This oddity
occurred when last week's buyer, veteran South American domain
investor Christian Chena turned seller this week and moved
VCD.com for $30,000 in a private transaction. As we
previously noted, VCD's (Video CD's) are a wildly popular
entertainment format in China, giving this 3-letter combo more punch
than the usual acronym.
A couple of other domains also have a familiar look this week. #2
eMule.net
went for $15,407 at Sedo. Two
weeks ago, eMule.org was #4 on the chart after selling for $6,600
(to a familiar buyer - Mr. Chena). eMule is a downloadable
software program that is popular in many parts of the world. The #5
domain, TiUSA.com, which went for $7,450 at Afternic,
brings back memories of HiUSA.com which topped our chart
a month ago when it went for $17,450, also at Afternic.
Despite the similarities in the names, the two sales were not
related.
On the new chart, seven domains are .com, two are .de
and one is .net. As you know, .de is the German country code.
In an interesting anomaly, one .de is an English term (#8 Translator.de)
and one .com is a German term (#7 AutoReifen.com - which
means "car tires" in English). The buyer of AutoReifen.com
(which went for $6,163 at Sedo) is the same speculator
who recently sold Reifen.de and a related package of
domains for a price reported to be close to $250,000.
As always, keep in mind that these are the highest value sales
that have been reported in the past week. This column is
meant to be an educational tool, not a complete list
documenting ALL high value domain sales. Such a list is
impossible to produce because many sales are kept private at the
insistence of buyers, sellers or both. With that disclaimer out
of the way, here's the complete Top Ten list:
Domain
Name Journal's Top Ten
Reported Domain
Sales - Mon. Dec. 8 through Sun. Dec. 14, 2003
Euro to Dollar Conversion (� to $) is Based on Rates in
Effect Tue. Dec. 16 |
|
Domain |
Sold For
|
Where
Sold |
1. |
VCD.com |
$30,000 |
Pvt
Transaction |
2. |
eMule.net |
�12,500
= $15,407 |
Sedo |
3. |
Vitrum.com |
$9,600 |
Sedo |
4. |
Satanismus.de |
�7,700
= $9,491 |
Sedo |
5. |
TiUSA.com |
$7,450 |
Afternic |
6. |
BusinessMethod.com |
$6,900 |
DomainSystems |
7. |
AutoReifen.com
("car tires" in German) |
�5,000
= $6,163 |
Sedo |
8. |
Translator.de
|
�4,500
= $5,547 |
Sedo |
9. |
UWeb.com |
$5,300 |
Sedo |
10. |
RockingChair.com |
$5,223 |
Pool |
In addition to the #10 domain, RockingChair.com, we got
reports of several other healthy sales at Pool.com
last week. FUU.com went for $5,000, eMailFilter.com
netted $4,600, Requirements.com was worth $2,600,
Banque.net was good for a $2,290 deposit and PlayNow.com
pulled $2,050.
In addition to their six entries on the main chart, Sedo reported
three more that came close. Austin.biz and OneStock.com
each attracted $4,500. That landed Austin.biz on top of our New
TLD Chart which you will see below. Sedo also received �3,000
($3,698) for ScheringPlough.com.
Afternic also scored some additional four figure sales, topped by
MeetYourMatch.com at $3,300 and ServerPatrol.com
at $2,250. DomainSystems,
the seller of 6th-ranked BusinessMethod.com, also collected $4,888
for this domain duo: FoodFacts.com & FoodFacts.net.
There is a very interesting development this week on the New TLD Chart (which tracks .info, .biz and .us).
Just when it looked like .info had taken up permanent
residence at the top of our chart, .biz had a breakout week.
Lead by the sale of #1 Austin.biz at Sedo, .biz claimed the top 3
slots with all of those sales hitting four figures.
Domain
Name Journal's New TLD Top Five
Reported .info, .biz & .us Domain Sales Dec.
8 - Dec. 14, 2003
Euro to Dollar Conversion (� to $) is Based on Rates in
Effect Tue. Dec. 16 |
|
Domain |
Sold For
|
Where
Sold |
1. |
Austin.biz |
$4,500 |
Sedo |
2. |
Vaccines.biz
|
�2,500
= $3,082 |
Sedo |
3. |
Marine.biz
|
$1,800 |
Sedo |
3. |
Olymp.info
|
�900
= $1,109 |
Sedo |
5. |
Vacant |
|
|
Those numbers have to be encouraging to .biz fans who haven't had
a lot to cheer about in recent weeks. Of course, these are new
extensions so it's too early to draw
conclusions on any of them based on performance over a short period
of time. If the new extensions follow the historical pattern of new
channels in other forms of media when they were introduced (FM
Radio, UHF TV, Cable TV, etc.), widespread acceptance could still be
years rather than months away.
However, that doesn't mean there isn't already enough activity to
make a little money at it (I have been fortunate enough to do so myself). In addition, the chances for a significant payoff down the
line will likely keep investors with a long term view interested in
how this corner of the market continues to develop. Especially since
history shows that ALL of those aforementioned media channels did
eventually make it in a big way.
One other note on this week's New TLD chart: you might have heard about
the Sports Illustrated jinx. Supposedly any
athlete or team that appears on the magazine's cover winds up
suffering misfortune soon after. We are starting to feel like the #5
slot on our New TLD chart is the victim of some sort of hex that is
keeping domains away!
For the third straight week that position is vacant. We do know
of a .info in Escrow at Afternic that has been paid for and would
have filled that slot, but the owner has not yet delivered it to the
buyer, so it is not a completed transaction in our book. Banks.info
also entered escrow at Afternic Mon. Dec. 15 (a day after our
reporting period ended) after receiving a bid of $1,800. If
that transaction is completed the name will likely appear on the
chart within a week or two.
As always, we welcome all verifiable sales reports from companies,
private sellers or individuals with knowledge of an important sale
made through any channel. To contribute information and help make
this column better, just drop a note to [email protected].
I would like to extend special "Thank Yous" this week to Richard
Meyer and Page Howe for their help in gathering data for
our lists.
Every Tuesday we publish the highest reported domain name
sales for the previous week. On Monday our contributors send us
their sales data for the previous 7 days. We then compile that
information and write this report for Tuesday publication to give
you the freshest sales report in the industry.
We will close with this standard caution. These are not average selling
prices - these are top selling domains. One of the
biggest impediments to making sales is pricing domains at
unrealistic levels. For most of us, pricing domains at the levels
achieved on the Top Ten chart will leave us waiting a long time to make a sale! We hope you will
use the information presented here as a measuring stick that will
help you price your domains at levels that will put more money in
your pocket more often!
Editor's Note: If you wish to review previous Domain
Sales columns, they are available in our Archive.
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