Domain Name Wire » Domain Sales

Hipsters.com for sale: Afternic teams up with SnapNames for auction and .Me kicks off at Sedo

Andrew Allemann — Fri, 25 May 2012 15:19:52 +0000

Where are my black framed glasses?

SnapNames just started its “Summer Kick-Off Auction“, run in conjunction with Afternic.

Although most of the domains in the auction are owned by Afternic or an affiliate company, some of the domains appear to be owned by the company’s larger clients.

Compared to recent auction lists, this one looks to be a winner. My personal favorite: Hipsters.com for under $10,000. That’s a great domain.

Ambitious.com $10k-$25k
Authorization.com $10k-$25k
Delicacies.com $5k – $10k
FilmCareers.com $1,01-$2,500
Haggler.com $10k – $25k
Hikers.com $10k – $25k
Hipsters.com $5k – $10k

Over at Sedo, the company just started its .me auction. It features 188 .me domains, all with reserves under $500. So far the top bid is $1,100 for Air.me.

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What domains Kanye West and others bought this week

Andrew Allemann — Fri, 25 May 2012 14:49:16 +0000

Kanye West buys domain name for new short film.

Kanye West has made some interesting naming decisions in the past. So let’s give him credit for buying CruelSummer.com for $3,000. Cruel Summer is the name of his new short film.

Here are some other end user domain buys from the past week. All sales took place at Afternic unless otherwise noted.

Forbes writer Rich Karlgaard, who has written about the “Power of Pairs”, paid $1,595 for PowerPairs.com.

I wrote about this one yesterday: Warner Bros bought Injustice.com for $7,500 for a new online game.

Columbus, Ohio insurance company Smart Financial bought FreeMortgageRates.com for $2,100.

Heifer Project International, the non-profit that lets you give charity gifts of animals such as a sheep and llama, bought BeyondHunger.com for $1,995.

Bank marketing company Financial Marketing Solutions picked up BankSimply.com for $2,500 at Sedo.

The owner of VideoResults.tv upgraded to VideoResults.com for $1,300. Smart idea at that price.

DekBrands, which markets a “floating foundation” deck system, bought AllAboutDecks.com for a hefty $15,995. Congrats to fellow domainer Gregg Ostrick on the sale.

Printer cartridge recycling company Advantage Cartridge bought RecyclingAdvantage.com for $2,500.

Marketing firm GO media LLC, which owns Go-Media.com, paid $835 for Go-Social.com at Sedo.

Social Sector Ventures, LLC, a fundraising company, bought SocialSector.com for $1,288.

Corpac Steel Products bought Corpac.net for $1,388. Its web site is CorpacSteel.com.

Applications2U shortened its URL from Applications2u.com to a2u.net for $1,500.

iCrossing UK, a Hearst company, bought DirectDigitalBroadband.com and FreeBroadbandNow.org at Sedo for $1,250 each.

Dating site One2One.com paid $2,000 for AmericasMostEligible.com

Washington State Parks paid $4,388 for the clever marketing domain AdventureAwaits.com.

Louisville heating and cooling company Allgeier Air bought LouisvilleHeating.com for $796 at Sedo. This company gets it; it already owns LouisvilleAir.com.

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Warner Bros buys Injustice.com for $7500 – a new online game?

Andrew Allemann — Thu, 24 May 2012 13:28:47 +0000

Movie studio buys domain Injustice.com — for a new online game or movie?

Movie studio Warner Bros. has purchased the domain name Injustice.com for $7,500 through Afternic.

This is one of those domains with many uses, but that the owner must have known could end up being the title of a movie or game. It’s kind of like Invasion.com, which is in Sedo’s Great Domains auction this week. However, Injustice.com has a lot more commercial uses than Invasion.com.

It doesn’t appear that Warner Bros. has any announced movies named Injustice. There’s a documentary about class action lawsuits by this name that’s gaining steam, though. Perhaps the movie studio has bought the distribution rights.

There’s one more clue in the whois record that suggests and entirely different use. The DNS records for the domain have been set to ns1.dns.turbine.com. Turbine.com is owned by Turbine Games, a Warner Bros. company that hosts Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, and Asheron’s Call.

I’ll let any movie buffs or online gamers chime in here if they know more.

[Update: Looks the game theory is right. See comments below.]

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Viacom company buys Film.com

Andrew Allemann — Tue, 22 May 2012 01:48:34 +0000

NextMovie picks up Film.com.

MTV Networks site NextMovie has acquired Film.com, the company announced last week.

MTV Networks is part of publicly traded Viacom.

This was not a domain name purchase; it was a full fledged web business. Film.com has a U.S. Quantcast rank of about 15,000.

Still, it’s always noteworthy to see web sites built on fantastic domains like this change hands.

I searched Viacom’s SEC filings and can’t find any information about the acquisition. It was probably fairly small for the $25 billion (market cap) company. But we might get more information in the company’s next quarterly report.

(Thanks to DNW reader Josh Sexton for bringing this acquisition to my attention.)

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My picks for Sedo’s Great Domains auction

Andrew Allemann — Mon, 21 May 2012 16:21:02 +0000

Great Domains auction ends Thursday. Here’s what I like.

This month’s Great Domains auction at Sedo ends on Thursday. The lineup doesn’t include as many big ticket domains as usual; there’s only one domain with a reserve over $25,000. But that’s OK, there are some good domains worthy of attention.

Here are ones that popped out to me:

Reconnect.com – With a reserve range $10k-$25k, this would be good only if you have a plan for the domain. I can think of multiple tie-ins to social media.

Invasion.com – Also has a reserve range $10k-$25k. Not a very commerce-friendly domain, but would be good for a video game, movie, etc.

WineFridge.com – I’ve looked at wine fridges/beverage fridges for our new house. Not cheap. Reserve is met with a top bid of $1,049.

Swindled.com – I like this one because I used to own it I don’t recall what I sold it for, but the domain is currently $100 with the reserve met.

ComputerCourses.com – reserve is $5k-$10k. May be a little high, but good market for this.

There’s also a wonderful opportunity in a non-Great Domains auction on Sedo. Seesaw.com is currently $3,100 with a Wednesday end date. This is a great brandable domain.

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Did Google just buy G.me?

Andrew Allemann — Sat, 19 May 2012 14:45:49 +0000

G.me now registered to brand protection company.

The whois record for the domain name G.me recently changed to DNStination Inc., which is the proxy service for brand protection company Mark Monitor:

The change was just triggered on DomainTools yesterday, although the record shows it was altered on April 20.

The domain name was previously a registry reserved domain name.

Although nothing is definitive, there’s a good possibility that Google is the new owner. Google uses Mark Monitor for some of its domain name registrations. Given Mark Monitor’s need to avoid conflict of interest amongst clients, at a minimum I’d assume that Google was aware of any transaction for G.me.

There’s also a Google Chrome extension called G+Me.

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Moniker Spring auction results

Andrew Allemann — Thu, 17 May 2012 19:41:38 +0000

Moniker auction nets close to $20,000 in sales.

The Moniker Premium Spring Auction at SnapNames just concluded. Here are the (unofficial) results:

drivinggloves.com 6450 – this is a recently developed site. Auction included Facebook page (with 2,000+ likes) and Twitter handle.
florists.info 3050 – good keyword, but not a bad price given how marketplace for secondary TLDs like this will change in coming years.
loaninterestrates.com 2000
obese.net 1650 – 5 bidders duked it out for this one. It was the last auction to close due to extensions.
scubadivinglessons.com 1267
bearings.net 770
alumn.com 590 – not a very common spelling of the term
njlawfirms.com 575
grilled.net 500
32a.com 470
wyvn.com 300
upcbarcodes.com 300
overnightpriority.com 300 – not to be confused with Fedex’s Priority Overnight
joggingshorts.com 300 – definitely falls under the “niche” category
attempt.net 300

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