I did a Whois search. Much to my surprise, my company is the registrant of the domain name, which was created at the end of September.
Bill Sweetman, founder of Name Ninja, has been involved in the domain industry for many years. I first met Bill when he worked at Tucows, managing the company’s YummyNames domain name portfolio. At Name Ninja, Bill works primarily with businesses seeking to buy domain names. His industry experience is why Bill is one of the few people who regularly moderates conference panels and discussions.
Bill shared that he was the featured guest on a startup-focused podcast called The Startup Stack, which is hosted by Louis Beryl. The discussion centered around choosing a domain name and acquiring a domain name. I have not had time to listen to the podcast, but here are the primary topics that were discussed:
When I saw a UDRP filing against Stars.com at the National Arbitration Forum, I did a double take. Stars.com is clearly a valuable domain name, and the generic nature of Stars.com should make it entirely defensible. Attorney Stevan Lieberman represented the registrant, Leo Radvinsky / Cybertania Inc., in this proceeding, and the three member panel ruled in favor of the registrant. The UDRP decision was posted to the NAF website this morning.
The UDRP was filed by a company called Al-Dabbagh Group Holding Company, and the allegation in the complaint shows why it filed this UDRP:
In the past few years, a number of brand marketplaces have opened to help business operators find brand names. While these platforms are ostensibly selling brand names, in reality, they are also helping domain investors sell their domain names. Three of the most well known (to me) brand marketplaces to sell domain names include SquadHelp, Brand Bucket, and Brandpa.
When someone is looking to start a brand or rebrand their business, there is a good chance they will do various Google searches related to brand name creation. I would imagine there are more people looking at brand-related keywords than domain name search keywords. I would imagine that more business owners are looking to find a perfect brand name and then hope to find the most suitable domain name that matches. SquadHelp founder Darpan Munjal touched on this in a tweet on Sunday:
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