|
 |
|
|
|
Selling domain names - that's the business to be in. It's a licence to print money. We're talking telephone numbers here; the domain name Business.com was recently sold for a staggering $8 million. That makes it the most expensive domain name in the world. Previous record holders include Compaq who paid nigh on $3.3 million for the Altavista.com name.
It's the .com addresses that are pulling in the big money. Out of the ten million or so domain names registered worldwide over six million of them are .coms. The second most popular is .net, with a paltry one million domains registered. In a business world that no longer relies on flashy offices and smart suits to create the right image, a .com domain can say a lot about your business. Get the right domain name, spend a bit of money on producing a professional web site and visitors to the site will probably assume you're a large, established, international business. That's why .coms are so valuable. But isn't it a bit late to grab those really great domain names and to turn yourself into an overnight millionaire by auctioning them off? Well yes, truth be told, all the good .com domains went long ago, snatched up by Internet pioneers who realised their potential value. In fact some 97 per cent of the words in Webster's dictionary have already been registered. Don't give up hope though. Changes in the domain name industry have opened up a whole new world of potential. For starters, most domain name registrars can now register names containing anything up to 63 characters (the previous maximum was 22). San Diego lawyer Michael Eddy was quick to jump on this particular bandwagon and he successfully registered www.attorneyreferralservice.com and www.hotelreservationservice.com soon after the new ruling came into action. And not one to miss the boat I am now the proud owner of the URL, www.thebestdomainnameintheworld.com.Try your luck by typing in your own long domain names at the NetBenefit site (www.netbenefit.co.uk) or pay www.verylongdomains.com a visit. And don't forget there are the 243 country suffixes to explore. Dot com might be the most desirable suffix but there are some quirky addresses elsewhere in the world that could come in useful. For example, the Italian government recently ruled that non-Italian organisations could now register an .it domain - anybody for buy.it, sell.it or want.it? Other popular countries are Turkmenistan with its .tm address, the Kingdom of Tonga's .to (fly.to, takeatrip.to etc), Austria with .at and American Samoa with the potentially useful .as. More seriously, it seems the European Union is investigating the idea of adding a new domain name to the list - .eu. The Eurocrats reckon this will allow European e-businesses to compete more effectively with the mighty American .coms. It also means that a business that trades in Europe wouldn't have to register all the various country domain suffixes. The EuroISPA, an organisation of European Internet Service Providers, has been lobbying on this issue for quite some time and the first steps have been taken. Apparently to get a domain set up the EU needs the approval of the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) and although the ISO hasn't approved the domain, it has reserved .eu. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (www.icann.org) also has to authorise the new domain. If you're dead set on a .com you could always take a look at the domains that have been repossessed. Every year or couple of years people have to pay up to re-register their domain name - inevitably some forget or simply can't afford it anymore. These domain names are repossessed and come up for sale again at the usual price. The Unclaimed Domains site (www.unclaimeddomains.com) should be your first port of call. Hand over $49 a year and you get a weekly list of repossessed domain names that have become available during that period. Gems such as Varnished.com, Cyberdraw.com and Wildnkinky.com have all passed through the Unclaimed Domains site. So how much are they worth?Business.com holds the record as the most valuable domain on the Net. It was bought for a whopping $8 million by the Californian business eCompanies (www.ecompanies.com). ECompanies specialises in launching Internet start-ups and they plan to turn Business.com into a business-to-business portal site. Jake Winebaum, co-founder of eCompanies, is excited about the purchase, "Business.com is the highest order business-to-business domain name and is a perfect match with the service we're planning… we plan to make Business.com the Internet's pre-eminent business brand." Marc Ostrofsky, a Houston based media entrepreneur, is the now very rich man who sold the Business.com address. He's currently working as the interim CEO of Business.com for eCompanies. The biggie could be America.com though. The online domain name auction house Great Domains (www.greatdomains.com) claims it's received a bid of $10 million for the desirable domain name America.com. We await further hoax stories… Domain name speculators are also keeping an eye on Banks.com, currently being auctioned off by the UK company Names123.com (www.names123.com). They're expecting a £1 million price tag for this little lovely. Bids were standing at around £100%,000 and the auction closes on March 1st 2000. It's feared this name could be overpriced, after all the much better name Bank.com has already gone and that site is being developed as a community banking resource. Don't count your chickens…There are a few cautionary tales to be told of folks who thought they'd get rich quick on domain names but due to cock-ups by the domain name registration services they were cruelly cheated out of their potential millions. One of the saddest tales is that of poor Mahesh Rao. Last year he thought he'd bought the domain Ebusiness.com - although he was surprised it was still free the sale went ahead through Register.com and Mahesh's name was listed as the owner in the registration database. The problem was Mark Ostrofsky already owned that name (yes the same Mark Ostrofsky who sold Business.com, the words Lucky and Sod spring to mind) and he wasn't happy. It was a screw up by Register.com - they'd sold the same domain name twice. Mahesh was left with no domain name and no compensation. The moral of the story is; choose your domain name registration service carefully. The Bestseller's listBusiness.com AsSeenOnTv.com Altavista.com Wine.com Autos.com Express.com Wallstreet.com Rock.com Websites.com Drugs.com Where to buy and sell your domain namesSo where do you go to sell that great domain name you've been hoarding since 1996? Great Domains For those with deep pockets… Bagging a bargain… Ebay For those with deep pockets… Bagging a bargain… Names123 For those with deep pockets… Bagging a bargain Domain Seller URLMerchant For those with deep pockets… Afternic.com For those with deep pockets… Bagging a bargain… Domain Race For those with big pockets… Hit Domains For those with big pockets… Bagging a bargain… And here's one final site that might interest you: Company Sleuth Gail Robinson is a freelance Internet writer based in the UK |
| Suits | Ponytails | Propheads | Contact WDJ | Discuss | Web Audio | Search |
Jupitermedia Corporation has two divisions: Jupiterimages and JupiterOnlineMedia
Legal Notices, Licensing, Reprints, Permissions, Privacy Policy.
Advertise | Newsletters | Tech Jobs | Shopping | E-mail Offers