We wrote a couple of days ago about the Twitter account “Drew” being up for sale, with Twitter’s blessing, carrying a minimum bid of $10K, followers not included.
Today comes the news that Price is Right host Drew Carey bid $25,000 for the Twitter name “Drew”, with a potential bid of up to $100,000 if Drew Carey’s own Twitter account (@drewfromTV) gets to 100,000 followers by November 9th (currently at 23,500 followers).
While many want to take this as a sign that Twitter names, may become valuable as domain names, I think this is exceptional circumstance, coupled with Twitter’s express blessing for the sale, with all proceeds going to charity, and is not typical or the start of a new trend.
On the other hand, first name domains, which we own hundreds of, have been the one of the most disappointing segments of domain sales market.
I never understood why people wouldn’t think it was worth five figures to own their first name.com.
To the extent people start paying tens of thousands of dollars for a Twitter account, it should make first name, domain names more valuable.
Sign of the time that people are so damn freaking stupid esp those who have the money!!!
BTW, what is tweeter?
Opps…stupid=arrogant and egotistical.
if his current account (@drewfromTV) exceeds 100,000 followers by November 9th
I think in the future we will see much higher prices on common first names .coms, and particularly short and common first names .coms. There are whole bunch of people, some of them are not even really famous, making 5 figures and 6 figures for one appearance. Buying their first name .com will become much more of a priority for them as everything related to their image is gradually moving online.
Drew Carey and the like need to learn how to make large initial cash offers for names like drew.com. Emailing names like that anonymously asking if the name may be for sale will not get you a reply 999 times out of 1000.
The offer of Drew Carey increases by 400%, if his own followers increase 400%.
Therefore the greater question maybe is each follower on Twitter worth a $1?
First name domains are for personal use.
Commercial developers don’t like it because advertisers are few.
I think what’s almost completely lost in this post is the simple fact that all the proceeds are going to the Livestrong Foundation. Though we can say the handle is being “sold” – ultimately Drew Olanoff is asking for the highest charitable donation and return he will forfeit his username. The charitable aspect is mentioned but mostly lost in this article.
What I think is completely lost is this is a direct violation of Twitters “Terms of Service” yet they look the other way. If this situation didn’t involve a charity, Twitter would probably decide the guy who has cancer was “squatting” or his account was “inactive” or he was “impersonating” Mr. Carey, throw him under a bus and revoke his account. Next, since Mr. Carey obviously has money, Twitter would add him to their potential clients for a corporate account. It’s all about the money folks.
Frank
Twitter isn’t looking the other way, but is specifically allowing this.
They agreed to allow it well before there was a first bid and certainly before Drew Carey’s bid.
However the bidding did start at $10K and it would have been quite surprising had it not gone to a celeb.
Having said that, I do not think they would have allowed a well publicized private sale for profit.
I think the allowing of the auction of this account has much more to do with the holder of the account, the fact he has cancer, wants to donate the 100% of the money raised to cancer than the fact its a celeb bidding on the domain.
Also not sure why you have a problem you have with it