Currency Markets Impact Foreign Domainers

Domainers that don’t live in the United States have often reaped the benefits of the currency market.

With world markets going up and down like a game of Donkey Kong (well actually more down than up) its having a serious impact on our cost of goods.

As of today, 1 USD = 1.52384 AUD (Australian dollar), or to flip it around, 1 AUD = 0.656154 USD. If you look at the chart, you will see that six months ago, the Australian dollar was worth US$.96.

Great For Parking

The rest of the world is making MORE money (in their local currency) as they take advantage of being paid in US$ or Euro.

Bad For Buying

The cost of bidding against US domainers has increased.

Great For Selling

While this may seem all “doom and gloom”, there is a hidden upside. If you are a non-US domainer who is selling, then now is the time to sell in US$. Why? It should be worth more in your local currency.

If you are a domainer outside the USA, please feel free to post a comment. I’d love to hear your situation.

Tips: Making an Offer On a Domain Name

Kikabink News is running a series of articles around tips for domain name acquisitions. This is an area that is often under the radar of many people, not just newbies. Here are a few that I really like:

“when it comes to making an offer… don’t…..instead…. ask the domain name holder what they would be prepared to sell the domain for“

“While you wait to hear from the domain name holder, do what research you can into them, their business, their business model, their web statistics, etc. You want to get an idea of what the value of the domain is TO THEM.“

“the more certain you are about the value of the domain to you… and the value of the domain to THEM… the better the price you’ll be able to negotiate.”

The last one is particularly relevant because in 2001 I negotiated a very high 5 figure sum for a domain name that I owned. Believe it or not, the CEO of a well known company called me directly and said he wanted to buy it. Grin… I was very happy with that negotiation – as was the company that bought it. They still own the domain name 8 years later.

If you have any tips, feel free to post them in the comments.

Sarah Palin Domain Names – Let The Fun Begin

Given that the US is focused on their next el president’e, the domain registration festivities have begun.

sarahpalinsucks.com diverts to johnmccain.com. Some media outlets are speculating that the McCain camp purchased this one, but its owner is a mortgage broker in California.

In the words of the movie Spaceballs – “Oh my god, she’s gone from suck to blow”. It seems that sarahpalinblows.com doesn’t paint her in a particularly nice manner.

Hurricane Gustav Domains – Whats Going On?

The University of Alabama at Birmingham has reported that “more than 280 Internet domain names have been registered relating to Hurricane Gustav, some of them using words like charity, relief, and support.”

Gary Warner reported that Godaddys Registration Privacy service has domains such as:

gustav08.org
gustav-ala.info
gustav-ala.org
gustav-alabama.info
gustav-alabama.org
gustavclaims.info
gustavclaims.org
gustavclaims-ala.org
gustavclaims-alabama.org
gustavclaims-houma.org
gustavclaims-la.org
gustavclaims-lafayette.org
gustavclaims-louisiana.org
gustavclaims-mississippi.org
gustavclaims-ms.org
gustavclaims-texas.org

What will these types of domain names be used for? Who knows. There is a big difference between investing, speculating and outright fraud. Lets hope these people do the right thing.

Given that Gustav is a bit of a fizzer, compared to Katrina – perhaps people have blown their money? What do you think?

CBS buys CNET for $1.8 billion

CNET has News.com, ZDNet, GameSpot, mp3.com, Download.com, TechRepublic, UrbanBaby, MySimon, and a number of other premium domain names. Once integrated into the “CBS collective”, the company will have access to 54 million monthly visitors.

I remember when News.com first came onto the Internet in the early 90′s. It was a great site and offered*real* commentary on technology. The company has gone through some tough times, so its good to see that its been recognised and acquired as a premium media property.

I believe that this is a great strategy; although we have seen this before with Rupert Murdoch and MySpace. If you can’t build them, then buy them. You can bet the company boardrooms of TV networks are buzzing with questions like “ok… who are we going to buy?”. Hold on kids, this is just the start of acquisitions by TV networks!

Ask.com Gets Into Domaining – Acquires Premium .Com’s

Ask.com has acquired Lexico Publishing Group LLC, and with that comes the following domains:

• Dictionary.com (estimated 22.1m visitors in March)
• Thesaurus.com
• Reference.com

Unfortunately the terms of the deal, aren’t being disclosed. Associated Press is reporting that Jim Safka (who runs Ask for for IAC / InterActiveCorp) said that “more than 30 percent of the search requests entered on Ask are seeking reference material.”

What’s my take on this? Well, how do you compete when your fifth place, and have somewhere between 2% – 4% of the market? Go and buy a heap of key premium domain names, develop them and then link them all up!

So how far will Ask go? Should Wikipedia be concerned? Didn’t this type of strategy fail for AOL back in the early 90′s? Hey kids, lets go make our own Internets – go get those tubes over there….