AT&T’s YellowPages subsidiary purchased the two-letter domain name YP.com (now redirects to yellowpages.com) last month from the company LiveDeal (formerly YP Corp.).
A SEC filing has now revealed that YellowPages acquired the domain name for a cool $3,850,000 in cash payment. That’s a lot of money for an admittedly valuable domain name, especially during this economic downturn. It probably didn’t hurt that YP.com was actually operational and generating revenue for LiveDeal, but we should also note that this amount is roughly half of the publicly listed company’s current market cap.
For the sake of comparison: AT&T (or rather BellSouth and SBC at the time) acquired YellowPages.com for something approaching $100 million dollars a couple of years ago. Its market capitalization, of course, exceeds $165 billion.
Hat tip to George Kirikos for the tip.
That’s real NICE!!!
Wow, that is some serious dinero for a domain name. Almost makes me think about getting into the domain name flipping business.
That sounds like a lot of money but considering the size of the domain and industry, they got it for next to nothing! I am sure they could have held-out for more than double easy… 2 letter domains are incredibly hard to get!
Jon
http://WoodMarvels.com – Create Unique Memories
That’s insane!
Well, I own Flippingwebsites.com
Great domain.
I’ll take a few pennies compared to 3.85 million. lol
Vondre
Vondre, I recommend you turn to http://www.Sedo.com / http://www.GreatDomains.com to sell this name.
They’ve sold quite a few names for me at good prices.
That’s good for them, best way to raise capital.
Well, i’m selling the best possible domain name in the world;
T.com
I only wish that owned that T.com domain name.
Unfortunately, there were only three one letter domain names which were authorized and registered through Network Solutions; one of them were X.com (now PayPal), and I think A.com.
…and z.com which Nissan has
those damn domain names arent worth anything.
great sale.
if atandt was smart they would have a premium domain name for every topic combined with social networking.
AdvertiseLocal.com – sell yourself
Why would anyone randomly type in yp.com and visit it, if they didn’t already go there already.
You could have used $3.85 Million to shepherd to any domain you want. Although this does generate publicity too.
I have a domain I can sell too.
Just Rich people throwing money around.
Not sure why they don’t do a 301 redirect to yellowpages.com to get all the SEO juice and links to flow into the main site. This site yp.com is now a duplicate of yellowpages.com in google’s eyes.
Is YP that really meaningful – will people really type in http://www.yp.com if they want to get to yellowpages.com?
Does anyone still use the Yellow Pages, or even remember them?
Nice chunk of change to the seller, congrats.
Greatest 2 letter domain sale in the history of the internet.
So that’s a good ROI for a 15$/year domain name!
It just goes to show that there’s still a lot of potential growth in online yellow pages especially in a slowing economy. Very exciting!
This purchase for Yellowpages.com was pretty much a nobrainer. YP.com ranks for some fairly valuable search terms. If they can maintain these rankings the deal almost makes sense on this alone. If you add in any revenue/advertisers that YP.com may have already had, this looks like a very good move.
I fully agree its like Hewlett-Packard having hp.com and similar domains with other companies.
Very good acquisition. IMHO, I see two possible use for the domain name. First, they could use as a great sub-domain system for all their online customers (i.e. businessName.yp.com). They could also use it as a great tinyurl-like service for sharing merchant information from Yellowpages.com.
I think this is a good buy. When the opportunity appears to acquire premium domain names like these, you have to jump on it or you miss your chance.
In a very crowded space, better you be holding onto this domain than a competitor, and the serp and other opportunities are almost unlimited.
Worst case scenario, they can resell this again, but it would have to be to a competitor which isn’t ideal.
great domain for branding purposes, people are more likely to type yp then yellowpages.com.
example askjeeves or aj.com … ya know?
AT&T paid $1.32 million for 1800yellowpages.com and the toll-free number 1-800-YELLOWPAGES in October 2006.
http://oceantom...ressRelease.pdf
AT&T also paid $500,000 for the 2 toll free numbers 1877 and 1866YellowPages
Is this a good deal? I thought they originally purchased this domain a couple of years ago for $10+ million in cash/stock proceeds.
CEO was fired last quarter which had large cash/stock offsets, and a corporate relocation.
Livedeal needed that cash. badly.
It is a lot easier typing yp.com on my iphone.
However the woman in the yellowBOOK.com tv commerical (that catches her man cheating) is gorgeous. How do I find her in the book?
I saw this referenced at http://www.Ocea...rontDomains.Com and think they are getting off very reasonably. The price is certainly comparable to what they would need to spend to promote an obscure name, yet, unlike a promoted name, it will continue to provide a steady stream of clients forevermore. Also, as a two letter .COM, it has inherent value and will continue to appreciate in value. Good move, AT&T.
Funniest video I’ve ever seen in my life!
Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck.
Re: http://www.Ocea...rontDomains.com I gotta admit that that video was purty funny.
I was laghing so hard, I couldn’t stop the tinkle from trickling down my leg!
At least be creative with your spam. This attempt, and the following two other posts, was downright pathetic.
I went to http://www.Ocea...rontDomains.Com and couldn’t stop laughing from that video posted on the home page. Funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life! Yes, you read that right…I said LIFE! ROLF!!
Yellowpages is in the process of doing some significant development and rebranding of their services (they’ve been hiring lots of developers, in San Fran. and LA). I would guess that yp.com is meant as a cooler alternative to the classic “Yellow Pages” brand.
Makes sense as well. Sensis, the Australian Yellow Pages, re-branded to Yellow a few years ago.
Really waste of money. The previous domain is much more beautiful and accurate.
But sometimes fresh labels can make a nitro effect. We’ll see.
ROLF ROLF ROLF!!!
Yes, after watching that video, I guess the name is a pretty good one after all. With the name http://www.Ocea...rontDomains.Com, it’s kinda obvious where they would stand on this .COM valuation issue.
the opening video on http://www.ocea...rontdomains.com made me laugh like a little girl and has great relevance to this conversation. tee hee hee!
I’d take a transactional-sounding generic type-in domain for any day over yp.com, e.g. hotels.com. That said, they’re rich enough to have their cake and eat it too, so good for them.
Sadly, ClownPenis.com was actually registered eight days ago. What’s wrong with this world?
While the clownpenis.fart is funny, putting it on here a dozen times is lame . It’s also totally Douchey and illegal to splatter your company name on the copyrighted content created by others.
It’s cool to have a two letter .com domain. They are rare and this one is appropriate to the company that purchased it. Not that surprising…
Does that mean that YP.LA is worth around $3.85 million?
Cyber squatters and speculative domain registering should be regulated. First priority should always go to trademark owners/business name owners.
I have already been involved in a domain name dispute and since my company trademarked the name and it was THE company name, it was an easy process to go through the WIPO domain name dispute process (http://www.wipo...amc/en/domains/).
Thinking of a domain name for your business is important, you want to create the right image for your company/brand/product, but remember, if the domain name is taken and is used by a squatter who has no legitimate claim to the name, it is not a difficult procedure to get the domain name back. In most cases squatters do not fight the WIPO dispute cases (it costs money) and if you have already prepared a company name and trademark for the name with the plaintiff not turning up for the proceedings, you have a much cheaper way to secure the domain which is rightfully yours.
If I was going to get YP.com, I would have used a strategy of trademark protection, company registration, design/IP protection and I would be paying less than $10K to get that domain.
Unless the squatter who registered the domain had already solidified his stance with the protections I have described, I think the financial outlay (to get the domain) would have been a fraction of the paying price.
Having said that, the marketable value of the PR for getting YP.com out into the world (by paying a large sum) is probably what swayed the decision by the buyer to use this method.
Just my thoughts………..
PS Anybody want advice on these matters, I am not a lawyer but will share my experience via TC
PPS The yellow pages model is going to be disrupted. I am working on something now but a couple of guys in the UK (competitors) have already started: http://www.brownbook.net/
Paul – you live in a simple world. Go to TM owners? TM where? The world is rather large, and there are multiple names TMed by different companies in different countries. Does the age matter? Location?
At least you the decency to differentiate between cybersquatters and speculators. Speculators gambled – let them reap their rewards.
PPS. Dear lord will people stop spamming that damn brownbook.net URL everywhere.
Paul you have described a process called ‘reverse hijacking’. These kind of attempts get denied all the time and in fact can create liability for you trying it. You shouldn’t be trying to give legal advice about something you know little about.
there are hundreds of examples of people who have tried the process you described to ‘reverse hijack’ a domain name over the past decade. here is a little reading for you about just one:
http://www.adrf...ions/109368.htm
‘40z’,
I appreciate your response in describing the process as reverse hijacking, but I have never been involved in such matters personally. I further appreciate that many cases have been brought to WIPO and NAF in which the decisions have been in favour of the respondent (thus being deemed reverse hijacking).
My stance is that businesses legitimately trading with TM’s/IP rights, registered company names should take precedence over the ownership of a domain name to be used commercially.
You presume I ‘know little’ about the matter, but I have some experience of the legal procedures and have successfully brought a complaint to WIPO for one of the domain names which rightfully belonged to my company (at that time). I do not wish to offer ‘legal’ advice to anybody concerning these matters, but I am very familiar with the proceedings for such complaints and the depth of material evidence needed to successfully bring a complaint to WIPO and would be willing to point this out to anybody.
My view is that domain name registration should be treated in the same way as company registration/trademark registration. You apply for a domain but provide evidence for its future use and your legitimate ownership for that domain and also checks are made against the name (similar to patent applications). Thus trying to end speculative purchasing or cyber squatting and hence domain name legal cases.
I fully understand the market for trading domain names, but I would prefer to see more regulation in the matter.
I hope this winds a few people up to create more feedback.
PS ‘40z’ is that your photo on your blog………….
Most people don’t know the difference between a cybersquatter, and an entrepreneur who is investing in and developing a true generic. You would think after almost 2 decades to figure it out, more people would have by now.
If you ask me YP.com went pretty cheap, all things considered.
maybe… $3.85 Million is just a little money for a giant company like AT&T .
View months ago, vibrator.com were sold for $ 1 Million
The name may not benefit any google juice as no one’s going to type ‘YP’ in any search engine. A coveted one nevertheless.
Greatest 2 letter domain sale in the history of the internet.