Source: I Squatted Your EU
First Coast News covers domain flipping and the story of Natalie Williams a Jacksonville, Florida resident who has gone from a single income family on welfare to owning a home and 2 cars by flipping domains, pulling in as much as $2500 a month. Sure there are guys pulling in millions on domains, but this story shows one of probably thousands of work-at-home stories that are proliferating behind the scenes in the domain world right now. Text version of story can be seen following this link.
(c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com
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CBS has agreed to purchase CNET Networks for $1.8 Billion, making it one of the 10 most popular internet companies in the world with over 54 million unique visitors per month.
CNET; a leading provider of entertainment, news and information sites; currently controls a number of popular destinations including CNET.com, ZDNet.com, BNET.com, GameSpot.com, GameFAQs.com, TV.com, mp3.com, UrbanBaby.com, CHOW.com, Search.com, MySimon.com and TechRepublic.com.
The deal was unanimously approved by CNET’s board and is expected to be completed by the end of the third quarter. [via News.com, DirectNavigation, and Yahoo]
(c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com
Domain Convergence, October 6-8, 2008, Niagara Falls
Ask.com has acquired several major reference websites including Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com and Reference.com in its purchase of the Lexico Publishing Group LLC. This news comes 10 months after Answers.com agreed to buy the same company for $100 million in a deal that fell through.
The terms of the acquisition have yet to be disclosed. [via TheDomains.com]
(c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com
Domain Convergence, October 6-8, 2008, Niagara Falls
Edwin Hayward of MemorableDomains.co.uk just wrapped up three days of exhibiting at the InternetWorld in the UK and has written a summary of his experiences exhibiting at the show as a domain reseller of top .co.uk generic domain names. The company, as mentioned in a previous article, was exhibiting at the show and featured some of their top domain names for sale including Britain.co.uk, Maps.co.uk and SearchEngine.co.uk.
(c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com
Visit our Calendar of Domain Industry Events.
Domainers Must Adapt…Again
It’s a funny thing how domainers always expect their stank to rise…and continue rising. Funny because if you’ve been in this business long enough you’ve likely weathered, or not, a few industry tempests and cycles. We’re hardened sailors who have seen tough squalls and lived to tell the tale.
Truth is, over time things have ‘changed’ much more than domainers care for - there is no question. There is nary an old domainer, no matter the age, without a gray hair or two from our career. So part of the expectation may be wishful thinking, part of it denial, part of it realistic business outlooks and goals.
If there is one thing to be said about domainers, besides they like to party and are generally ADD, is that ‘growth’ is always on the brain. Each acquisition is an attempt at growth – we feel if we stop buying, we stop growing. We have ‘fear of non-growth’, thus the long-held belief that domaining is an addiction. I’ll drink to that.
So as we struggle to make our way through floundering economics and currencies, regulation and litigation, registrars and beyond, domainers should look at their past cycle performance and adjust, adapt and grow. The past is prologue.
For example, the current propensity is to pull back on domain purchases – all while it converts to a buyer’s market. A smart domainer looks for the peaks and valleys in the cycle and anticipates each quarter-step forward. After all, we made our sweet creamy butter via ‘anticipation’ and ‘risk’.
But the real question at these moments becomes a matter of faith – if you believe domains (dot coms, in this case) are the future global standard, then now is the time to expand, anticipate, grow baby!
Alternately, if you are skeptical, low on funding or already well seated in the space, then now may be the time to lay low and, if at all possible, not sell. Truth is domainer-to-domainer sales are not the future and never were - too much perpetuating money, too much depreciation as domains go from holder to holder. Eventually, the risk outweighs the return.
The future lies in end-user sales, the Holy Grail of domaining, with the emphasis on ‘quality’ – irreplaceable domains, in other words. Names that have no alternate, no opposite, they are a singular brand or product or service. They are marketing machines by their birthright; they are one of a kind.
In the recourse, there is little individual domainers can do to affect the overall outcome beyond supporting the community, the industry as a whole. No, for holders, it is a matter of fittest-type survival in turbulent terrain.
My advice, far more dependent on your current financial state, it is to reassess, find your bearings – domainers are often brilliantly scattered-brained as they chase one name only to lose an equally good name to lapsed registration. DOH!
For all of us, as a sum of its parts, it is best to pool together – surround the wagons in no uncertain terms. Yet as an ‘individual-based’ industry, that seems less likely as fewer and fewer of its inhabitants attend to its overall health.
If for some reason the industry dies, it is no doubt for a lack of community, of unity and fraternity. It is as if the founding fathers decided they had enough land and wealth and need not go to Philadelphia to declare anything against Britain. In fact, by not going, they reasoned, they were declaring true ‘independence’ – I am my own island. That’s the collective spirit d-town!
So here we sit, between a rock and a really hard place, like a Republican having to vote for Grandpa McCain, waiting for the world to decide if it needs Internet addresses for the long term while the industry splinters and flails at its own lack of commonality.
Sadly, we’re nothing more than street vendors to the larger world – “I got great .com, I got excellent two word .net, I got .mobi - big discount only for you, my friend! You buy!”
In that case, perhaps the best advice is to head out to the countryside, get some friends to hide you in a hole in their yard, put an air tube running up to the surface a la Saddam. And don’t forget, you’re going to need some Grecian Formula for those new grays.
But you better hurry - sky is falling…again!
(c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com
Domain Convergence, October 6-8, 2008, Niagara Falls
.COM Sales taz.com 40,000 USD GreatDomains chianti.com 28,500 USD GreatDomains posse.com 24,500 USD diw.com 12,500 USD ylc.com 10,100 USD textr.com 8,750 USD yachtshop.com 7,600 USD wzb.com 7,100 USD GreatDomains gonk.com 7,000 USD motionsports.com 6,700 USD vko.com 6,100 EUR zoyo.com 6,000 EUR gimena.com 5,900 EUR lale.com 5,403 USD marginal.com 5,100 USD cux.com 5,100 EUR GreatDomains eventmanager.com 5,000 USD overstockmall.com 4,999 USD GreatDomains gotdirt.com 4,600 USD bangbangbang.com 4,500 USD depositosbancarios.com 4,500 EUR (banking deposits in Spanish) urgently.com 4,150 USD GreatDomains discussed.com 4,050 USD GreatDomains nofa.com 3,720 USD organic-food.com 2,800 USD stopcalling.com 2,800 USD polarweiss.com 2,750 EUR mylifeid.com 2,700 USD frenchtutor.com 2,600 USD zoth.com 2,550 USD yy1.com 2,550 USD colitel.com 2,500 EUR hightop.com 2,500 USD GreatDomains personalenergy.com 2,370 USD efectosjavascript.com 2,300 USD cuzo.com 2,050 EUR idiaper.com 2,000 USD Other Sales nightlife.net 20,000 USD newyorkbiz.com 18,000 EUR versa.net 9,100 USD anuncios.mobi 7,400 USD (classifieds in Spanish) thc.mobi 3,700 USD chef.pro 3,650 USD negocios.org 3,600 USD (business in Spanish) sharkdiving.net 2,288 USD hho.net 2,251 USD glo.net 2,151 USD neptune.org 1,547 EUR shopwindow.info 1,300 EUR comuni.net 1,225 USD insurancehome.org 1,200 USD parier.info 1,150 EUR sorteo.org 1,100 GBP (lottery in Spanish) nhl.info 1,001 EUR joggen.info 1,000 EUR (to jog in German) mylifeid.net 900 USD yournetwork.org 825 USD sportbiker.net 670 USD ccTLD Sales e-friends.pl 25,000 EUR ferienhaus-miete.de 8,000 EUR (summer home rentals) schnellkredit.de 6,000 EUR (fast credit in German) eigentumswohnung.eu 4,500 EUR (condominium in German) beton.eu 3,300 EUR (concrete in German) leap.in 3,000 USD portfolio.be 3,000 EUR internetjournal.de 2,325 EUR fulltillpoker.de 1,750 EUR pflegeberatung.de 1,650 EUR (support consultation in German) die-welle.de 1,600 EUR (the wave in German) 13.tv 1,550 USD tischfussball.at 1,500 EUR (table soccer in German) bombon.es 1,500 EUR ecoogler.es 1,400 EUR firma.es 1,320 EUR fehlermeldungen.de 1,300 EUR (error messages in German) 123moto.fr 1,250 EUR spassbad.de 1,100 EUR xav.ca 1,050 USD dominatrix.us 1,050 USD linx.at 1,000 EUR bmo.eu 1,000 EUR inhaltsangaben.de 1,000 EUR (table of contents in German) batteriemoto.fr 800 EUR (battery motor bike in French) mountain.es 800 EUR paddypower.es 800 EUR
(c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com
Domain Convergence, October 6-8, 2008, Niagara Falls