Branding works. i.e. Jamster.com

[Nova]

I sold jamster.com in June for I think $250. Nice profit for a $7.00 domain with no traffic. Buyer made a real nice ringtone site with it.

How did you find the buyer? Or did the buyer find you?

 

[NexSite]

I was contacted by somebody from overseas. I actually sold the name for more than I would have sold it to any of you guys for. It was listed here for a while at $199. nobody wanted it at that basement bragain price. Why might I ask. No overture. Forget about potential branding. With most domainers, a name with no overture is a name with no future apparently. I guess this serves as a wake up call that its not all about overture. Its about ideas, desire, (and funding of course). According to that article, they are spending millions on the advertising campaign.

 

[Theo]

That's why one should follow their gut feeling. If they told you "it stinks" plug up your ears :-D Example: http://www.dnforum.com/showthread.php?t=27331

I sold a domain for a couple of hundred dollars a while back; now it's the biggest UK site for indie music & bands.

 

[Theo]

Here's another odd clue:

jamster-ringtones.com was registered on 9/2/2004

That's a few days after the sale of jamster - but the domain is for sale. Inside information?

 

[DNQuest.com]

I had a similar situation. I sold Postured fro $125.00. By looking at teh domain, it thought it was a fair price, then driving home one night, I hear this commercial. Try this new producted Posture-D... using the domain I sold. I hear it all the time now, just haunting me.

 

[NameTower]

sorry for the late bump.
saw an ad on a site for jamster and remembered this thread.
overture = 45k w/ext now heheh

 

[David G]

Gee, makes it sound like I should go shoot myself eh? Not. Like I said, 3 clicks for 65 cents in 6 mos. Buyer was from switzerland, still listed from Switzerland in whois. Now as far as verisign, it sounds like a boast. It looks like thay may use some managed service from verisign, and use that as a front to claim to be part of the verisign family. They have no verisign seal, or any seal for that matter. In fact it doesnt really matter. You sell a name, well, you sold a name. I sold gamelocker a couple years back. Turned out the buyer was GameSpy inc. , but they diodn't tell me that up front. Why would they / should they? jamster.com would be useless without the branding.

Same thing happened to me a few mos ago but to a MUCH greater degree of success to the buyer but peanuts for me, though not totally only brandable but also 2 real words.

That domain is going to be one of the top traffic names on the web very shortly. In fact its traffic has already skyrocketed due to its 50 million $ marketing program I heard about, just now being launched nationwide, said in the media to be the largest budget ever of its kind.

When I owned it it was lucky to get a few hits a week, a big week was 5, now millions a week are expected. Each of you will be hearing the domain mentioned in the media zillions of times over the next few yrs., so much so you will be weary of hearing about it.

When I was approached by the disguised buyer to sell the non-for sale name the buyers identity was not revealed. To say I am depressed about it would be a great understatement. %+|

 

[Steen]

"a little branding" ?

Only a 6-7 figure marketing budget.

 

[furca]

The domain legends, maybe someday I will be fortunate enough to join your "leet" groupie


Duncan

 

[nicorlino]

Same thing happened to me a few mos ago but to a MUCH greater degree of success to the buyer but peanuts for me, though not totally only brandable but also 2 real words.

That domain is going to be one of the top traffic names on the web very shortly. In fact its traffic has already skyrocketed due to its 50 million $ marketing program I heard about, just now being launched nationwide, said in the media to be the largest budget ever of its kind.

When I owned it it was lucky to get a few hits a week, a big week was 5, now millions a week are expected. Each of you will be hearing the domain mentioned in the media zillions of times over the next few yrs., so much so you will be weary of hearing about it.

When I was approached by the disguised buyer to sell the non-for sale name the buyers identity was not revealed. To say I am depressed about it would be a great understatement. %+|

Hi Trader,

I am sorry to hear this. Can you disclose the name?

Best Regards
Nico

 

[peekaboo]

question: what's one common thing to all the following names:

ebay, google, yahoo...
expedia, orbitz, travelocity...
imdb, netflix, fandango...
domai, bangbus, milf... ?

answer: they each cost much less than $250 to acquire.

hope u catch my drift.

 

[MJM]

^I caught your drift, and now I will delete all my domains - and donate my premium domain names to some charity fund. Just for you, because as per your post, everyone can "just" spend $250 and suddenly turn it into a huge profitable Internet property. Thank you for such enlightenment, I wish I would have known sooner.

 

[izoot]

^I caught your drift, and now I will delete all my domains - and donate my premium domain names to some charity fund. Just for you, because as per your post, everyone can "just" spend $250 and suddenly turn it into a huge profitable Internet property. Thank you for such enlightenment, I wish I would have known sooner.

You do know that your missing the point being made right? If I am reading your post correctly with the intended sarcasm...you don't get it at all.

 

[seeker]

I agree with producers logic, however, these companies had to do this in order to totally seperate from others in the market.

What about?
sex.com
business.com
internet.com
medicine.com
travel.com
news.com

???
It would take IMHO a LOT more advertisement money to make someone remmeber ebay than auctions.com for example...

 

[peekaboo]

It would take IMHO a LOT more advertisement money to make someone remmeber ebay than auctions.com for example...

seeker, is your wife's name 'wife'? or is it maria, apollonia, melina...? :-D

there's a reason why all these huge companies don't care about generic names. because they are into creating brands. auctions.com can not really be a brand. because it's simply too generic and offers no distinction whatsoever. jeff bezos could have cared less about books.com, because he wasn't selling books, but a whole new 'amazIn' idea.

in fact, take a look at your own life and tell me do you dress yourself in unnamed generic 'shoes' and 'pants' , or do you dress yourself in 'nike' 'gucci' and 'khaki'?

do you really go out to a 'restaurant' - or do u go to 'cheesecake factory', 'emerils', 'chilis', '?

do u sleepover in a 'hotel' - or in 'holiday inn', 'hilton', 'sheraton'?

do you shop in 'supermarket' - or in 'whole foods' , 'publix', 'vons', 'safeway'...?

having said all this, what i was also trying to say in my earlier post is that $250 for a completely made-up name is not a bad deal at all. how much more can we expect from something that means nothing? yes, the seller might have gotten a bit more (where it wouldn't make much difference) but not much more imho. there's no reason to feel that this name was undersold, 'coz it wasn't. in fact, without friendster.com this name would have probably never be sold

there's a reason why brandable names are cheap. because made up names/terms are otherwise plentiful, and best of all - free.

there's another reason why brandable names are cheap. because money will not be spent on name, but on promotion.

now, if only these guys knew how 2 promote this > http://www.jamstersucks.com :cheeky:

 

[Poker]

Hmmm...Jamster.com kinda reminds me of my domain:

Nuster.com

...hmm...barely any traffic, bought for branding, and ripe for the picking!

 

[Theo]

Hmmm...Jamster.com kinda reminds me of my domain:

Nuster.com

...hmm...barely any traffic, bought for branding, and ripe for the picking!

I registered Jazzler.com and it has quite a bit of traffic, all type-ins :-D

 

[izoot]

there's a reason why brandable names are cheap. because made up names/terms are otherwise plentiful, and best of all - free.

Theres also another VERY important reason they choose "brandable" names...They are easier to protect from infringement that something like "Health club". They are unique distinctive and are NOT generic. If a company is going to build a busines and spend milions in marketing...they want to make sure they are going to be the major benefactor of their investment and if its infringed upon they have the ability to defend their mark...something that would be extremely difficult with a descroptive generic word.

Not that Bally's wouldn't love to own and be able to put to good use Healthclub.com they just could securely brand the business with it....

z

 

[dodo1]

Sorry to hear that about Jamster.com. It's the US web site of Jamba.de, a
German company offering ring tones, etc. Jamba was founded by the same
guys who sold their auction site (it used to be the most popular one in
Germany) to eBay several years ago so that eBay could establish their service
in Europe. You see, it's branding that makes you successful. And it's money
that makes branding

 

[NexSite]

"without friendster.com this name would have probably never be sold"

Uh, I beg to differ. First, napster was way bigger. Second , the guy who bought it recently stated that is was a play on the parents name , jamba. third, is was very brandable.

I need no apologies for selling the domain for $250. It was worth it to both of us at the time. Without the multi million dollar marketing the name is only worth what somebody was willing to pay for it. I originally had it for sale for $200 and nobody on this forum or anywhere else even nibbled at it. lets not get carried away. We are all bent on existing traffic, type ins, and PPC revenue. Many have this blind mentality that void of those, a names value drops to only $$$. I remembered when I reg'd jamster, how excited I was that this would be a great music site. Virtualy no traffic and ppc income later $250 was a good deal. Forget about potential. You could brand anything with $10 mill though.

Now, I have a guy playing me. I have a five letter name, no traffic, and an inquiry. He gave his real name, but stated that he is trying to start a small business. Well, his name, (not a common name) is all over google, and he is a senior marketing director for a very large corporation that specializes in DVD , DRM ripping protection software. Therefore, I now know exactly for what this name is being purchased. I had the name listed for $79 previously. Unless it gets branded it is indeed useless. No type in traffic. Now, am I supposed to get rich off of it? Absolutely not. $ 50K should be plenty. Just kidding. I am trying to figure out how to respond to this guy, with a fair price. It is an empty vessel with very good branding potential. But jamster was better in my opinion. I know they are going after a big corporate market with this software, and the names they wanted to use are taken. What to do?