Pending sale would give Moniker one of its biggest auctions ever.
I’ve been tracking the potential sale of Social.com for a couple weeks now. The domain name was listed in Moniker’s live domain name auction for Barcelona (which actually ended up taking place online only last week).
A legitimate $2.5 million dollar bid was placed in the auction, and sources tell me there may have been other interested parties. Then the domain was omitted from the extended auction that ends tomorrow, prompting more speculation.
The original reserve was much higher than $2.5 million, but Ron Jackson is reporting that a contract has been signed at $2.6 million.
If the sale goes down this will be the biggest reported sale of 2011. (I’m aware of at least one private deal completed this year that’s bigger.)
The sale will also validate Oversee.net CEO Jeff Kupietzky’s claim that domain auctions are now more of a marketing event than a sales event. This auction will have at least two sales that didn’t happen during the actual auction — Data.com and Social.com.
Last year Moniker sold Tshirts.com and four other related domains for over $1 million before it was to be sent to auction as well.
So while the actual auction last week only sold about $65,000 worth of domains, I don’t think anyone at Moniker will be complaining.
jay saunders says
Name is for Apple’s Facebook app
Jamie says
So did Marksmen purchase it? to promote the “NameQuiver.com” site?
Andrew Allemann says
@ Jamie – no, they’ve been representing the seller and promoting it pretty heavily. Although I hope the seller didn’t have to pay a Moniker commission and pay NameQuiver/Marksmen. They could have gone straight to Moniker.
Amr says
My guess LivingSocial is the buyer for this name.
Josh says
If they bought social in the same sense they should buy living, unless they change their brand (doubtful) then it makes no sense…just sayin. I am sure social gets SOME type in for livingsocial but not nearly enough to justify a purchase.
gaetano marano says
in my opinion, its value is much higher
Dave says
I’m thinking it has to be Google just because of the price tag.
Website hoc Tieng Anh says
It’s nice if Facebook or Linkedin bought it!
Congrats the buyer.
Andrew Allemann says
I don’t know who the buyer is, but I know it’s not a U.S. company.
Rob says
Great purchase wether it was purchased by one of the existing online social network big boys or an upstart. If it was the prior, they just effectively kept a real potential competitor at bay. If it was the latter, they just scored a domain name that will give them instant competitive advantage over all existing online social networks! Either way, the buyer won! It is not to late for anyone else wanting to enter and thrive into the Multi-Billion dollar online social media industry – We just listed our domain name SocializeOnline.com for a comparatively mere $10k on eBay!
Ben says
We own social.me and we are not behind the.com’s acquisition. It might explain why are receiving a ton of calls for this domain for 3 weeks now.