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 $7.5 million for the business.com domain name: too much? (Page 4)
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| Author | Topic: $7.5 million for the business.com domain name: too much? |
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trentr |
posted 12-20-1999 12:12 AM
 
newsman, I'd have to agree that .com owners might want to worry about this. Considering what you mentioned about NSOL's revenue stream drying up they'll probably push the .net and .org. They certainly are in a position to push those domain names. If they start getting more popular the value of the .com addresses will decrease. lockin, |
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lockin |
posted 12-19-1999 07:45 PM
Interesting info, JHirsch. CarsDirect.com is a pretty good name, but it locks them in to selling only direct, never through dealers (which is their business model now, but who knows what will happen "down the road"?) So maybe they bought autos.com to sell online through dealers? Or maybe they just wanted to keep a new startup from building a business around the autos.com name? Or maybe they really do plan to change their company name, perhaps because their users were confusing carsdirect.com with cars.com? |
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JHirsch |
posted 12-19-1999 06:57 PM
update on the autos.com purchase. It was made by the same company who owns carsdirect.com. I'd guess they plan to redirect their traffic although i'm not sure which one will become the default. I like carsdirect better than autos.com, but autos.com seems a bit more versatile. There is more room for other businesses to grow out of it (and have the name still be descriptive of the company) Either way, both domain names aren't that great. They'll need something else to beat out the big boys. Jake |
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newsman |
posted 12-19-1999 02:55 PM
I'd guess that both of the things you mentioned factored into their decision: (1) If only .com's are considered good for businesses, when all the good ones are gone (i.e. now), this revenue stream will dry up, so NSOL wants to start pushing harder on .net's and .org's. (2) And they seem to be trying to take advantage of people who own .com's by telling them to shell out another $140 'just to be safe'. A $10 discount probably won't do much ($60 instead of $70), but if it's just the first chapter of the 'Great .Net/.Org Popularization Strategy', it's probably something .com owners should pay attention to. |
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fanatic |
posted 12-17-1999 04:08 PM
I got an email from Network Solutions today. (It was unsolicited, but I guess it wasn't spam, because I have reserved domain names from them in the past.) Here's what it said: Why are they doing this? Are registrations of .com domains slowing now that all the good ones are gone? Are they trying to legitimize these top-level domains to remove the stigma currently associated with them (at least for businesses)? And if it succeeds, what effect will it have on the value of .COM domain names? Their true motivation is revealed later in the email - it included a list of .NET and .ORG addresses with the same prefixes as .COMs that I already own, and suggested that I buy them "to protect my online identity". So apparently they're trying to get people who currently own .COMs to pay twice more just to protect their domain names. They'll probably do it again when the other top-level domains are made available (.WEB, etc.) Will anyone fall for this? If so, NSOL is sitting on a gold mine. |
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daffy |
posted 12-17-1999 02:32 PM
> Are there any companies out there that help you find what's left generic wise? I don't know of any, but it would probably be a waste of time. About three years ago, people starting writing little software programs to grab English words from a database and automatically check which domains were still left. All the single word domain names were scooped up then, and within the next two years most of the good two word ones were also scooped up. If you're thinking of grabbing a dictionary and trying to find a few good unreserved domains, don't waste your time. The land rush is over. |
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gatsby |
posted 12-17-1999 10:33 AM
daffy, of course I didn't mean to imply that they are an unbiased party in this ongoing debate. I was merely pointing out that there are companies like NameLab who are basing their entire business on the belief that a 'morpheme' is much more beneficial for a company than a generic word name. Are there any companies that focus on the other end of the coin? Either domain name brokers or places that help you find what's left generic wise (or at least avenues to look into)? And I'm not referring to single auctions or people hording them... |
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daffy |
posted 12-16-1999 06:00 PM
gatsby, keep in mind that namelab's business is coming up with new words for companies and products, so obviously they have a vested interest in discouraging companies from buying merely descriptive domain names. |
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gatsby |
posted 12-16-1999 02:20 PM
check out www.namelab.com. These guys would definitely disagree with the value assigned to something like Business.com and other "generic" names, and instead they believe in the power of name creation, or "morphemes" as they call them. |
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trendy |
posted 12-15-1999 06:26 PM
> Autos.com just sold for $2.2 million... Wow! If autos.com is worth $2.2 million, then cars.com is probably worth about $10 million. Obviously cars.com is not for sale because the owner is already building a business around it, but my point is that autos.com is clearly NOT the best domain name in its market and it still sold for a hefty chunk of change. |
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Joey Joe Joe |
posted 12-15-1999 04:48 PM
I guess I am referring to trademarks, or the ability to own a word so that if it's used by other people in a way that makes them money, royalties are owned to you. This is why historically, generic words like door and book could not be trademarked - if I could, I would make money every time someone used those words in a context where they would make money. But if we are now saying that door.com and book.com are so intrisically different from door and book and that they can be trademarked, the logic follows that door.net and book.net would be very different from door.com and book.com, just as they would be from door and book. And royalties would be paid to whoever owned those 'unique' names. So once you read through my rambling, my point is that if I get door.com, I would have zero right to door.net unless I reserve that too. Or, maybe this is an argument against being allowed to trademark any generic terms when the issue of royalties is present. Thoughts? |
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smario |
posted 12-15-1999 02:50 PM
There's a report in the Washinton Post today about certain peace groups and anti-defamation groups racing to reserve as many "hate" domain names as possible before the "hate" groups can get at them. However, what will be interesting here will be how Congress will react to this, what with their new anti-cybersquatting legislation. Law-enforcers do not have the right to pick and choose when to enforce a law or not, so as much as we would like to keep "hate" domain names from "hate" groups, those getting the names will probably have to actually use them, or be forced to give them up. |
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JHirsch |
posted 12-15-1999 11:58 AM
Autos.com just sold for $2.2 million. With all the Car buying sites already out there doing well I don't know how smart this one is unless the buyer plans to partner. Maybe there is room still in this industry for another major player but I don't see it. As has been discussed earlier, if this new buyer isn't planning to be a major player the purchase would have been a mistake. |
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fanatic |
posted 12-15-1999 10:57 AM
JJJ, what do you mean by 'license'? |
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Joey Joe Joe |
posted 12-13-1999 04:25 PM
How come you can't license the word dog or tree or flower, yet you can license the word dog.com, tree.com and flower.com? Why does the .com all of a sudden provide some inherent unique and different value from generic names? |
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