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Domain names: The new real estate

By Steve Pounds | Monday, October 22, 2007, 03:44 PM

You’d think that the Internet’s been around long enough for all the good domain names to be bought and sold, and actually be in use.

Earlier this month though, buyers spent $8.1 million on web-site names at the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Domain Conference & Expo at the Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa in Hollywood, a meeting of domainers that happens three times a year. The main event is an auction of sought-after web names.

One of the movers in this crowd is Boca Raton’s Rick Schwartz, who owns 5,300 domain names himself. His nickname is “webmaster.”

More than a quarter of the total take — $2.2 million — went for Computer.com. When you plug “computer.com” into a web search, it redirects you to TigerDirect.com, the online computer and accessory seller.

Other names and what they went for were: Investment.com, $900,000; Sportinggoods.com, $450,000; Cowboys.com, $275,000; Table.com, $260,000, and Crosswordpuzzles.com, $210,000.

Some domain names using the new mobi suffix for web sites aimed at mobile devices sold for six figures, including Poker.mobi, $150,000, and Ringtones.com, $145,000. If you’ve never heard of dotmobi before, here’s Wikipedia’s entry for it, click here.

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By Sahar Sarid

October 22, 2007 4:49 PM | Link to this

Few errors.

  • Rick’s nickname is “Webfather” and “DomainKing”, not “webmaster”.

  • It is Ringtones.mobi, not Ringtones.com

    • And one last update on Cowboys.com, see here:

    http://www.conceptualist.com/?p=539

    Cheers

    Sahar

    By Johnny Hughes

    October 23, 2007 7:51 AM | Link to this

    I got my own name, JohnnyHughes, back in 1998, before I even had a computer. I opened a web site then. Now I am a writer, writing about poker and I can use the web site to promote my new novel, when I get the site changed. Everyone should try to get their own name before someone else does.

    Johnny Hughes, author of the upcoming novel, Texas Poker Wisdom

    By Duke

    October 23, 2007 4:33 PM | Link to this

    Does anybody type “computer.com” into a browser anymore? Before there were search engines, people would take a guess and add dotcom at the end of it; so these domain names were gold mines. Today, we just type “computer” into google or some other search engine. I think the people that bought these domain names got ripped off. If the name is personal to you or your company, like “coke.com”, then it might make sense.

    By catchem

    October 23, 2007 5:28 PM | Link to this

    News Flash !! Area loaded in vacant ‘new’ homes - wow, what a deal! Right, eleven, one-year-old, ‘new’ homes in a development full of stand pipes, originally planned for 90+ homes, no trees, no HOA, no street lights, and lots of vacant, littered streets. A great place for gang activity and all kinds of late night shenanigans… Wow, what a deal! Just where I want to move my family. Yeah; and just try to find the builder!!