A new TLC show, Accidental Fortune is looking for a real rags to riches domain name story for its show.
According to a producer for the show, they are looking for a story where someone sold a domain name (or site), for six figures or more in which the owner had a minimal cost.
They do not want a story about a domain sold by a professional domainer or someone who makes a living in the domain business.
The best example is Joe Francis, who owned the website Joetheplumber.com who was reportedly offered $800,000 for his domain.
Unfortunately for Joe, he didn’t take the offer; so no $800,000 and no story.
The producers are looking for a similar story but that ends with the domain or website owner taking the cash.
I suggested the story of AltaVista.com where a computer company wound up selling their domain for $3.3 million to Compaq which started the Alta Vista Search engine without the domain name, however there is probably a better story out there.
So domainers put your thinking cap on and lets see if can give the network a good story for their show.
Why help?
Any story involving domains ending up in a huge sale can only peak more interest in domains and hopefully more networks wanting to do more stories on domains.
If you have any ideas or references for the story please paste it below as well.
I will make sure the producer knows the name of person who referred the story.
Oh, the irony. They don’t have to go far in order to have a story. Someone registered AccidentalFortune.com three days ago. Inside information?
Hard to remember every ones stories and who qualifies as pros but I think the Blue.com story and I have always loved the AmericanFlags.com story…also does SEX.com count 🙂
Unbelievable that they launch shows without securing the domains. That someone in this case…nice one Admin ;).
ahh, Pizza.com.
That guy had bought it back in in the 90’s to do a pizza directory business with it but it didn’t pan out. He had decided to put it up for auction just to see what it would sell for. He was stunned for what it sold for (2.6 mil?). Here’s a link: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9912380-7.html
Did some research. Something thats pretty good as well: http://domainersadvantage.afternic.com/?p=42
Good rags-to-riches story
John, nice fairy tale; but pizza.com didn’t sell. It was all hype.
Acro, National A-1 bought it after the initial sale fell through.
http://whois.domaintools.com/pizza.com
Acro, it sold. Didn’t National A-1 finally pick it up for 1.7 mil. after the 2.6 mil fell through?
Correct, I was referring to the $2.6 million Sedo deal. Man, that’s a lot of pepperoni 😀
I think so far the pizza story is the best selling for $1.7M to National A-1 early this year.
But keep them coming
I voted for StripClubs.com simply because the ROI to the buyer has a lot more potential. Currently, the site sits parked.
I think pizza.com is the best so far as well , since I don’t think he was a domainer.
Another I could think of was Bankaholic.com (web and domain) sale for 14.9 mil. – It was sold by Johns Wu who did SEO work. Was he a professional domainer? Or was he doing SEO with strong knowledge that crossed over into domaining territory…
Bankaholic.com? Really? Looks like Bankrate.com bought that though hard to imagine they paid $14.9 million. Certainly had nothing to do with the domain name itself and was all pure traffic they were purchasing.
The Castello brothers own Rate.com which would have been arguably a prime acquisition for Bankrate.com if they were throwing around that kind of money.
Tom.com might be the story you are looking for. Someone recently told me the story about the guy that owned it, got offered $2.5 million for it, took it and retired.
http://www.40z.com/2009/03/domain-sales-history.html
i heard debtoradvice.net sold for £990,000 a couple of weeks ago.
There are probably hundreds of stories out there that have made some lucky people a small fortune. Some of the domains are actually not generic domains but a combination of key words that buyers are looking for.
The main story is right in front of you all–it is MHB!!!
MHB–didn’t you come from a poor dsyfunctional parents like most of us and now you are a multi-Billionaire?
Bull
No I’m not a billionaire and as I said in the post they do not want a story about a domainer
40 oz
Tom.com seems as it was owned by a company, not an individual.
http://rb.hk/articles/tomcomsold.asp
Where is the contact info to contact the producers ?
There is the guy who bought Fish.com way back and sold it for one million about three years ago.
I remember him saying that he paid off his condo…….. in San Diego I believe.
The buyer, who also bought Dog.com, Horse.com, Bird.com, Garden.com, etc… said he would have paid five million for Fish.com if the seller had asked for it.
I believe I read that they buyer does some $60 million a year in sales now on those domains.
@Belmassio that buyer is a good friend on mine. I had asked him about it and he said the 1 mil was the most they were willing to offer.
Everyone loves a good success story ala lottery winner.
shahram, that is what is so laughable about the domain “industry”..
It is full of hype, schit, misinformation, wannabes, blowhards talking their book…not least of all “I heard from a friend of a friend” type rumor taken as gospel after repeated sayings…with very little actual substance.
Eg. “i heard debtoradvice.net sold for £990,000 a couple of weeks ago.” above. LOL
That is why the forums are dead (anyone notice?) with good posters posting less & less.
Cos it’s mainly such a load of schit with the same idiots talking the same old chit…or newbies coming along in waves every 6 mths thinking they have the Holy Grail and yet talking the same old schit.
Ok so let me see if I understand this correctly. You heard about the TV show and then you did what any other red blooded domainer would have done in that situation, you checked the whois to see if the domain name was available. It was not so you registered it.
Then, a couple of days later you decide to blog about the upcoming show, provide a link to the show website and even go far as to intimate that you are somehow connected to the production by saying things like
“I suggested the story of AltaVista”
“lets see if I can give the network a good story”
“I will make sure the producer knows”
and even go so far as to annoint yourself as being someone in a position to solicit stories for them.
Your readers deserve to know. Are you involved with the show or its producers in any official capacity beyond having registered a domain name which just so happens to correspond to the name of their show?
Why did you neglect to disclose to your readers that you had registered the domnain name accidentalfortunes.com several days ago.
I think the real story here is neither new nor about an upcoming TV show. I think the real and seemingly endlessly repeating story here is about domainer greed, opportunism and undying efforts to capitalize off of confusion, whether that means lame ppc pages or “any story involving domains ending up in a huge sale” are provide the reader with prima facia evidence of bad faith at the time you registered the domain name.
Good luck with it.
Domain Cop or Dan
As I explained on the board in which you asked me the same question, Dan
The producer of the show contacted me by e-mail asking me if I knew of a good domain story that they could use for their show.
Why they contacted me, rather than the domain king, or Elliot or Ron or Andrew, I have no idea, they just did.
The producer asked if she could talk to me so I called her.
She told me about the show in more detail and I suggested off the top of my head the Alta Vista story since that’s a name that was sold by a non-domainer for over $3 Million, and sent them a couple of links on the story.
The producer called me back and said they didn’t like that story since the domain was owned by a company rather than an individual and there was some litigation involved.
She then asked if I knew of any other domain stories.
I told her I did not but I could put up a blog post asking the domainer community if anyone knew of a story.
She liked that idea, and with her consent I threw it into a post to see if anyone in the domainer community could recommend a story along the lines of what she was looking for.
Now as far as the domain registration goes, as soon I saw the domain was unregistered, I registered it before I published the story.
As I said I have no idea of what I’m going to do with the domain.
Nor do you.
All you know is I registered it.
You can see the domain is not resolving, its not going to a parked page.
I know one thing for sure, as soon as I published the post, one of the readers of the blog would have registered the domain in a second and then all options would be gone, including the show ever getting it.
Finally to answer your direct questions, directly;
“Are you involved with the show or its producers in any official capacity”
No.
“Why did you neglect to disclose to your readers that you had registered the domain name accidentalfortunes.com (actually accidentalfortune.com) several days ago.”
Because the domain has nothing to do with the post.
BTW if anyone is interested, the producers who I wrote to today based on your comments are leaning towards doing the Pizza.com story for the piece which was suggested by John.
Thanks John good call.
Adam
The producer did not want her name, phone and published for obvious reasons.
If you wanted it, you should have just written to me privately and asked for it.
You have my e-mail address.
Hey Mike, you are a lawyer are you not? Ever hear of something called a “conflict of interest”?
Say you were a realtor, and I came to you and disclosed the fact that I was planning to build a mall on the northeast end of domainville, and then as a result of my disclosure you decided to researched the area I was interested in and that as a result of that research you learned there was only one suitable property in the area on which I could execute my business plan. Then lets say, you went out and purchased that land. I mean there was no sale pending, no rights registered against the property. Now you claim you are not sure why you bought the land or what you are going to do with it.
Your actions call your integrity into question regardless of your intentions and if this is any indication of the kind of expertise your offering while consulting on domains I can only hope you’ve parked your license to practice law along with your domains.
Shame
I agree in your example if someone came to me in my capacity of a lawyer and hired me and told me their plans, I would have an obligation to them, not to do use the info they give me to benefit myself.
Also If I’m a Realtor and someone hires me to find a property for them I couldn’t buy property next to a project they planned on building.
However none of those relationships where present here.
This show is already on the air.
Its not something that planned to happen in the next 6 months, its already airing.
Next
They did not come to me in the capacity of a lawyer, Realtor, doctor or paid adviser.
They did not come to me as a consultant or to hire me for anything.
They came to me unsolicited, unpaid with no relationship and now you want me to protect all of their possible rights.
This is not a small guy starting a business looking for a break but a huge media company.
God knows trademark holders have a ton of rights and the courts and WIPO and UDRP keep expanding them.
However everyone has to take some action to protect their rights.
If they do not protect their rights then they leave themselves open.
Having said that the domain is not resolving, its not going to a parked page and you have no idea of whether I registered it for my benefit or to just to protect the network.
Mike…I think this domain should not have been regged by you…it sets a bad example of what types of names should be regged. Right or wrong it’s definitely at least borderline.
Michael Arrington would have a good time with this type of thing which would be nice to avoid.
Newbies see someone like yourself buy names like this and next thing you know there’s another 4000 squatters around.
Happy Holidays…Tim
Tim
Happy holidays to you and your family and best wishes for a healthy and happy new year.
Regarding the domain, please take into account that the party you are worried about getting taken advantage of in this matter is the Discovery Networks, one of the 20 largest media companies in this world, not John’s Pizza down the street.
It’s the same company that filed suit against John Gosselin for millions of dollars but didn’t spend $8 to register the domain or a couple of thousand to file a trademark to protect its property.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33343221/ns/entertainment-reality_tv/
After tons of WIPO and UDRP decisions in which domain keep getting taking from domainers under new and pretty screwy reasoning, you want to give these companies even more rights when they didn’t even spend the $8 to protect their brand.
Finally after days and days of comment on this issue here and on the forums, did you happen to notice the one party that has not objected to the registration anywhere?
The TLC network.
Isn’t that interesting.
BTW the domain is still not resolving is it?