Considering the economic crisis and the associated losses of wealth experienced by many of the richest individuals on the planet, it may not be the best of times to auction off a domain name like Wealth.com. On the other hand, that might be exactly the reason why TheInternetCompany suddenly felt the need to do so, and I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that many people are now re-evaluating their approach to wealth management and searching for alternative ways for financing online.
The generic six-letter domain name has been under the company’s ownership since 1996 and will be auctioned off privately at the end of this month in collaboration with secondary domain marketplace Sedo. The auction will be held on June 25, although bidders must be pre-qualified by June 15.
Don Cook, vice president of TheInternetCompany states in a press release:
“Although we have had several attractive offers for the name over the years, we believe that now is the right time to monetize this asset and that an auction, rather than a traditional sale, is the best strategy.”
Funny enough, I did a simple search and found out that this is not exactly the first time TheInternetCompany has put the domain name up for auction, something that was not mentioned in the news release: Wealth.com was up for sale at least once before, back in July 2007. I wonder if this time the private auction will result in an actual sale and how much it will be valued at.
Update: as a commenter and this WSJ blog post points out, the starting bid is $2.9 million. Seems to me that this is a bit high as a starting point, but I can imagine a lot of financial organization and media companies would still be interested in owning it at that price.
For the sake of comparison, recent domain name sales we’ve written about include Toys.com ($5.1 million), YP.com ($3.85 million), Fly.com ($1.8 million) and Vibrators.com ($1 million).
Wealth.com is overvalued, from what I understand its $3 million.
On another note, anyone interested in acquiring LOCAL (dot) TV – or – FAMOUS (dot) TV, contact mike -at- evolution -dot- tv
Thanks,
Mike
NO!!!!
All those names are garbage they are worth less then reg fee.
and how much do you think local.tv is worth Mr Mike? $100 0r $1million
Ask some big bloggers like shoemoney if they are interested in buying that domain name :/)
[REMOVED IRRELEVANT LINK]
I’m interested in acquiring Pink(dot)com or PInki(dot)com
I own wealthysugardaddy and richsugardaddy which I think is a good and funny name
I see what you did there mike
I was offered $500,000 for gfx.com in 1999. Recently, someone offered $2500. Pretty strange market.
You should have taken $500k and reinvest in 1999. Would be like 10+ millions more in your pocket now.
three letter jumbled domains are all about who needs it. I have offered well into six figures for the three letter domain that represents the letters of my company name…but unless you have a use, I think the prices can drop quickly.
And you didn’t sell the first time?!? Who are you? Bill Gates?
Are you famous enough to buy famo.us?
I hate generic domains!
It’s like the classic “who’s on first, what’s on second joke”. Who won SearchEngine.com or Google.com. What about Auctions.com vs. Ebay? Email.com or Gmail.com.
In the end, as long as it’s simple, easy to remember and your product kicks ass…a generic name won’t do shit. Spend the money in innovation and really solving a problem instead.
that and marketing
Agreed:)
You have valid points, but when you are trying to capture a segment of the market online and don’t feel like taking a chance with creating a brand, generic domains will put you ahead of the game.
The reason you see alot more brands than generics is obvious, there are very few generic domains. And sadly alot of the people who own generics are lazy domainers who don’t want to invest the money in making them a profitable company (or don’t see the profitability in doing so).
Marketing can only take you so far, the same applies to a generic domain. I agree that your product/service has to offer value to your market, but having that generic domain gives you instant brandability and marketshare.
Good luck!
Finally, a smart assessment.
Names are great for brand association for your product or service. Inherently, they are of little value other than PERCEPTION.
Most successful companies on the web rarely have generic names. When will the fad of acquiring rare names disappear?
I agree with twit store. Wealth.com is over-rated and whoever buys it is driving a new car off of the lot. I own WealthBusiness.com and will sell it for a reasonable offer to anyone interested. It may not have near the traffic of Wealth.com but it is very “brandable” and would be extremely useful for the right business. One word domains are so 90’s.. remember Business.com?
i agree the starting bid seem too high
As long as someone or some company is ready to start a bid, it never look high.
Well, wealth.com domain name is sort of a golden egg laying chicken.
Don’t forget the recent candy.com for 3 mil
http://www.tech...weet-3-million/
Think about it this way: Many residential properties in the U.S and around the world go every day for more than a 3M price tag, and these are not commercial ventures. 3M for a top commercial property in the busiest street in the world (the internet), doesn’t sound too outrageous to me.
Wealth magazine seems like one of the right firms for this property (http://wealthmagazine.com/).
Cheers
Sahar Sarid
Bido.com co founder.
The problem with the “commercial property in the busiest street” metaphor is that Internet is an infinitely-long street, and every location on it is the same distrance from my house.
On a real street, commercial property gains value by scarcity and proximity to a customer base — there’s only so many good locations available in each good area. Everything on the Internet is more-or-less equally accessible, so address value is about human factors — will people remember the name, is it easy to type it into an address bar, etc.
Does wealth.com really have 2.9 million dollars of human factor advantage over a new $10 domain name? I’m doubting it
That price would probably be even less of a good deal for Wealth Magazine. Their targeted consumers know how to use computers well enough to find the site already. It’s unlikely that shortening the domain name would significantly increase the number of visitors. It would $3 milllion dollars spent for ego.
The metaphor “commercial property in the busiest street” is dead-on.
A person experienced in buying and selling of property would recognize the value of this metaphor.
Any infinite space is never ever flat. It always has local minima (blighted or deserted areas where demand is low in terms of commercial real-estate) and maxima (densely populated areas that act as magnets, restricting supply in its vicinity).
I am sure there are many areas from anyone’s house where there is a minima, and a maxima (sometimes in close proximity).
I am sure IBM’s customers can find http://www.inte...essmachines.com, but http://www.ibm.com is better no doubt. And of course, near the “commercial property” of http://www.ibm.com (a very “busy street”), http://www.ibm.org or http://www.ibm.net would be more valuable.
If the new buyer can develop the property to its potential, it could be worth the price.
I can sell HardDrives.com for much less then 3million. And it’s a billion dollar market with half a million people searching for hard drives each month just in United States.
I would like that Sahar Sarid would be in a position to know what this name is worth?
It’s certainly a category killer generic but IMO the starting bid is way high. I don’t see it going for more than mid-upper 6 figures.
On the other hand I didn’t think Candy.com was a good investment when Rick Schwartz paid 100k for it a short time ago…
cashout.com is for sale. Please send inquiries to cashoutdomain@gmail.com
It won’t be sold.
Better yet – here’s a great father’s day gift all about being rich:
A free dinner with Worth Magazine founder and one of the richest men in town for a father’s day gift in New York City (hmmm, Carl Icahn or Larry Ellison maybe?) – Watch the invite to the contest: http://digg.com/d1tPWC or just enter for free at http://www.Rich...stManInTown.com
Btw, the book is very good and has stories from Michael Dell and 100 of the richest Americans including Larry Ellison
Sounds like a website for a snake oil salesman who will be at your local Ramada Inn having a “free” seminar on you how to make a million from nothing.
The harsh reality is that if you are not already aware of a domain name’s worth, it is probably not worth as much as you would like.
this domain name is bad—not worth more than $50K—you cant sell ‘wealth’ and only people actively seeking it are unweathly looking for credit workouts!
Mark my words…Wealth.com will NOT get a single bid if it’s opening at $2.9 million.
BreakingNews.com was avail. and didn’t crack 7 figures…and that is a generic that could be leveraged big time…with “citizen journalists” from around the world serving as reporters-supplying live video feeds and photos of breaking news stories.
Wealth.com would take a much more extensive buildout to OWN it’s sector than BreakingNews.com would require.
Joe
BreakingNews.com??? That is worth 10k at best.
that’s so expensive. hehe. If i Have a money, i would buy it all…
Wealth.com is a great domain name. Reserve may be a bit too high to start, but for the right buyer it may not matter. I am considering the sale of Copies.com. Reach out if you may be interested. Also, if you have a great business idea (Copies Business, Books, Digital Data Storage), I would consider partnering on the name as well.
Paul
What can you offer me for e-spend.com ??
is for sale on sedo. Minimum bid: One miiillliooon dollarrrss. (or whatever you bid)
Someone should write an article about what serious problems domain squatters cause to web startups. Someone should impose a 1000% tax on domain ownerships or invent a new DNS system- i HATE parked domains
+1
Just buy the .net if you are a start-up and then when you get funding, buy the .com
How about hcnurchcet.com for dyslexic TechCrunch readers?
I used to own “TheMatrix.com” for my recording studio of the same name. When the movie came out, WB offered me a measly $50k for it and I turned them down. Then after 9/11 hit, I ended up selling it for $27k… *sigh*
My 2 letter .com domain has been offered $230k in 2008 but only $110k so far this year.
Scarce goods get a high valuation – for a while.
Until the hype is over.
The real value is in the use of the domain name.
Tulip mania in 17th century:
http://en.wikip...iki/Tulip_mania
I wish I had of been around online in 96-97. Would be a millionaire now for a pretty small investment.
You can read my story of how I sold a domain one word for $4 million at http://www.impu...logyofadeal.htm . I don’t think wealth.com is worth $2.9 million to a speculator or investor, but it might be worth that much to a billion dollar financial company like American Express or Charles Schwab.
As the guy who owns wealth.net my take may be considered biased, but they missed the boat on the monster domain sales.
The domain aftermarket totally sucks, PPC revenues are plunging, valuations are in the toilet. Unless a big, end-user institutional user like a mutual fund wants to spend 3M (and couldn’t put the funds to better use meeting investor redemption requests), these guys are out of luck methinks.
I am thinking of offering my domain Tortillas.com for sale… Tortillas are a $6 billion Industry in the USA alone and are gaining popularity around the world… interested parties can contact me direct at rec3@cox.net
Another page rank 6 domain, jadoo.com (First Indian Search Engine) kept for sale for long time.
It might be too generic for some, but very appealing to those who can afford it.
ok… my one is… checkwealth.com for sale at SEDO. Not generic and suited to these times.