closed network.us for $11,000 !!

[fizz]

Good advice snoopy. With such a huge glut of domain names and extensions, it's wise to concentrate on .com names, and to a lesser extent the other generic TLDs.

> as i recall with the beauty.cc sale it was mostly a stock swap

safesys, if that's the case, in the interests of honest disclosure the GreatDomains.com site should be corrected to say that, rather than perpetuate the belief it was a cash transaction, which is the way most people would interpret a $1 million sale as being.

 

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/00/33/cyber-fefer.php

For example, though the press release announcing the deal stated that “beauty.cc” was purchased “for $1 million dollars,” that is not the case. Alan Brown, president of Universal Domains Inc., which bought “beauty.cc,” says in an interview that only $200,000 in cash was paid. The rest of the purchase was made in shares of Universal’s very thinly traded OTC (“over the counter”) stock — which, experts say, was valued with unusual generosity.

In addition, there are some indications that the selling company, David Sams Industries, an infomercial producer and major marketer of .cc names, may have already had a significant stake in Universal before this deal.

The deal, in short, looks more like a classic case of publicity-driven Internet bubblenomics than a true measure of dot-cc’s future

 

[fizz]

Thanks safesys for that great article by a writer who was prepared to dig deeper into the issue, rather than simply run with the press release as it seems was the case with the Associated Press, ABC News and CNN. The cartoon was a beauty too. One revealing paragraph:

Why did the two companies — which already had direct dealings with each other — turn to GreatDomains.com for help with this particular transaction? Brown explains, “We wanted a third-party national reseller involved, just to make sure everyone knows it’s not a backroom deal.”

The nature of the whole deal makes me question the legitimacy of even $200,000 in cash having changed hands.

 

There's no real reason why any company carrying out an arm's length transaction would have paid more than a few thousand for the name at the time, and even that would be gross overpaying. Basically from what I can see there is basically zero sales history for .cc names, has anyone ever seen one sell for more than even $100 at auction? other than the "sale" of beauty.cc?

 

[David G]

Originally posted by safesys http://www.laweekly.com/ink/00/33/cyber-fefer.php

My undersatnding is that any actual cash claims involved gave the buyer (who was also a .CC registar) an equal amount of .CC pre-paid registration rights from the registry.

In other words, if there was $200,000 cash that would mean they could then sell 20,000 CC registrations to the public at no cost to them, or a heavily discounted cost. That's assuming the wholesale cost of CC's is $10. I have no idea if that cost is correct or not, just a guess.

The one million dollar sale was clearly a 100% insider transaction designed to promote new CC registrations. The way it was announced and marketed allegedly was fraudulent. I am sure they sold zillions of new CC names based on the hype involving the alleged sale of Beauty.cc.

Isn't it amazing how the domain is now on registrar hold after expiring for non-renewal?

 

[Nic]

Originally posted by kvinsencius
Network.us was just sold for a little bit over $11,000 on Afternic. In my opinion this was a steal. $11,000 for a name like that is nothing!! Especially when we are talking about a new TLD that has potential to grow and become the second largest in the US after the .com. In Candada .ca has become a very popular TLD used by many businesses. However the .com is still No.1 there.
I'm strong believer of the .us. Especially for businesses and people dealing domestic audience and market place.

Have a good one,

Kim

I could not disagree more.
On the contrary... I think the seller should count his blessings.
An extension so new and so ccTLDish right now looks to suspicious for 11K.

Lets see hoa many other generic .us will sell this year for half that?

answer: NONE

too soon...maybe in a couple of years but not now, no way !

 

[fizz]

The one million dollar sale was clearly a 100% insider transaction designed to promote new CC registrations. The way it was announced and marketed allegedly was fraudulent. I am sure they sold zillions of new CC names based on the hype involving the alleged sale of Beauty.cc.

IMO the fact that GreatDomains for the past two years has continued to publicize this 'sale' on its home page, could have legal implications for GD and its parent Verisign.

 

[Whois-Search]

a sale on afternic ???

 

[buddy]

RE: I could not disagree more.
On the contrary... I think the seller should count his blessings.
An extension so new and so ccTLDish right now looks to suspicious for 11K.

Lets see hoa many other generic .us will sell this year for half that?

answer: NONE

too soon...maybe in a couple of years but not now, no way !
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I agree that it was a good sale considering it was at this stage. However, I believe he could have gottem much more in at least a year from now. What I was trying to point out was acutally published today or yesterday in this article:
http://www.silicon.com/bin/bladerun...325&2006REQEVENT=&REQINT1=54374&REQAUTH=21046

"Research from internet marketeers Harris Interactive reported that 68 per cent of Americans would choose to buy from a dot-US domain over a dot-com or foreign domain."

 

[AMERICAR]

On the contrary... I think the seller should count his blessings.
An extension so new and so ccTLDish right now looks to suspicious for 11K
************************************************
You believe all you see ... huh

Wait and see if it's not relisted very soon.


.

 

Originally posted by kvinsencius

I agree that it was a good sale considering it was at this stage. However, I believe he could have gottem much more in at least a year from now. What I was trying to point out was acutally published today or yesterday in this article:
http://www.silicon.com/bin/bladerun...325&2006REQEVENT=&REQINT1=54374&REQAUTH=21046

"Research from internet marketeers Harris Interactive reported that 68 per cent of Americans would choose to buy from a dot-US domain over a dot-com or foreign domain."

Doesn't mean much when no other details of the survey were annouced, like who was surveyed and how big the same was, just marketing puff to go along with the puff sales.

I would be very surprised if the network.us sale was real, the auction looks odd to me and even the supposed buyer and seller have similar usernames, "elequa" and "el930692". Lets face it much better names are not even getting bidded to $1000 on other sites.

 

[Attilio]

For what I know elequa was the nickname of one of the few real buyers on afternic, 11k are nuts for him and if the nickname still correspond to same person I would say that it is highly probable that the sale is real.

In this case for all of you always stating that the value of a domain is how much a buyr is willing to pay for it than you should now agree that network.us worths 11k, that is much more than most .coms.

 

I'll be waiting for the name to change hands first , everything about it looks odd to me

 

[buddy]

RE: Doesn't mean much when no other details of the survey were annouced, like who was surveyed and how big the same was, just marketing puff to go along with the puff sales.
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Of course the details of the survey matters in terms of what questions were asked and who the audience were. But the point is not the survey itself, but rather the credibility a .us brings to potential costumers. First of all, only people residing in the US or doing business in the US are eligible to purchase this ccTLD. This will surely matter to a lot of people. Especially to people that are not too familiar with purchasing stuff online.

We have a lot of internet users today in the US. But how many of those have ever purchsed anything online?

 

[buddy]

RE: In this case for all of you always stating that the value of a domain is how much a buyr is willing to pay for it than you should now agree that network.us worths 11k, that is much more than most .coms.


I totally agree. It all comes down what the buyer is willing to pay and how much the domain could be worth for his business. Why spend 100s of dollars of obtaining network.com when you can get network.us. No other .coms besides network.com come close to network.us.

When you purchase a domain for any type of business, it all comes down to names that are easy to remember and that represents the business itself. Too many people are stuck on the .com. But remember that the domain speculators don't decide what the market want, but rather the prices for obtaining these domains.

 

[buddy]

RE: Why spend 100s of dollars of obtaining network.com

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I meant 100,000s of dollars

 

The problem is people are making in purchasing decision based on doubtful surveys commissioned by the promoters themselves. The commercial reality is that almost no corporations are actively using these domains for anything but redirects and to protect their trademarks. The extension is not without some potenital (just like .cc,.ws, .tv and everthing before it) but is extremely speculative and at the moment is not even on the coprorate radar. At the moment its all hype with nothing in the way of statistics or $$$ to back it up.

 

Seems the supposed buyer is based in Turkey so I'm not sure that they would even pass the .us requirements.

 

[buddy]

RE: The extension is not without some potenital (just like .cc,.ws, .tv and everthing before it) but is extremely speculative and at the moment is not even on the coprorate radar. At the moment its all hype with nothing in the way of statistics or $$$ to back it up.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

All the ccTLDS mentioned above belong to other countries. I can surely understand why they are not popular and not used here in the US and. Because they DON'T represent the US. The .tv is the only ccTLD with some potential here. And there are already sites out there related to media and tv programs using this ccTLD.

 

[buddy]

RE: Seems the supposed buyer is based in Turkey so I'm not sure that they would even pass the .us requirements.

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Where did you get the whois info Snoopy? I just checked whois.us
Here is the result: http://www.whois.us/whois.cgi?TLD=us&WHOIS_QUERY=network.us&TYPE=DOMAIN

It seems like there is no change in ownership yet.