The Atlantic may have paid six figures for TheWire.com for rebranding The Atlantic Wire to The Wire.
Atlantic Media purchased the domain name TheWire.com to rebrand The Atlantic Wire to simply The Wire. The sale may have been for six figures, depending on how you interpret a quote in an article published yesterday on CapitalNewYork.com.
The story quotes company president M. Scott Havens on how much the company paid for the domain name: “over five and less than seven figures.”
My initial interpretation of the quote is that the domain name sold for six figures. The domain was key for the company’s rebranding of The Atlantic Wire, which relaunched yesterday as simply The Wire. So paying six figures isn’t out of the question. But could it really mean that it sold for “over $10,000” but “less than $1,000,000”?
I tracked down the former owner (according to whois). Although the whois lists an owner in New York, I confirmed what the story said about the owner being in Europe. The person who answered the phone would not confirm that it was a six figure sale, but promised to follow up to an email I sent. That was about 24 hours ago and I haven’t heard back.
Also, yesterday I reached out to Atlantic Media’s Havens via LinkedIn to confirm that it was a six figure purchase. I haven’t heard back.
I’ll update this story if I learn more.
Owen Frager says
Truncation, Baby!
Jeff Edelman says
Your interpretation is the only one that makes sense. A very strange way of saying something if it meant otherwise.
Andrew Allemann says
Probably. You never know when someone is put on the spot in an interview, though. That’s why I tried/am trying to confirm.
Kassey says
It just tells me that each domain name must be judged on its own by seeing if it makes sense. There’s no one universal domain valuation rule. No all “the” have value, but this one does, and has a lot of value.
Dietmar says
“over five and less than seven figures.” means not “over $10,000″ but “less than $1,000,000″?
but
“over $99,999.99″ but “less than $1,000,000″
Ahoi!
Dietmar