The Need for a Name
Last weekend I saw an news story on the buying the selling of domain names. The article basically was explaining that in the mid 90′s domains such as sky.com and bbc.com were sold for mutli millions of dollars to the respective news agencies.
Immediately after watching the story, I picked up the laptop and typed “buying domain names” into Google. The search returned 3,340,000 pages on the subject and I clicked the fourth result on the list – Go Daddy. It had been a while since I brought a domain, so it was my first visit to the Go Daddy website in a long while. I would normally register domains via Melbourne IT - and pay about 5 times more for it!
I found myself at the Domain Auction’s page and had a look at the list. There are about 2000 listings, ranging from 3-letter domains to domains with all sorts of numbers, letters and other combinations. I also found myself looking at the prices some people were asking for a domain that I would not think would have much of a demand.
But it wasn’t the fact that someone was asking $50,000 for a domain that was not great, it was the fact that people were actually bidding on a domain that was not that great! Most of the domains that were for sale, that had some decent bids, were not domains that I would have thought would have attracted a buyer.
Why? Why would someone be willing to pay up to $50,000 for a domain that is 10 characters, not very generic and not even a dot com?
Why? Because to someone, whether it be a huge multinational company, a small business or even a private buyer, that name defines their business need. That name either represents their product or niche and defines their very need to exist on the internet.
So after browsing domains for a few hours, I got all inspried and decided to have a crack at it. By the end of the weekend I had registered so many names I got a call from my bank’s fraud department to ensure I had authorised all of the transactions on my credit card!
I think I ended up with about 10 domain names by the end of the weekend, including this one. Whether or not they make me a fortune or not is another thing. But I can always hold my breath hoping that one day, someone might just think that one of the names I now own defines their product or need, and that they have to buy it!
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Good idea, daniel…!:-)