President Obama means business for domainers

The citizens of America made a historic decision by electing the country’s first African-American president, Barack Obama. Many newspaper traders are said to be asking for up to US$300 for a copy of The New York Times announcing Obama’s triumph on November 5.

Obama’s historic win also has given rise to hundreds of hopeful domainers and cybersquatters rushed to register domain names with Obama as a keyword. Many of these domain names are being pitched as premium domains and are being offered for sale on eBay, Sedo and many other domain name forums across in internet.

Even Obama’s popular speech termed ‘Yes We Can‘ has inspired people to write songs, record them and upload to Youtube and garner thousands of daily hits. It also seems to have inspired a pornographer who has put his domain www.sexwecan.com for sale for $10,000.

Then there are Obama playing cards, Obama pin badges, Obama plaques, Obama posters and Obama paper dolls and many other Obama items on sale on eBay and elsewhere.

Hope this euphoria augurs well for the new President of the USA and all that we would like to say is that -

Mr. President, We Wish You A Merry Christmas and hope that you will be able to play Santa Claus to the economy of the United States, which would mean some smaller gifts to other fledgling economies worldwide! May you have a terrific time at the White House and be able to pull off a coup of sorts by sorting out the economic mess all around! Amen!

.TEL Domain Names coming shortly!

What is .TEL domain name extension?

A .TEL domain name can be used to store, update and publish all your contact information, web links and keywords directly on the internet under your own unique .tel domain. Simple, fast and accessible from any device, .tel aims to provides a new internet standard for users to take full control over how and where people reach you.

The .tel enables:

• integration of any and all means of communication (i.e. Phone numbers, IM, VOIP, email, social media)
• real-time publishing of your contact information on the internet
• full ownership of your published data
• protection of your private data, only viewable by people you authorize
• simple structured navigation to easily reach the most relevant information
• high speed global access optimized for mobile devices
• multi-language, search engine-friendly structured information and keywords

.Tel Sunrise Period
Duration: December 3, 2008 at 15:00 GMT through February 2, 2009 23:59 GMT
Terms: Registrations open only to trademark holders and owners. Sunrise rules will follow a first-come first-served basis. There will be no premium list placed on reserve for later auction.
Price: $359 for a mandatory three-term registration term. Fully refundable only if another application was submitted before yours and passed Validation.

.Tel Landrush Period
Duration: February 3, 2009 at 15:00 GMT through March 23, 2009 23:59 GMT
Terms: You can register any name, even if it’s not your own or your own company’s name. the golden time for cybersquatters to register premium domain names, which would later result in domain disputes and hefty settlements running into millions!
Price: $299 for a mandatory three-term registration term. Fully refundable if application is not successful.

.Tel Open Registrations
Date: March 24, 2009 15:00 GMT
Terms: Register any name you may want.
Price: $18/year with one year minimum term. Fully refundable if application is not successful.

Sunrise orders being accepted since October 15

Iraq.com up for sale at Sedo!

What would you be willing to shell out for a one keyword domain that has 9,140,000 monthly searches in Google alone?

IRAQ.COM is available for sale and has that many impressive searches per month. The domain name without content is available for sale by its owner through Sedo’s Domain Marketplace.

Domain Statistics
Visitors to the Sedo offer page for the domain: 2,227 (previous 31 days)
Visitors to the domain’s website: 8,087 (previous 31 days)

Domain Popularity
PageRank: 3/10
Alexa Rank:1,666,385

Link Popularity
Incoming Google Links: 4
Incoming Yahoo! Links: 234

Going by the popularity of Iraq due to the atrocities of its infamous dictator, Saddam Hussein, and the ongoing reconstruction of the country, there are immense opportunities attached with the domain and anyone who has a vision and is able to capitalize upon the inherent potential of the domain will be a rich… rich man!

My guess is that the domain name will fetch anything between $5 million to $8million! Any takers for a bet?

Earlier this year, premium domain names have been sold for top dollars. These domain names include like Israel.com ($5.88 Million) and America.com (unverified amount). Other generic domain names related to Date Recovery, Fund and Pizza sold for $17 million, $10 million and $2.6 million respectively.

In my humble opinion, out of these domain names, Pizza.com deserved a better price than it got.

What do you say, people?

Fly.com, brews.com, Planet.com up for sale

Sedo, the ultimate marketplace for buying and selling domain names, has unveiled a new list of premium domain names that will be up for sale in one of its upcoming auctions. These domain names include: Fly.com, planet.com, brews.com, bicycle.com and address.net

Sedo’s top-selling names for its regularly held GreatDomains auction include villas.com for $478,000; invest.com for $1,015,000 and tees.com for $252,500.

Am sure that Fly.com will sell for at least a cool million dollars and it sure will be one hell of an investment! Any airline might pick this one up! What do you say, guys?

Israel.com sells for $5.88 million!

Another geo domain, Israel.com has been sold for $5.88 million to an unidentified buyer by its previous owner, Joel Noel Friedman, a 46-year-old Jewish American who bought the domain name originally in the year 1994.

The domain auction was managed by one of the leading domain name registrars, Moniker.com.

The new domain name owner has apparently parked the domain with SmartName.com hoping for some quick ROI (return on investment) through click monetization considering the interest the domain is currently generating in the cyber world owing to the publicity of its high profile sale.

This domain name sale is yet another example of how the business of domaining is on a roll with the booming virtual real estate market. A few prominent sales reported earlier this year include the $10 million sale of Fund.com, $2.6 million for Pizza.com and $1.7 million for DataRecovery.com

Also, another premium domain name America.com is up for sale and is expected to fetch record price.

America.com up for sale!

An ultimate geo domain,  America.com is on auction at Sedo.com and the domaining arena is abuzz with speculations that it could easily fetch one of the highest prices ever paid for a domain name.

There has to be a very strong interest among prospective buyers for such a premium domain and it remains to be seen if the final sale price exceeds the estimated $12 million paid for Sex.com a few years ago and considered to be the highest price paid for any domain name.

Geo domains, that contain the names of cities, states, or countries, have emerged as one of the strongest interest area for serious domainers and Sedo brokered Chinese.com for $1.1 million last year. The sale of America.com could turn out the largest sale ever for Sedo, which managed the auction of Vodka.com, its largest sale till date, for $3 million by a Russian vodka company planning to enter North America.

The potential of this domain name seems to be virtually unlimited as the buyer will be able to conduct almost any business from the domain, from hotel rooms to vacation packages and air tickets to real estate! You can be sure that the final buyer’s multi-million investment will be recovered within the first few years itself if he implements a sound business strategy.

In fact, I believe he could be making more money off this compared to any other business he could think of! Just imagine if he had a whole lot of subdomains like newyork.america.com, losangeles.america.com, vacations.america.com, realestate.america.com, onlinecasino.america.com, poker.america.com, sex.america.com, insurance.america.com and more… with each subdomain having its own business strategy headed by experts! The potential is indeed UNLIMITED, I say!

With a domain like that he wouldn’t even required any publicity to build his business. What do you say, guys?

Virtual Real Estate market is booming!

The real estate market may be facing a real tough time these days, but the market for virtual real estate properties, the domain names is flourishing with people making heavy investments in acquiring prized premium domains.

According to DN Journal, domain sales worth $38,029,543 were reported In the first quarter of 2008, which is a 78% increase over the $21,253,105 in domain sales reported for the first quarter of 2007! The average sale is reported to be with average sale at $10,103 and the total number of reported sales was 3,764.

Amazing… I would say

The largest sale reported was that of the $10 million sale of Fund.com during the first quarter of the year! Other prominent sales included $2.6 million for Pizza.com and $1.7 million for DataRecovery.com

I am thrilled with this all. Seems like I am in the right business after all

Bond.com up for auction at Sedo!

A premium domain name, Bond.com has been put up for auction at leading domain name marketplace Sedo.com, for a reserve price of $1million.

Considering the immense hype surrounding the latest of the Bond movies, the interest of the fans in the Bond franchise, and the recent opening of the Ian Fleming exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, the domain name is likely to prove to be too hot and fetch a record price.

This is going to be worth watching out for, my friends!

Casino Royale was the best Bond movie if you ask me and the James Bond is one of my favorite movie series and I am sure that this domain is gonna be bought by a fan and for an astronomical sum! An excellent investment opportunity, more like a jackpot in a casino, it will be for whoever wins the domain auction

Pizza.com sells for $2.6 million!

The owner of the domain pizza.com is reported to have accepted an offer from to an anonymous bidder of $2.6m for the domain name pursuant to a week-long online auction. The domain was originally registered in 1994 for just $20 annual fees!

The sale is expected to be finalized within next few days.

Ooooooh man, I wish I was into buying domain names when the world wide web was just taking off in the early 1990s. What a return on investment! What a business! Domaining…

Ramp.com sold on eBay for 25k USD!

Premium domain name www.ramp.com sold for US $25,211 tonight!

The domain, Ramp.com was owned by Ramp Corporation which is being liquidated in bankruptcy (U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York case 05-140006).

The transaction will be completed through the debtor’s law firm Snow Becker Krauss in New York (www.sbklaw.com).  The law firm will hold the payment in escrow until a bill of sale is executed and the domain is transferred to the new owner (eBay ID – discountramps).

If you ask me, the sale was a hurried one and the domain could have fetched much more, at least One Million USD, had the law firm made it a longer auction and publicized it a little as well. What do you say, guys?