On.com, Macau.com and Blue.com

[WhoDatDog]

^. You certainly make a valid point, but for what it's worth, macau is going to be a pretty big hit.

Here's the thing....they have been gambling like that in Macua for a long, long time. It is only recently that Steve Wynn and Sheldon Adelson have gone over to try to "get theirs". The story is not a new one...it is only new to the American Media.

No Americans who frequent Las Vegas casinos will ever be flying to Macau to gamble. If anything, Mr. Wynn and Mr Adelson developed a great sales pitch to get "other people" to put up the money for another big project. Other being the less-informed stock market investors.

It is the perfect project because it buys you years of time where you don't have to turn a profit. All of their key employees better be local or they will be quite disappointed with their results. What makes them think that they can go into another culture and do better than what is already there. If you look at the current owners of the Macau gambling establishments you can see that they have been there for generations. We'll see in about five years.

 

[Rarethings]

You just filled in the blanks for me.

But speculation usually leads to more $.

 

[none]

Macau's gambler demographic has changed. That's precisely why the large US casinos are scrambling to get a foothold.

Before the handovers (HK 97, Macau 99), Macau was mostly a haven for Hong Kong gamblers.

Since the handovers the borders have been liberalized and now the demographic is mostly mainland Chinese gamblers. That's a HUGE increase in potential visitors with cash to spend.

I do also think blue.com and on.com are great domains, but they don't have the immediate commercial application -- supremely brandable? Yes.

 

[WhoDatDog]

Macau's gambler demographic has changed. That's precisely why the large US casinos are scrambling to get a foothold.

Before the handovers (HK 97, Macau 99), Macau was mostly a haven for Hong Kong gamblers.

Since the handovers the borders have been liberalized and now the demographic is mostly mainland Chinese gamblers. That's a HUGE increase in potential visitors with cash to spend.

I do also think blue.com and on.com are great domains, but they don't have the immediate commercial application -- supremely brandable? Yes.

If you asked 100 random people in the world to say spell Macau then you would get a lot of weird answers. I understand it is a place, but if it weren't for a few United States gambling companies putting out press releases in the last few years, most everyone in the U.S. wouldn't know what the hell a Macau was...they still don't.

If I told you that some Chinese and Hong Kong casino companies were coming to Vegas to open up a grand casino then I bet you wouldn't be too impressed. Very few companies in history have rolled into other cultures and competed with the same product.

 

[eq78]

I will take what the op missed as #1 DIAMOND.com I would take BLUEand Macau tied for 2 Just my opinion.

 

[simon]

on.com is forwarded to weathymen.com which is a free dating site.

 

[hugegrowth]

You can't go wrong with any of the three names but I would still take Macau.

It fits exactly into a soon to boom location in the travel - tourism - gambling -hotels - resorts sector, all high value industries. There is more than just the gambling, there is the Portuguese/Chinese cultures, shopping, old buildings, Macau tower, Hong Kong close by, an international airport, golf courses, a Grand Prix event, etc. It may not be familiar to people in North America, but we are only a part of the world. Look at a map and see all the countries in close proximity to Macau - Europe and Australia are closer, Japan, India, Middle East, Russia. They are spending billions on developing the place and when it's ready I'm sure they will let everyone know about it. Plus, we have the huge population of baby boomers over here (born '47 to '67) who are now just starting to hit 60. They've been to LasVegas and Reno dozens of times, they'll want to try something new and exotic in their retirement years.

Can on.com and blue.com be easily branded into a service or product that can be used worldwide? Sites that people will naturally visit to look for information in high paying industries? With Macau you don't even have to have a product or service, you just have to provide information on the place and cut some deals with hotels, airlines, casinos for bookings, etc.

 

[britishbulldog]

I still like keywords for brandability because people remember them and easily relate to them as blue and on i might see it on the back of the bus but forget whats its about.
As for macau ( ijust had to look at the previous post to spell it lol) being british and a former heavy gambler the response is MACWHO ? noew vegas is a different thing everybody even non gamblers know where that is !

So for me all of them are over priced only cuz i love my keywords but then again i said gold was to expensive at $525 when cantor called me about the account i havnt used for a while so at the moment im wrong on a lot of things maybe one day ill get something right LOL !

 

[italiandragon]

I will take all the others.
The ccTLDs.
You guys have fun chasing the nothing left with .com while the ccTLDs are starting to get hotter week after week.

The NAV.no was an outrageous exploit but you can see how BlackJack.de scored $ 300,000 2 weeks ago and all the rest is just booming.
Actually NAV is also the Norton Antivirus acronym......I would be curious to see if Symanted bothers the Norway Govt.

 

[WhoDatDog]

I will take all the others.
The ccTLDs.
You guys have fun chasing the nothing left with .com while the ccTLDs are starting to get hotter week after week.

The NAV.no was an outrageous exploit but you can see how BlackJack.de scored $ 300,000 2 weeks ago and all the rest is just booming.
Actually NAV is also the Norton Antivirus acronym......I would be curious to see if Symanted bothers the Norway Govt.

You act as if great names never change hands. Just another example of someone doing whatever it takes not to have the best. Second best is not the way I like to operate. I prefer Prime Real Estate or no Real Estate. Sure, slum lords make money too, but dotcom names are the only names where the sky is the limit. For the best of the best, there is almost no limit to the prices you will see in the next few years. Other Mickey Mouse extentions are in so much trouble because all of the nitwit speculators have hogged up all of the names, and that makes for less developed sites, which means happy trading amongst yourselves.

 

[Steen]

Macau is going to be huge starting in 2007, lots of casinos and resorts going up, many companies from LasVegas and major hotel chains. It will likely be heavily promoted to North America as a new gambling destination, and it's the right time with the baby boomer market coming on. Not to mention all the Asian gamblers within a few hours flight from Macau. On a world scale it will be bigger than Las Vegas in some ways. Macau.com is probably the easiest to brand - makes one think right away of a place and gambling (if not yet, then soon it will), On.com and Blue.com are no doubt great names but would take more work to brand to a product or service. When you think of 'on' or 'blue' does any one product come to mind easily and right away?

Macau has for some time trumped Las Vegas is gambling revenue. Having said that, Macau is far more gaming oriented than Las Vegas' entertainment businesses. I think for this reason (as well as several other factors) Macau will not be attracting many North American tourists. Perhaps a few Europeans, but they have Monaco.

Having said that, it is no secret that the Chinese people are becoming increasingly affluent compared to the past few decades. I think this is the major opportunity for growth in Macau (and Macau.com) rather than a few American investors and North American PR campaigns. Who knows, if IDNs become popular in the future perhaps Macau.com in Mandarin/Cantonese will be far more valuable than Macau.com itself!

 

[hugegrowth]

There are some prime .com names that will never change hands, except at super high prices that most speculators can't afford. Everyone wants the waterfront property and the Ferrari, but there is also a market for Fords and apartments. The fact that .com's will rise in price in the coming years will help the value of all extensions. It's like any market, when the price of one product gets too high for most people, they start to look for something else that will get the job done at a lower relative cost. It's hard to deny that country code domains are going up in value, especially the ones that have been around longer, like .us, .de and .ca. In Canada .ca is used extensively for government sites, by multinational corporations (Nestle, Toshiba, Toyota, etc) and by the likes of Yahoo, Google and MSN. All that's required for any domain to become popular is for it to be used and seen extensively by the public, so that they become familiar with it. No doubt .com will always rule but most decent names are taken, leaving most people to look for the next best choice.

 

[WhoDatDog]

There are some prime .com names that will never change hands, except at super high prices that most speculators can't afford. Everyone wants the waterfront property and the Ferrari, but there is also a market for Fords and apartments. The fact that .com's will rise in price in the coming years will help the value of all extensions. It's like any market, when the price of one product gets too high for most people, they start to look for something else that will get the job done at a lower relative cost. It's hard to deny that country code domains are going up in value, especially the ones that have been around longer, like .us, .de and .ca. In Canada .ca is used extensively for government sites, by multinational corporations (Nestle, Toshiba, Toyota, etc) and by the likes of Yahoo, Google and MSN. All that's required for any domain to become popular is for it to be used and seen extensively by the public, so that they become familiar with it. No doubt .com will always rule but most decent names are taken, leaving most people to look for the next best choice.

Strong two word combos will always be available for business use in dotcom. People are anti-dotcom because they feel that they can't participate at the highest end. The truth is, that they haven't been imaginative or determined enough to acquire them. There have been many great deals reported on DN Journal and elsewhere, and these names could have been had by anyone for a good (but solid) price.

I don't have a problem with people chasing ghosts that no one has ever heard of, but their rationalization is usually quite ridiculous. People are pretty much trading names back and forth and huffing and puffing about those sales. Not enough end-users want the names, and even if they did, it would take too long to get any end-user momentum for most of these silly extentions like .us. There aren't too many United States business that would choose a great .us generic over a good dotcom. I don't need examples. Dotcom is king....it's pretty easy to see.

 

[italiandragon]

You act as if great names never change hands. Just another example of someone doing whatever it takes not to have the best. Second best is not the way I like to operate. I prefer Prime Real Estate or no Real Estate. Sure, slum lords make money too, but dotcom names are the only names where the sky is the limit. For the best of the best, there is almost no limit to the prices you will see in the next few years. Other Mickey Mouse extentions are in so much trouble because all of the nitwit speculators have hogged up all of the names, and that makes for less developed sites, which means happy trading amongst yourselves.

You may consider that I have very limited FINANCIAL RESOURCES at the moment.:faint:

 

[namestrands]

Check back in 24 months. Those names will seem like huge bargains.

I bought an expired domain last year for reg fee, only to discover that it was actually sold the previous year for $15,000

Its even listed on DNJournal.

 

[italiandragon]

I bought an expired domain last year for reg fee, only to discover that it was actually sold the previous year for $15,000

Its even listed on DNJournal.

but you have a very BIG ... :wof:

First the unpronunciable LLLL.com for $6,500 , now this one......what was that one and what is this one????

 

[Salient]

I bought an expired domain last year for reg fee, only to discover that it was actually sold the previous year for $15,000

Its even listed on DNJournal.

I would like to get the phone number of the monkey who let it drop and ask for some free money, since he/she is throwing it away.

 

[Beachie]

American Express have a credit card called "Blue"

 

[Duckinla]

Don't know much about the adult business but I think I would take Nasty.com over any of the names mentioned except diamond.com.

 

[mambo]

Dude, i live in norway, and guess that was no private transaction on nav.no as some are mentioning over the web.


THE GOVERMENT, bought the name nav.no.

lmao, MY TAX MONEY paid for it. Can you believe it.

Im stunned.