The Wall Street Journal published a new article about domain names today.
In section B page 1 of today’s Wall Street Journal is an article titled “Drop Catchers Buy and Sell Web Names Others Let Slip”. I have yet to find a free online version of this article at the time of writing. (You can get two weeks free to WSJ Online to see the article immediately here.)
The domain community has been talking about this article on the horizon for the past week.
The article by David Kesmodel discusses drop catching by companies like Pool.com, SnapNames, and GoDaddy’s TDNAM. It leads off with the story of Judy Orr, a Chicago real estate agent who neglected to renew her domain name oak-lawn-real-estate.com. It was snapped up by Lease Domains Inc and is now a parking page.
The article also includes data supplied by DNJournal on domains that were caught during drops in 2005. I’m always shocked to see people let domains worth over $100,000 slip from their hands, but here are some of the ones mentioned in the article:
A1.com $260,250
Bogota.com $159,500
MyPremiumCard.com $136,250
Voyuer.com $112,100
Innovations.com $108,000
It’s not mentioned in the article, but DNJournal is reporting that an auction for Jasmin.com has ended at SnapNames for $310,250. If the transaction goes through it will be the highest amount ever paid for an expired domain through a major drop service!
Just this past week domains like Looks.com dropped for $86,650, VirginMobilUSA.com for $21,251, and Maxima.com for $16,750.
Pick up a copy of today’s Wall Street Journal to read the full story.
Story removed — thanks for posting, but it violates copyright. – Andrew