Startup pries domain name loose from software giant.
When your startup wants to upgrade its domain name, it’s never a good sign when the domain you want is owned by one of the biggest companies in the world.
That’s what happened recently with “social discovery engine” The Hotlist. The company uses TheHotlist.com as its main domain name. As any domain investor will tell you, this means a lot of people tried to find the site at Hotlist.com. (Remember how Facebook was once TheFacebook.com?)
The problem: Microsoft owned Hotlist.com.
But on Friday the startup managed to finally close on a transaction to buy the domain name from Microsoft. A company representative declined to disclose the purchase price, but said the company has been talking to Microsoft for a couple years about acquiring the domain name.
Congrats to TheHotlist.com. Or should I say Hotlist.com?
reinsurance says
interesting, thanks
i don’t get why these people never reveal the price
unless its an nda
ms is a publicly traded company, surely somewhere they have to reveal the sales price to shareholders?
i contacted apple about the purchase price of me.com
to their credit they got back but said they don’t reveal these things
Andrew Allemann says
they only have to disclose if its material for the public company. this is hardly material for microsoft.
Frantisek Mrazek says
If hotlist.com would be owned by a domainer they would try UDRP first
jorge says
It would be nice the new owners would share some “bargaining tips” on how they made this deal work with Microsoft. Who did they contact? Did they already know someone? What exactly happened during those “couple of years” that they were talking to Microsoft.
Surely, that can be revealed without the selling price.
PS. I wish *I* had HotList.com 🙂
Rob says
They must have seen the Facebook movie and finally decided to make their move. What it took? probably a lot of $$$, or a deal to promote Bing on their site.
Luc Biggs says
I recently made an offer to purchase this domain and it was accepted. Would be interesting to know what it was purchased/sold for back in the day when Microsoft owned it…