Tangent Thought Gallery

You want HOW much for that domain name?

Earlier this year the business.com domain name sold for (gasping for air here!) in excess of $300M US. While that specific instance is a record, and certainly caught news wind, I continue to doubt its value. But that’s just me. I think it’s an occasion of multiple bidders (and there were several high profile organizations in on the action) at an auction all “perceiving” increased value because the others are also perceiving that sense of value. E.g., is a 1950’s era Les Paul guitar worth $20K to over $50K? Intrinsically, no. However, there will never be another one produced. Others, primarily investors who aren’t even marginally decent guitar players, think that fact adds value, so they bid on EBay to monstrous dimensions. Is that truly shopping victoriously?

We all take risks, that is, if we’re indeed doing our job well. They’re calculated. They’re mitigated. But they’re still risks. Despite my perception that Business.com was overpriced by several orders of magnitude, someone, some group more likely, felt otherwise. Only time will tell if their risks were well handled or foolish.

Let me ask a question. Prior to implementation, promotion, launch, more promotion, and adoption, what were the respective values of ebay, yahoo, google, linkedin, flickr, youtube, etc., etc.? That’s the basis for my perception. Succinctly, I’d rather have some crazy, off-the-wall domain name that I bought for chump change, focus strategic energies into a successful marketing campaign, then promote the site and its value with the cash saved. In general I believe that’s the wisest approach for almost all instances with perhaps the primary deviation being domain names built upon branding or, to a lesser extent, niche markets. Oh, and personal names

Some businesses handle their approach to digital assets well. They’re the firms that know where they’re headed with branding, with products over their respective life cycles, and the markets they want to penetrate and in which they want to grow. They have a gut feel for global reach. They’re not going to be caught off-guard with email from some back alley domain hoarder, who, attempting to strike hearts with fear, asserts others are laying claim to “their domain name”.cn, .hk, .asia, etc., which he says he can fix for a price, nor are they going to fall prey to a bidding war over online real estate of questionable value. These are the firms that tend to truly win.

Makes me wonder if they also bought Business.cn? If they didn’t I might know someone who can fix it for a price.