Live Sells Two Domains – US $1.65 million

Live Current Media Inc. (OTCBB:LIVC) has announced that it has entered agreements to sell two more of its non-core domain names for $1.65 million.

Live Current Chairman and CEO Geoff Hampson said “We believe the recent sales of three of Live Current’s non-core domain names for a total of over US $2 million is a testament to the inherent value of our domain name assets, especially in this challenging economic climate.”

From the looks of things it seems that they need the cash – “These sales form part of management’s strategy to achieve the goal of cash flow positive operations by the end of 2009.”

I will be interesting to see if other domaining companies follow suit and start selling the family jewels to keep their heads above water. Seems time to pick up a few bargains!

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.

Lycos Europe To Sell Domain Registration Business

A few weeks ago at a hotel in Amsterdam, an Extraordinary Meeting of Shareholders was called for Lycos Europe. The shareholders voted to liquidate the business. Note that Lycos Europe is a separate company to America’s Lycos Inc. As a part of that liquidation, they decided to sell their domain registration business, united-domains AG.

united-domains AG was valued at 34 million euro and will be sold (subject to due diligence on the financial statements) to United Internet. The transaction is looking to close in Q1 2009.

Thoughts

When your share price is 0.15 € and you have a big picture of a dog as your logo, now might be the time to sell the house and think about doing something else.

Dubya Bush Library Domain Sells For $35k

A web development company (Illuminati Karate) paid $3,000 for GeorgeWBushLibrary.com in March 2007. The domain was later sold for $35,000 to Web developers hired for the George W. Bush Presidential Library project in Dallas.

Nice profit! Oh and yes I’ve checked for obamalibrary and its variants are registered.

Source: UPI.

The Million Dollar Vibrator

There is a small, private company in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan called PriveCo Inc. They had $1million in the bank. Late one night, someone had that luvin feelin. Did they turn to Internet porn? Nope, they bought vibrators.com for $1M instead. There is a lesson here for all domainers, don’t buy domains when you need some luvin!!

Ok, so that’s not really how it happened. I’ll let Tom Nardone, President of PriveCo tell you instead:

Oh, and for those people who want to buy a vibrator, use the coupon code “video” for a 10% discount. Who says I have to just give out domaining coupons on here anyway?

The Fake Domain Downturn

OMG the world is going to end – your domains will be worthless! That’s what a number of attention seeking ill informed, oxygen thieving, wannabe amateur domainers will have you believe. Am I being a little bit harsh?

While the kids have been crying about their parking revenue, I’ve been buying BIG time and making a profit. Some of you who know me will know that I’ve only ever sold a handful of few domain names. Why? Because

a) I don’t buy rubbish

b) In the past people have made me offers that I just couldn’t refuse

c) I have made mistakes! Who would believe it eh?

Here is an example of one such mistake. A couple of months ago I purchased a domain with traffic in a gambling related niche. I thought it would make money and couldn’t get it working with traditional parking. It would have been a good name to develop, but I just don’t have the time and I wasn’t 100% convinced that my efforts would be rewarded. As such, I left the domain parked and wasn’t going to do anything with it. A couple of weeks after I purchased the domain I received an offer of just on 400% more than what I paid for it. I thought about it for 24 hours (you have to sleep on these things) and sold it.

There is a well known saying “When everyone zigs, you should zag” and that’s just what I’ve been doing. But you shouldn’t, because then there wouldn’t be any opportunities for me. Go and join the herd. Baaaaa.

Baidu Puts Domain Names Up For Sale

Baidu Europe is selling its brand and domain names including baidu.eu, baidu.tv, baidu.nl and baidu.be.

Managing Director P. Ufkes of Baidu Europe allegedly doing this because of the difficulties his company has faced since they started promoting the Chinese search engine.

“The mounting popularity of the Asian Baidu, which has grown into the world’s third-biggest search engine; the launch of new services such as Baidu TV – the domain name baidu.tv is already owned by Baidu Europe – and the Chinese company’s activities related to the Olympic Games are making it very difficult to differentiate between the two companies,” said Ufkes.

The company will continue operations under a different name (which is yet to be announced), once their intellectual property is sold. Baidu Europe was established in 2003 and employs eight people.

Lifetime Acquires 200 Parenting Domains – $10M

Lifetime has acquired ParentsClick Network, a company that owns 200 parenting domains including popular social networks and blogs. While the exact sum has not been disclosed, some sources are putting the figure at $10 million.

In case you don’t know, Lifetime is a 50/50 joint venture of Hearst Corporation and The Walt Disney Company. They now own sites such as:

• FathersClick.com
• MothersGroups.com
• MotherClick.com
• MomBlogNetwork.com (which has 2,500 registered blogs)

“We’re very excited to have the technology and leadership of ParentsClick Network join the Lifetime Digital family,” said Dan Suratt, Executive Vice President.

The company reports a 48% increase in traffic for July for MyLifetime.com. This equates to 3.7 million unique visitors and more than 75 million page views. Very impressive.

Jamaican Gold Medalist Domain Names Blocked

The Olympics has created a new set of celebrities and some domainers have seen the $$ and have registered the .com’s and put some up for sale.

In the case of Jamica, the Jamaica Intellectual Property Office JIPO is now involved.

JIPO executive director Carol Simpson told The Jamaica Observer that the athletes’ rights are secured globally – “Usain is a protected trademark and we would discourage anyone trying to infringe on his intellectual property rights.”

UsainBolt is currently listed at Sedo – but for how long?

Foreclosure.com Owner to Acquire Property.com

Brad Geisen, owner of foreclosure.com has reached an agreement with Rick Schwartz to acquire Property.com. Aparently Rick purchased it in 2005 for $750k. The terms have not been disclosed.