40 recent end user domain name sales at Sedo.
During the past week, Sedo’s network sold $900,000 in domain names. The 3 highest sales were Heika.com ($300k), which is a title associated with Japanese emperors; Anker.com ($150k), the German for “anchor”; and HOOQ.com ($50k).
As usual, I’ve compiled a list of 40 domains where an end user can be identified. Most of these come from last week, while others were technically sold during previous weeks but have just emerged from escrow.
ArticlesOfIncorporation.org ($1000) – was purchased by the folks at WikiDownload.com, which stocks documents, eBooks, games, and software.
AquaGym.com (€6000) – belongs to MBG Global, which boasts of selling its branded product line in 58 countries. What product line, you ask? Beverages. Apart from the redirect, their closest connection to this domain appears to be a branded mineral water called “Acqua Morelli”.
Badewanne.at (€1700) – Already developed as a site for bath tubs, showers, etc. The term is German for bath tub.
BusinessWorld.net ($2500) – is an improvement over BusinessWorld-USA.com.
Checks.net ($24,500) – is an upgrade for BusinessChecksOnline.com.
CleanCook.com ($2500) – The buyer, Robert Sagulin, has written at CleanCookStoves.org.
Crap.tv ($6000) – was purchased by Crap TV Sdn. Bhd. Those abbreviations are the Malay equivalent of “Inc.” Right now the website says, “Coming Soon!” I never would have guessed this brand would be based in Kuala Lumpur.
Dock9.com (€4500) – now belongs to Dock9.co.uk, a “digital design and development agency”.
EmilGroup.com ($2595) – EmilCeramicaGroup.it, an Italian manufacturer of ceramic tiles, has dropped the middle word and gone global with this .COM.
Expertise.info ($880) – The buyer is business consultant David Baker, whose main site is Recourses.com.
Filimo.com (€4500) – is up an running as a Farsi movie site.
GarageFloor.com ($1500) – improves upon GarageFlooringLLC.com.
HIG.co ($1188) – The buyer is Higginbotham.net, which offers business insurance.
Hotel-Oberhof.de (€1250) – has been added to BergHotel-Oberhof.de.
Ikariam.tv ($2600) – Ikariam is a “massively multiplayer online game” made by GameForge.com.
Infor.nl (€10,000) – was acquired by software company Infor.com.
ISC-Group.com (€3980) – was acquired by ISC-Events.com. They’re putting on a 3-day “ISC Cloud & Big Data conference” in Frankfurt in the Fall.
KidsDayOut.co.uk (£750) – For those “looking for something to do with the family”, they can now find a website at both the plural and singular. This company already owned both in .COM.
Messebau-Koeln.de (€999) – The buyer, DEEG, specializes in creating elaborate exhibits at trade shows. “Messebau” means stand construction – in this case for the city of Köln.
MyFavoriteStuff.com ($1995) – was snagged by the people at BetterHomeProducts.com.
Natos.com (€1500) – Nope, not the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Not the mucusy fermented Japanese soybean dish, Nato, either. This domain was purchased by Watchbands.co.uk, an “official dealer for Dievas NATO and ZULU Extreme straps”.
NextWealth.com ($4000) – is now owned by SPWealth.com. The “SP” is meant to stand for “Strategic Partners”. Hopefully these financial planners are changing their brand name.
Nuvolo.com (€5500) – trims the fat from NuvoloTechnologies.com. The company offers a cloud solution for “biomedical asset management & compliance”. In other words, they make software for labs and hospitals.
OmniCell.de (€2500) – went to OmniCell.com, which devises automated workflow solutions for healthcare and other industries.
ParentPlan.com (€900) – Julian Ribet, who purchased this domain, is a “specialist family lawyer“.
Phuket.co.uk (£1250) – Fresh Ginger Ltd. is based in Phuket, Thailand, and overseen by a British expat. He has already published a travel guide on this domain.
RackSpaceCloud.eu ($2500) – Well known IT company Rackspace.com chose to pay for this 2-year-old domain when conceivably they might have pursued legal action.
Repro.de (€950) – shortens the brand name ReproTechnik.de. As near as I can tell, their field is printing and graphics.
SkyZone.co.uk (£2950) – was picked up by an international chain of indoor trampoline parks. They already own SkyZone.com, as well as the matching .MX, .COM.MX, and .COM.AU.
SparklePop.com ($2119) – is already developed as a jewelry website.
Stock.io (€2999) – now forwards to CapShare.com, an equity-management software company based in Utah.
STSGlobal.com ($1300) – was purchased by a company of the same name, STS Global Inc. I couldn’t find a corporate website; so this domain will most likely become that site.
TemplatesWeb.com ($799) – was picked up by Easy-MediaA.com, a German web design company.
TheraSoft.de (€1350) – German maker of physical therapy devices, Thera Trainer, bought this domain.
Tibo.eu (€2000) – The buyer is a Belgian firm, Tibo Invest BVBA. I’m not sure what they do, but they already own Tibo-Invest.be. (Earlier I mentioned the Malay acronym for corporations. Well, “BVBA” is belongs to Belgium.)
TopWedding.it (€3000) – may be a new name for the Italian website WeddingMart.it, since the latter now showcases this newly purchased domain.
TudoEmeletro.com ($799) – I’m just guessing that the buyer will turn out to be the Brazilian site at the matching .BR domain.
TV-Licence.co.uk ($2000) – CSC procured this domain for a corporate client. Brits spell the noun with a “C” and the verb with an “S”.
uShareIt.com ($8888) – leads to a developed site. Yet it appears unrelated to ShareIt.com; and YouShareIt.com forwards to HighTail.com, which may be a competitor. If that’s the case, then this purchase was unwise.
WorldWideJourneys.co.uk (€975) – The buyer is holiday-booking website, BestAtTravel.co.uk.
If you’d like to learn more about listing domains for sale through Sedo, Andrew Allemann has prepared a handy guide.
PageHowe.com says
thanks for the work Joe, really a benefit for us all.
great job digging up the detials and perspective.
Joseph Peterson says
Thanks, Page
mwzdit says
Is Hooq.com a pure brandable sale or does it mean anything?
Either way, good news for some of my pronounceable llll.coms
Checks.net is a standout sale too, thanks for the report.
Joseph Peterson says
Here’s a relevant Feb 2 headline:
“HOOQ might just be Asia’s answer to Netflix”
http://www.cnet.com/news/hooq-might-just-be-asias-answer-to-netflix/
h4ck3r says
Odd to see the real world. A couple of clear TM purchases. More than a few of what most would see as “regfee”.
Found this statement interesting:
Checks.net ($24,500) – is an upgrade for BusinessChecksOnline.com.
Rumors of .nets death have been greatly exaggerated. I’m sure many would call this an expensive downgrade, thouth (not I)
Joseph Peterson says
Any time someone can move from a 20-letter, 6-syllable, 3-word .COM to a 6-letter, 1-syllable, 1-word .NET based on a fundamental, high-competition, everyday term … that’s an upgrade in my book.
I agree with you. .NET is stronger than many realize.
Joseph Peterson says
P.S. Love the Mark Twain reference.
Dhirender says
Thanks for such a wonderful insight. Your work is really great.
krishna says
Rackspace.com buying that name is surprising when we are seeing silly UDRP applications everyday. Some companies seem to be domainer friendly.
Joseph Peterson says
You’re right that there are a lot of frivolous / devious UDRPs filed. So it seems peculiar that RackSpace made this purchase when many of us would not have blamed them for litigating.
On the surface, RackSpaceCloud.eu looks like a case of cybersquatting to me.
Perhaps there are exonerating circumstances for the seller that I don’t know about, but for the sake of argument let’s assume not.
When companies cater to squatters by buying from them, are they being “domainer friendly”?
No.
$2500 spent buying from a bad-faith squatter is $2500 that will NOT be spent buying a more useful asset from a legitimate domain investor.
Also, when companies are seen to buy from squatters rather than take legal action to penalize them, the whole problem of cybersquatting is exacerbated. Unscrupulous individuals see the financial reward from registering domains like RackSpaceCloud.eu. So RackSpace has given thousands of observers an incentive to go out and register domains that infringe not only the “Rackspace” mark but masses of other brand names.
That’s counterproductive for the company. Yet it also does domainers no favors. While companies aggravate this problem for themselves, a mainstream audience is more likely to lump together domain investors and cybersquatters.
Sales like RackSpaceCloud.eu – although the fault of RackSpace and not of legitimate domainers – add to the PR problem for good-faith actors in the domaining industry to overcome.
Daily, we have to differentiate what we do from what the seller of RackSpaceCloud.eu presumably did. That’s something for us all to resent.
Not domainer friendly.
h4ck3r says
“Also, when companies are seen to buy from squatters rather than take legal action to penalize them, the whole problem of cybersquatting is exacerbated.
Unscrupulous individuals see the financial reward from registering domains like RackSpaceCloud.eu. So RackSpace has given thousands of observers an incentive to go out and register domains that infringe not only the “Rackspace” mark but masses of other brand names”
The problem arises because litigation is sometimes extremely difficult and very expensive. The UDRP while less is still not cheap.
It’s easier to pay $2500 with 100% guaranteed result and be over and done with than pay for a UDRP and spend time on the paperwork.
Perhaps if the UDRP had a “punishment” for egregious cases it would remove the profiteering but given the flaws of the system, too many innocent domain investors would get caught up.
What is needed is continue naming and shaming – so get the sellers name on record and publish it with the sale. Also send the local taxing authorities their way imho.
Albert Zun says
Thanks for the informative post.
Joseph Peterson says
You’re welcome.
mynameis says
hi