Digital.com sold in the Heritage Auction for $325,000 and with the buyer’s premium the total price to the buyer came to $373,750. After the auction we communicated with the gentleman who purchased the domain name, Richard Kershaw.
We decided to ask Richard a few questions about what he does, why he purchased the name and how high he would have bid if there was a bidding war ?
TheDomains.com: What business are you in?
Richard: I own two internet businesses, both based in London:
#1. Wish.co.uk, an e-commerce startup (most famous for our zombie experience days: http://is.gd/Cgif3s). We’ve had press in 50+ countries and every continent except Antarctica (PR info here: http://wish.co.uk/press/)
#2. WhoIsHostingThis.com, a popular webmaster tool that has been featured in Time.com, Daily Mail and the New York Times.
I also own several hundred generic domains, such as yacht.co.uk. While I have done many deals in the $XXXX-XX,XXX range, this is my most substantial domain purchase by some distance.
TheDomains.com: What are your plans for Digital.com ?
Richard: I have specific plans for Digital.com in 2015, but for now I will plead the fifth. Watch this space!
TheDomains.com: Are you concerned about the new gTLD’s?
Richard: No. I believe .COM – and the equivalent CCTLDs, like CO.UK – will remain the “gold standard” of domains for the forseeable future.
Can you imagine anybody building a serious brand on a .NINJA or a .ROCKS domain? I can’t.
I’ve no doubt that a handful of gTLDs will become moderately succesful – perhaps akin to the .BIZ or the .INFO of this decade – and predict that the succesful ones will be those closest to existing TLDs familiar to consumers (like .WEB).
However, I believe that the majority of gTLDs will struggle or fail, and we’ll see a race to the bottom, with registries discounting heavily in a desperate attempt to attract limited retail interest.
We’ve already seen this kind of behaviour to attract market share. This reminds me of $0.99 .INFO domains and .TK free domains in the past, two promotions that more or less guaranteed that these TLDs were most famous primarily for their spam/malware problems.
I anticipate that the value of premium .COMs (and their local ccTLDs equivalent) will remain steady. Regular consumers – not domainers or webmasters – will be typing .COM into their browsers by default for decades to come.
To that end, I have just placed a $373,750 bet to put my money where my mouth is.
TheDomains.com : How much would you have been willing to spend on the domain if others bid on it
Richard: Significantly more than I paid for it. I never dreamed I’d win the auction with that bid. I had predicted prior to auction that an ad agency or media agency would win with a seven-figure sum.
Cognitive brand development is the only way to go. Well done Richard Kershaw.
Quote…
“Can you imagine anybody building a serious brand on a .NINJA or a .ROCKS domain? I can’t.”
…end Quote
And I know someone who intends to do just that, bit of an idiotic statement to make and lacking in imagination.
Now whether or not .NINJA or .ROCKS will actually amount to anything in the public’s eyes is anther matter which we will just have to wait and see.
Congratulations Richard on your purchase of an amazing domain and I look forward to seeing what you do with it.
There are plenty of ways to build, promote, and engage with users on a brand built on anything other than .com, for less than $375,000. Also, I do not consider .co.uk to be part of the “golden standard”, no more than .de for example.
Great domain and 15 minutes of fame, but let’s not devalue millions of others for its sake.
what is the foreseeable future on the internet these days anyway… like 3 1/2 years?
ah the ol “.web will be one of the good ones” statement… yeah, cause thats what people are looking for. .Net’s long lost sisters third cousin. yawn…
I suggest him to use the domain for a computers line and, also, to buy the rights for the DIGITAL logo that was the most famous minicomputers company for decades … http: // en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Digital_Equipment_Corporation
Nice score on getting this interview Michael. Richard gets it and he’s confident on what he’s doing and where he’s going with it. It’s the reason he had the capital to make this purchase and will continue to make money into the future. Digital.com at that price is a big win. Great domain name and very relevant. Congratulations.
likewise, Congrats to the buyer and Raymond for the interview, superb name.
“I’ve no doubt that a handful of gTLDs will become moderately succesful – perhaps akin to the .BIZ or the .INFO of this decade – and predict that the succesful ones will be those closest to existing TLDs familiar to consumers (like .WEB).”
moderately successful… seriously? dot info and dot biz…?
sarcasm? 🙂
dot web sounds to me so …last century (literally circa 1990’s) “The world wide web”, retrograde and redundant…
finally something worth reading guys, my eyes thank you for removing that awful skin advert…
Kudos, RH,
Your recent mention of Brick and Mortar post and our comments point , makes it very clear that (first movers on .Com R.O.I. plays) enjoy the prime cuts of all commerce. Its just an economic fact that companies like Alibaba doing 5.7 Billion$ in one single day along with the superior R.O.I. are the competitors Brick and Mortar fear most.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger) (Domain Master)
I think $373k was a steal for this name.
I agree with what he was saying.
If you compare all the G’s they have not reached 2.5 mil .BIZ.
.Biz compare to newTLD’s is success,so far anyway.
This is a total bargain imo.
Easily a seven figure name with a potential for a billion dollar business.
Congrats to the buyer.
There is a huge runway left for this name. First as a category killer today’s media is categorized as either print or digital. There are two holding companies who own all the ad agencies in the world and their push has been to make a digital transformation as they acquire digital agencies to replace traditional ones that can’t scale. Be great name for an agency.
Here are some leads- if they did merge the new entity could easily be called “Digital” and this would be 7-8 figuree look at the budget for digital spend 2014- would be a drop in the bucket!
“The recent merger between NY-based Omnicom and Paris-born Publicis Groupe creates the world’s largest marketing and advertising conglomerate, officially surpassing WWP. The partnership is indicative of an industry needing a shake-up. While marketers are predicted to spend $116B on digital advertising (according to eMarketer), brands are less and less satisfied with results from traditional online advertising and are looking for more creativity, consumer engagement and true influence.”
Publcicis
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/publicis-groupe-buys-lbi-and-another-digital-ad-agency-is-swallowed-up
http://adage.com/article/agency-news/publicis-groupe-buys-digital-shop-engauge/243664/
Interepublic
http://adage.com/article/agency-news/ipg-s-lowe-acquires-global-digital-agency-profero/291209/
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/ipg-buys-digital-shop-huge-96520
Goup M
http://www.adexchanger.com/agencies/q1-roundup-digital-media-strength-propels-agencies/
htp://www.adexchanger.com/agencies/agency-q4-ipg-places-hopes-in-digital-services-publicis-omnicom-merger-might-be-stalled/
Michael —
Kudos for this big “get” and posing qood questions.
I wish Richard fun and profits as he builds out Digital.com.
sounds cheap but is it? like a lot of amazing domains almost there but not quite – cuz it aint obvious
At $373k, Digital.com wasn’t cheap for the individual investors or smaller companies out there. But it’s one of those names with no limit in terms of the scale of enterprises that will tend to be attracted to it; and, had the bigger companies and well funded startups not been (collectively) asleep at the wheel, Digital.com could easily have topped a million bucks and then some.
Congratulations, Richard!
couldve, wouldve, shouldve – i mean, its priced like this because no-one could think of how to monetize before now cough cough because its use is like a brand name more than a generic name if you know what i mean
Brand names do sell for a few million apiece from time to time. Just ask Whisky.com.
whisky or whiskey depending where its being used is the name of a product so its a generic and a category killer at that – two different things