“That’s right. That’s – that’s good. That’s good. Unless, of course, somebody comes up with 6-Minute Abs. Then you’re in trouble, huh?” – Ted (Ben Stiller), There’s Something About Mary
The more top level domains that are approved by ICANN, the less each of them is worth. People continue to flock to .com: 82 million of the 111 million non-country specific domains registered are .com. Everyone else splits what’s left, with .net and .org taking the bulk of the leftovers.
That means if you’re running the, say, .biz or .info domain registry businesses, with 5 million and 2 million domains registered, respectively, it’s time to come up with some marketing genius.
.Biz is first to market with, yes, one character domain names. These domains, previously reserved, will be auctioned off on September 23 at 12 noon EST via Sedo. A total of 36 domains will be sold (26 letters and 0-9). If you want to be the proud owner of 1.biz or whatever, the details are here.
“These domains are rare and potentially very valuable” says Neustar, which runs the .biz registry. Presumably whatever you pay in the auction is a one-time fee, and normal registrar rates of a few dollars a year will apply after that.
If you’re thinking of buying these to do a quick flip, think again. We hear .com will release one character domains within the year, too.
This should be interesting.
Is anyone taking bets on which alphabet gets the highest bid?
“i” and “e” of course.
I’ll buy two domains–o and 0. And then map ‘zero.com’ to ‘oh.com’
.biz sucks
50p on them becoming url shorteners.
Man! I’d just love another URL shortener!
It’s such an un-saturated market and with the massive revenues they can generate… people would be MAD not to!
LOL! exactly… now, if they could only come up with a one letter tld… we’d be set!
Nothing keeping them from doing so.
ICANN – the Camorra of the internet. Someone please start shooting these guys until there’s none left.
If you buy it, will they come, to pharaphrase the Field of Dreams line. It’s all about numbers. Come to think of it, is .biz a “field of dreams”? Outside of protecting a brand, .biz has been under developed.
If ICANN does open up single letter .com domains I can’t wait to see the bidding battle between Oprah and Overstock.com for the o.com domain.
Because .biz is the home of the scammers and spammers. So much phishing and other illicit activity happens on .biz domains that they’re tainted for legitimate use.
So, .biz owners are Nigerian Princes of the world?
I once gave money to a Nigerian Prince!! When a Nigerian Prince asks for help you answer!
Bros and Sis’!
We have one minute abs now.
The future is here.
Who types and so needs to remember URLs anymore ? It is like phone numbers, nobody remembers phone numbers anymore, we look for those once, and bookmark them for all.
Search engine are the new bookmark. I don’t really care if my favorite webApp/Site has a memorable or easy-to-type URL as long as I can find it (via search engine or bookmark).
Of course, there is phishing, but typing URL is not *the* solution for phishing anyway. Certificates or other means independent of user input should be.
well what an idiot you are..;first of all not every one goes to a search engine first.2. you never want a search engine or any other party between you and your customer.also what idiot continues to go to the same site over and over via a bookmark and never goes to another place?
this is the typical stupidy of people on the net.and typical twenty somethings….
and to clearly illustrate how stupid you are for even making this commet we will now monetize your stupidy with an example. coloradohomes.com was purchased several yrs ago for 25k. not every fuckin idiot now goes to a search engine and types in colorado homes.
many users type in coloradohomes.com and arrive at coldwell bankers website and never use a search engine you fuckin idiot.not to mention ppc on google costs 3.00 per click and at the end of the month you can wipe your asshole because you have nothing to show for it.new users every day type in coloradohomes.com and go to coldwell bankers website never use a search engine or a bookmark you fuckin idiot. and when the domain expert comes online and has to educate a clear idiot and monteze how stupid your statement is there is going to be caustic remarks to enforce how fuckin stupid your remarks are for the world to see….the truth is ugly and stupid statements are made by stupid people are going to be held accountable get used to it….
Can anyone guess how much will one of these cost? say for example i.biz
I’d love to know how many .com domains are parked – I think the easier solution is to raise the price of a .com domain to $50 / year. I think we’d see a lot less parked at that price and the money could be invested in W3C research projects like improving core performance and security of the internet.
The W3C is just a self-organized group, they are not related to ICANN and are not given any actual responsibility or power by any government like ICANN is.
The internet is for all of us, everywhere in the world. Making domains $50 a year, which is more than they cost when they first became available for commercial purchase ($70 per 2 years was the original cost), is cost-prohibitive to people in many countries.
I was under the impression the original price – early 90s – was $100 because netfirms was the only registry you could go with. I guess $30 of that could have been taken as profit; but still the end user price was $100.
I could be wrong about the price, maybe it was $100 instead of $70. But it was definitely at internic.org, a domain Network Solutions shared, and not Netfirms.
then again, in most countries outside the US the single TLD of every country is more strictly regulated, and there is no ICANN to impose arbitrary rules allowing racketeers to prosper
even better: tax them to death, like, 18000%
If some of the mid tier letters sell for about $5,000, I think it would be a reasonable price and a bargain for the right owner.
I would love to see the one character .com domains released – they would sell for an absolute fortune.
I betya that i.biz will sell for more than any other letter
I bet e.biz will be the top earner. Arrington nailed the vTLD issue. The confusion they create will help dot-coms. When I see a dot-biz domain, it’s hard to take the brand or the company behind it seriously.
Yup, I also thinks that the e.biz will sell for more than any other letter. =)
I want A, B, C & D
i would buy STONE.biz and resell it to Biz stone
“A total of 36 domains will be sold (26 letters and 0-9).”
I believe some have been sold before the auction
__ 3, i, o & q
…
actualy, from the sedo’s site :
“Sedo, the leading online marketplace and monetization provider, has been selected to exclusively auction 31 of the available internet catalog of one-character .BIZ domain names “
There are one-letter .coms now. If you are a Qwest customer you can get email at blah@q.com
Those were a few that the registry released years ago, but a majority are still being held. Another interesting one letter that’s in use is x.com, which is owned by Paypal. Interestingly enough x.com was initially used as “the first” internet bank website.
The real news from Neustar is the .CO deal… That one is going to blow up.
Have you searched .biz at WhoisDatabase.com?