Live Current sells Call.com domain name for seven figures.
Live Current Media has sold the domain name Call.com for $1.1 million through domain brokerage Sedo.
The domain has a storied history. Live Current, when it was known as Communicate.com, sold the domain name as part of a package including Makeup.com, Automobile.com, and Exercise.com. Part of the sale included lifetime royalties on all earnings for these domains. Communicate.com reacquired Call.com in 2006 in exchange for eliminating the royalty provision. The company valued this future royalty stream at $250,000. In other words, it traded in $250,000 in future revenue in 2006 for a $1.1M sale in 2009.
Call.com was surely one of the two domains Live Current announced in a press release last week that it had sold for a total $1.6M. The other domain was likely Brazil.com for $500,000.
That press release also mentioned the company’s sale of Cricket.com for $1M cash plus $750,000 in other consideration.
Sedo brokered many other high profile domain name sales in the past week, including Editor.com for $225,000, Alternate.com for $90,000, and Games.eu for 67,500 EUR.
😀
nice one!
It’s been a little too quiet lately on
Domainosphere!!
thanks for breaking the news
regards
from DeliciousMauritius.com
If they keep selling their top domains at this pace they won’t have anything left.
TechCrunch reported on DomainNameWire’s coverage of the sale of Call.com. It’s good to see TechCrunch using a reputable source for information on the domain industry.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/31/callcom-rings-up-11-million/
The thing is Andrew, these high profile domains are still not developed into anything meaningful. What’s going on several years later? Your article points to the fact that Call.com changed hands previously for whatever and now $1.1M very impressive indeed. However I’m concerned that it is still domain speculators buying most of these names and not investors who really should be acquiring them to build meaningful enterprises.
Maybe Live Current are dumping as many high profile domain names as fast as they can because they do not really believe in the long term value of these assets. Even Cricket.com looks pretty lame imo.
I strongly believe domain names are valuable assets, but I’m really concerned that many of these domains are mostly acquired by domain speculators….should we be worried? ….are we delusional? These are quite provocative and critical questions. Are domainers fooling themselves into believing these are assets that businesses will ultimately want? Surely there have been a few great names developed, but if you look very closely at most reported sales, most of these names are just fanciful parking pages.
Something significant still needs to evolve in the domain industry to encourage medium, big businesses and start ups, to acquire and develop these assets into meaningful sites. I’d like feedback on the questions I posit here.
Cheers
Robert
Robert – I’ve done some research on this in the past. If you look at DNJournal’s charts, you will find a good number of them are still parked. But keep in mind DNJ’s charts are only the reported sales. There are perhaps 4 times as many sales that go unreported. Most of these aren’t through “domainer” sites such as Afternic and Sedo, so they’re more likely to be used. I can point to plenty of good domains that are being used, such as Patents.com, Phone.com, etc. Look at some of the stuff Rob Monster and Mike Mann are doing.
“acquired by domain speculators….should we be worried?”
Do any of these sales make any sense ?
Are you suggesting that people have $1.1 million in spare change and toss it at a
name without a plan ?
If the amount was $110 then many more people
might view that as “spare change” and
engage in your suggested speculation
activity. Is this really reality that there
are people who view $1.1 million like $110?
Assuming there are brokerage fees and other
costs, is this a Tulip Market in the making?
Jim,
Take an objective perspective for a moment.
History tells us people are quite happy to speculate on any form of assets if they perceive upside potential indefinately. E.g the Dot Com boom itself was mostly speculation with sky high stock prices until the bubble burst! Real Estate itself is another one. Fact is, a lot of people have lost serious money…up to 90% in Miami Florida for instance. All this is not news as it was recently broadcast on CNN where vulture funds were snapping up high end miami apartments at a massive discount of up to 90%!!
Now I’m not saying that is what is going on in the domain market per say. I’m trying to diagnose what may possibly be happening. When you have buyers shell out 7 figures, then you expect such domains to be developed into something very tangible, not just another parked page. Why would’nt AT&T be interested in Call.com for instance? Rick Schwartz seems to be very good at selling domain names to serious business end users… e.g ireport.com. Call.com is currently a parked page, so let’s wait and see.
The bulk of what I see on DNjournal, including 6 figure sales, mostly end up as parked pages and therein lies… what is really happening??
If CALL.COM really has that true free market “value”…then, what is the .CALL Top Level Domain worth ?
Also, people must not be aware of the
coming Set-Top-Box DNS evolution where
“parked” names will be picked off by the
local vendors…OR where fees will be
charged by those vendors to carry that
“channel”. Will .COM owners be prepared
to pay to be played ?
A lot of this seems to have a Hollywood
flavor where people walk into a resaurant
flaunting their high-priced lifestyle
and the restaurant responds with a menu
of inflated prices. At some point, 99% of
the rest of the world will ask, “Is that
really a $50 hamburger? and is it better?”
It will be interesting to see just how long it takes for the domain to move from a cash parked site to something developed. Anybody got a guess for a date it is moved from cash parked? What are the odds we will see who owns this domain now in whois?
Thanks for sharing everyone.
Hi there…
Who is CONNECTED enough to KNOW – the NAMES of the people involved with Live Current Media ??
Who makes up that group ??
Post or eMail fine…
(Patricia @ DomainBELL .com)
Where is Live Current Media based ??
Do they attend any of the Domain Industry Events ??
Any pictures related to Live Current Media on the net?? On DNJ ??
~Patricia Kaehler – DomainBELL
Patricia – it’s a public company. Do a search for Live Current or Communicate.com on this site and you’ll find a lot. Otherwise just look at their filings livc.ob
Andrew – Very good points you make and I think phone.com and patents.com are very well developed sites. However I’m alluding to something else here. Suppose you were hired to carry out Academic Research into the Domain Industry, let’s both concede you will probably give a weighting of 90%/10% in favour of “Parked” Web Sites right? therefore, you may deduce that “domain investing” is a highly speculative industry, unless something dramatic or paradigm happens to shift the emphasis towards “development”.
This following paragraph is taken from the “History of Home Mortgages”:
“In 1938, the Canadian government, not to be left out, introduced the National Housing Act (NHA). In 1954, they followed the United States’ example by insuring mortgage loans. The Bank Act was also amended to allow Canada’s chartered banks to lend money for mortgages. Everybody was recognizing the growth the housing market was contributing to the economy.”
http://www.thehistoryof.net/history-of-home-mortgages.html
I think it is time we concede we need a paradigm shift to considerably, but not entirely move away from speculation. Such a shift could come about, through an organisation such as ICANN or Rick’s T.R.A.F.F.I.C, by proposing a national legal “financial” amendment, that makes it possible for the average/big business consumer to “mortgage” domains for commercial development through the local Retail Banking system.
I’m sure you may conclude in your un-biased academic research, that in the absence of such a creative financial paradigm for domain investing, suggests the industry may not quite actualize itself as it could or should….hence a casino? Bearing in mind casinos do work….albeit for some.
thanks for the directional Andrew…
~Patricia Kaehler – DomainBELL
Live Current’s ticker symbol has been temporarily changed to LIVCE.ob as a result of their delayed filing for this quarter. It will hopefully change back soon.
As for domain speculation, recent million dollar+ sales of domains have not all turned into parking pages, especially when ppc rates have fallen into the abyss recently. It appears there is a new breed of buyers who are putting their dollars to work. For example, Candy.com sold for $3million and they quickly turned it into a fully developed, functioning site. Auction.com is not a parked page, it’s a working site for the REDC. Phone.com offers a variety of telephony applications and they have evolved with the new ownership. The domain industry appears to be trending in the right direction without a need for a dramatic shift as the recent paradigm shift the commercial real estate market has already been quite an ordeal for the banking sector in recent years.