The owners of this domain name might cash in with email addresses.
China may be the only country I know that embraces numeric domains. You can find their use in many industries. Today, I’ll talk about a numeric domain being used in an interesting way with great profit potential.
Numeric domains are popular in China. Just look at the 2019 Top 100 Chinese Internet Companies Report. It has 7 companies on the list using numeric domains: 360.com (#9), 58.com (#13), 37.com (#23), 4399.com (#42), 2345.com (#64), 71360.com (#70), and 253.com (#92). The love for numeric domains can be found in the domain industry too. Examples are 4.cn, 10.cn, and 22.cn. They are short and easy to remember.
The focus today is 88.com. This fantastic domain was acquired by game publisher Perfect World (完美世界) recently. (Whois record shows an update on June 30.) Perfect World is a public company listed in both China and the US and operates from PerfectWorld.com.
The number 88 appeals to Chinese because it is a lucky number. 8 rhymes with the Pinyin word Fa (发=making a fortune) and 88 makes it even better because we love double words. We even have the saying Hao Shi Cheng Shuang (好事成双=good things come in pairs). So, 88 is a very good number.
88.com has already gone live as an email service provider. Its online store offers vanity email addresses at varying prices. You can buy numeric names such as [email protected] for $24,000, English names such as [email protected] for 109,999 $16,000, and Chinese names such as [email protected] for $19,000. If you are tight on your budget, you can go for a cheap random 5-digit numeric name for $12 only. (Hey.com, a new email service, is also selling short @hey.com address for premium prices.)
According to top investor Yue Dai, “88.com to bring $100 million in profits to the company this year… I expect more than 30 million people to sign up soon.”
If execution is as good as the plan, then 88.com will be a very “Fa Fa” revenue producer!
If this is true, then, hey, 888.COM, 8888.COM, 88888.COM, etc. you listening?
They are all valuable, imho.
How long have people been trying this bad idea for? Very few people will pay for a an email email address simply because of the domain.
Was it Power .com or Chicago .com that tried this idea many years ago? I have not heard of anyone who tried this idea and succeeded.
I think this has been tried hundreds of times.
I read about this kind of thing when I first got into domaining around late 2001. Not aware this idea has ever done all that well. (Or has it?) However, given that this is China and this particular domain is quite good, then maybe…
Good comment, John. I have not heard of anyone who tried this idea and succeeded.
pay big amount of money for email name and then found out to be flooded with spam
I also wonder if it will be open to US and European users. 88 has bad connotations here with white supremacists. So hopefully it’ll be a China service only. I’m sure their admins don’t want to have to deal with the problems that come along with hate groups jumping on their service.
Huh, I didn’t know that. Had to look it up.