CREDITCARDS.COM Domain Name Purchased for $2.75 Million

[Duke]

Duke, YGM.

Received Shep, and thank you very much. I will follow up on it.

 

[actnow]

Ok, I have deleted the press release.

I don't want Google to pick it up.

Incidently, he is going to get paid in pennies!

 

[Duke]

OK, a lot of my questions are now getting answered (and thanks to Shepherd2 for a good lead). MSNBC just called me and I have been on the phone with them for the past half hour. They are working on a story on the sale and have already done some interviews with people involved in the deal (including one of the people Shepherd2 led me to). We compared notes and I now believe it is legit - and will have more details on it in our weekly sales report tonight. Also, I made a mistake in the WhoIs look up I mentioned above. I went back and double checked and the update date is not from a year ago - it is this month. So, looks like we have seen the biggest deal done since the late 90's!

 

[zouzas]

Press release for immediate distribution.

DNJournal.com Domain Name Purchased for $3.2 Million

New York, NY -- (DNF WIRE) -- July 23, 2004 -- DNJournal.com, the domain name, has been purchased for $ 3.2 million by Hurst, L.P., a Cayman Islands-based firm specializing in marketing of comic books online. The purchase, announced today, represents the tenth highest selling price for a domain name on record. The site allows readers to read, shop, compare and solicit domain offers based on selected criteria, including recent domain sales. Plus, they offer a frequent flyer reward program.

Additionally, the highly visited website (DNJournal.com) has a highly paid staff of writers working 24/7 will be retained. Including, the syndicated columnist Ronny J. Ronny J.'s contract will be renewed for 3 years at an annual cost of $ 750.000.

Funding for this transaction will be contracted through the Global Bank Div., ActNow Funding.

W O W way to go Duke

 

[Duke]

Press release for immediate distribution.

DNJournal.com Domain Name Purchased for $3.2 Million

New York, NY -- (DNF WIRE) -- July 23, 2004 -- DNJournal.com, the domain name, has been purchased for $ 3.2 million by Hurst, L.P., a Cayman Islands-based firm specializing in marketing of comic books online. The purchase, announced today, represents the tenth highest selling price for a domain name on record. The site allows readers to read, shop, compare and solicit domain offers based on selected criteria, including recent domain sales. Plus, they offer a frequent flyer reward program.

Additionally, the highly visited website (DNJournal.com) has a highly paid staff of writers working 24/7 will be retained. Including, the syndicated columnist Ronny J. Ronny J.'s contract will be renewed for 3 years at an annual cost of $ 750.000.

Funding for this transaction will be contracted through the Global Bank Div., ActNow Funding.

OK, who spilled the beans on this. I didn't want this out until next week! :-D

 

[Duke]

W O W way to go Duke

Better read Actnow's release a little more carefully Zou! He is obviously suffering from another one of those recurring LSD flashbacks he has been having since the 60's. :-D

 

[zouzas]

anyone have a silver membership at www.whois.sc you ck the history of names

 

[actnow]

Better read Actnow's release a little more carefully Zou! He is obviously suffering from another one of those recurring LSD flashbacks he has been having since the 60's. :-D

My Afternic PPC check just came in. So, I went and bought a couple cases of
cheap beer.

You can see my picture at

www.NewNames.info

I am the .com picture.

 

[MediaHound]

anyone have a silver membership at www.whois.sc you ck the history of names

I do. There's ten records stored, the updates being on:
2004-01-13
2003-12-23
2003-12-22
2003-12-19
2003-09-16
2003-09-03
2003-07-08
2003-06-20
2002-11-30
2001-10-02

 

[Duke]

There is also a July 1, 2004 update at Net Solutions where this is registered, apparently not in the whois-sc records yet.

 

[MediaHound]

Good to know the amount of lapse whois history leaves. That gives us a better idea of the service. All in all, its a great tool, but not so accurate...

d

 

[GeorgeK]

So, looks like we have seen the biggest deal done since the late 90's!

Hmmm, Casino.com was $5.5 million, and was less than a year ago.

 

[Duke]

Hmmm, Casino.com was $5.5 million, and was less than a year ago.

Casino.com was an ongoing business - you can't separate the value of a domain name from business revenues unless the participants say we paid for example, $2 million for the name and $3.5 million for the company's sales.
At the time the seller Boss Media said the deal included their brand, the domain name and their assets. As I recall they had a magazine among other things.

In the CreditCards.com deal, the buyer said the money was for the URL.

 

[GeorgeK]

The press release was here for casino.com:

http://investors.bossmedia.se/index.php?p=press&id=16337&lang=en

The brand is the domain name. The website's value is insignificant, compared to the value of the domain name. That same website at www.fsokjdhgtjhgjsgfjslhg.com would be worth how much? I think most would agree that the value would approach $0, at any other URL.

 

[Whois-Search]

I see you told MSNBC duke

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5467584/

 

[shepherd2]

Duke,
You said in the article three years.. but don't forget to calculate growth into the equation. The three years today is not what it is tomorrow. It may as well be three years or even less to get that 2.75 mills back.
Andrew said on his site he got five year return on it so I take it he definitely did not calculate growth. Real shame.

 

[Leading Names]

Nice this sale turned out to be legit.

Good job on the investigation work Ron, and on your contribution to the MSNBC article also.

- Rob

 

[Duke]

Duke,
You said in the article three years.. but don't forget to calculate growth into the equation. The three years today is not what it is tomorrow. It may as well be three years or even less to get that 2.75 mills back.
Andrew said on his site he got five year return on it so I take it he definitely did not calculate growth. Real shame.

Actually I didn't say that. Unfortunately there are a lot of misquotes in the MSNBC story (like Candy.com getting $10 per click! He mixed that up with some casinos paying $10 per click). I gave him a range on the multiple of annual revenues sellers usually look for and he picked the number 3. Mainstream reporters really don't understand this business so it's hard for them to keep a lot of stuff straight. Still the coverage is a good thing and will let a lot of people know what is going on in the market.

 

[Duke]

The press release was here for casino.com:

http://investors.bossmedia.se/index.php?p=press&id=16337&lang=en

The brand is the domain name. The website's value is insignificant, compared to the value of the domain name. That same website at www.fsokjdhgtjhgjsgfjslhg.com would be worth how much? I think most would agree that the value would approach $0, at any other URL.

As I stated above there were assets branded with the Casino.com name beyond just the URL that were part of the sale, including the real world magazine I mentioned (subscriptions to which are still being offered on the Casino.com site). So the domain name was NOT all there was to the brand.

Perhaps you missed the Boss Media CEO's quotes about their assets in the press release:

Peter Bertilsson, CEO of Boss Media, says: "This is part of our overall strategy to focus on developing the best gambling platform in the world. It is hard to have a double interest with both B2C and B2B business. Therefore we are very happy to have found a so strong and committed partner to sell our highly valuable assets to."

 

[GeorgeK]

Duke: That's inconsistent with what you even wrote last year:

http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/domainsales11_04_03.htm

"Second, there is a good deal of speculation that the buyer might junk the existing portal anyhow."

Take a look at the Alexa stats of casino.com, at:

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=&url=casino.com

An average of 1.2 to 1.8 pageviews per user. Thus, folks are clearly not visiting it for the content (you can compare that to eBay's stats, for example, of 20 pageviews per user).

And if you search Google for pages on casino.com that mention "2004", there are only 66:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=site:www.casino.com+2004&btnG=Google+Search

The site's value is from the domain alone. But, you're entitled to your opinion. If DNJournal is to have respect as a publication, though, it needs to have more balance and objectivity. The fact that both candy.com and men.com were mentioned shows who is your master.