Cnet Does Feature Story On Mike Mann: “Meet the ‘Mann’ who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours”

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Cnet.comjust published a feature story all about the Mann, Mike Mann.

The story entitled “Meet the ‘Mann’ who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours” recounts how Mike Mann started in the domain business, built and sold BuyDomains and now seems to have done it all over again with  DomainMarket.com.

Some of the more interesting parts from the story for me were:

Mike Mann still owns 15% of NameMedia.  I thought Mike had sold his entire interest in BuyDomains.com to NameMedia.  I might be the only person that didn’t know Mike owed such a large part of the company, but I didn’t.

Mike Mann quote: “I want to own the world.”  priceless

Mike Mann Quote: “We have a filter, but I’m the world’s most efficient human filter for this for of thing,” said Mann, true to form. “I don’t think anyone can read huge lists of domain names as quickly as I can and understand what they’re reading. I’m a pattern reader. It’s a huge pain in the ass, but it’s what I do for a living.”

In the two years since his non-compete with NameMedia expired, Mike has registered 400,000 domains or about 6x the number of domains its taken me 15 years to get.

Paul Sloan write the article for Cnet.com

Paul of course has written the the most widely covered stories in mainstream publications on the domain industry including the feature story on Kevin Ham for Business 2.0. and the story that propelled the whole domain industry featuring Frank Schilling into the spotlight, Masters of Their Domain.

You should check out the full story at Cnet.com.

We here at TheDomains.com have nominated Mike several times for the Domain Hall of Fame award and still believe that he should have been one of the first 5 inductees.  Mike is one of those love him or hate him guys with a strong personality, but his success in the domain industry cannot be denied and its still a story in progress.

Congrats

 

 

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

  4. BullS says

    Mike Mann quote: “I want to own the world.” priceless

    Sorry Mike, I still own the best at “BullS” -nice try thought

    Anyway, keep on tickin as you will be the MANn

  6. 3D is my life says

    I will be standing outside the Domaining Hall of Fame building in protest until Da Mann is recognized.

  7. Mike Mann says

    I could give a crap about the domaining hall of fame but it clearly proves the world is poisoned by haters while I am doing charity work. After 15 years I couldnt make the domainer hall of fame ? 🙂

  10. BullS says

    why superbillionares like Bezos, Gates, etc. don’t buy all domain names of the world?

    they could but I am not selling “BullS”

    It cannot be bought via money alone.

  11. Peter says

    To BullS.. mate coz they are already billionaires… they don’t need to work their backs off trying to buy domains that can be powerful businesses… they have it all…

  12. John says

    If You’re a ‘Pattern Reader” then you should own it …
    Let us know if you end up selling it & at what price one day

  15. The Peeps Domains says

    Well, Mike Mann may never own the world, but he’s off to a racing start with domains.

    If he owned every domain in existence, he’d own 100% of the Internet and all the money it makes. That’s because nothing can be done on the Net without a domain.

    Now that would be some charity money!!!

  16. David says

    @Jazpor – Sounds more like a compliment since 5% of 14,962 is about 750 names. If you assume an average selling price of a modest $500 each, then the gross total is almost $400,000.

  17. Melissa says

    It makes sense when you think about it. It’s just a matter of how deep you want to get involved. Very thought provoking.
    Good stuff. There’s not really an awful lot I can say here that hasn’t been said already.

  18. Adam says

    “The next time you find yourself pounding your keyboard in frustration because the domain name you want is already taken, direct your ire towards Mike Mann.”

    Just what we all need

  19. HGportfolio says

    @Melissa

    Thankyou. You’ve pretty much summed up the thoughts and feelings of everyone on this post today re: Mike Manns domain portfolio. Wow…

  20. RL says

    Today Mike Mann is is directly competing with the “bottom feeder domainers” who do not have access to capital and make usse of inefective domain aftermarkets.

    This “new” business model has been used for some time by the domain industry mainstream players, primarily well capitalized registrars, registrar conglomerates, strategic partnerships, and the investors with access to capital and their own markets where they are already selling.

    Mike Mann has brought to the attention to the domain industry mainstream players, primarily the registrars and brokerages, already warehousing domains his business model. The .com domain names with a combination of words that make some sense and that match the right pattterns are worth registering and flipping on a larger scale than ever before.

  21. Sigmund says

    “Mike is one of those love him or hate him guys with a strong personality”

    Psychology has a clinical term for his type of “strong personality”.

  23. Aggro says

    LOL

    We have seen this before.
    Nothing new.

    Fabulous (now named Protopixel) a few yrs back did the same thing reg’ing up to 550,000 domains

    I’d say the domains they reg’d were overall of a higher quality than Mann’s mostly pigeon shit, given Fab’ reg’ing ’em a few years earlier than today when there were at least 30 million less .COMs

    Anyway what happened to Fabulous..?
    They sure as heck didn’t set the world on fire

    Didn’t they liquidate a bunch or let them drop?

  24. Aggro says

    Anyway with Mann’s reg spree, IMO it’s nothing more than a roll up/bulk up strategy

    Once he has 500,000 or so, he’s hoping to find some big whale sucker (who has fallen for the domaining soundbite crap & a few big sales) to buy the whole portfolio

    He can point to a few high priced sales of his .CO domains…and then hope the big sucker buys the other crap, warts & all, based on the “everything I own is gold” impression big domainers like to convey

    At, say, $1000 per domain across the whole portfolio (warts & all) that’s a lot of moolah

    You can take this to the bank

  25. 0mq says

    Paul Sloan still following domain names?

    I’m shocked. 😉

    How many domainers have him to blame for their obsession?

    His articles are above par. imo.

    Whether it’s Mann, Ham, Schilling or whomever is your favourite attention-seeking “hall of famer”, effective domaining comprises compiling and reading lists, applying knowledge of a system (the DNS; more boradly, “the internet”) and finally, implementing automation. Aside from step 2 where creativity can sometimes play a role, it is by and large a very, very boring and tedious set of steps. Only the good writers manage to highlight this fact.

    Mann is right, the internet is full of haters. It’s where people can and incessantly do vent their frustrations.

    At the end of the day, it’s up to each domainer to assess his own actions. Because the internet, inclding those who claim to be stewards of it, will not provide anyone with a set of ethics. It’s up to each _INET participant to self-regulate.

    Always keep in mind that the system, DNS, could be changed, it could be improved, and changes could prevent someone from hording a shared namespace. It is possible.

    However, 30 years have gone by and those who are involved with running things (the ICANN TLD/ccTLD registry and registrar ecosystem) are mostly content to let it stay as it is. And others are willing to pay exorbitant sums for things that cost nothing to produce and less than a $1/year to maintain: domain names.

    Complaining is one thing. Taking action is another. This nonsense has been going on since the 90’s.

    With no action, the message is clear to Mann and other horders: carry on.

    Thank you Paul Sloan for another good article.

  26. M says

    Wow look at all the clueless people in the comment section of the CNET article …. they have no idea what they are talking about. The irony is that they are commenting on and reading a website dedicated to TECH/INTERNET NEWS !!
    Some gems:

    – “Domain Piracy”
    – “If you don’t actually use a domain within 3 – 6 months it should be put back on the block, no refunds.”
    – “There should be laws against domain squatting, they buy something they don’t need and you need in the hope to blackmail those who have an actual use for the domain. ”

    It’s incredible that the masses don’t really understand what a “domain name” really is and what a “trademark” really is.

  29. page howe says

    “you can take that to the bank”

    hey haysayers, i’d rather take what mike has been taking to and form the bank

    domains, in for a dime, in for a dollar, or a thousand dollars, or a million dollars…

  30. 0mq says

    @M

    And, for better or worse, that’s why there is such oppoprtunity. Internet users haven’t got a clue. They are vulnerable to manipulation.

    In practical terms,

    Domainname means one or more lines in a text file, where…

    . the text file is either on their own computer, or on someone else’s computer,

    . in the later case, the text file is usually replicated on set of servers, and

    . the servers are usually replicated in various locations around the world so as to be more proximate to those users who access them, and

    . the servers usually share a small set of IP addresses (an IP address does not always equal single physical machine!), and

    . many people (through ignorance, or by default) tend to use external servers to host the text file, which implies letting others manage editing it, despite being able to

    a. use their own computer to do so (which is always faster than using external servers) and/or

    b. change the default external servers they use, in seconds, by simply changing a setting in Windows, OSX or whatever OS they are using.

    Trademark means a right to sue someone under certain circumstances.

    Note in the U.S., where paying for rights to sue (e.g. intellectual proprty registrations) is very common, it is quite easy to sue without a paid right to do so. In fact, it has been shown that it’s possible to sue “God” in Federal Court (Google it for the article).

    If you’re in the U.S. and your goal is to block competition through litigation, having a paid right to sue seems more a luxury than a necessity.

    Each of domainnames and trademarks is available for a recurring fee.

    Although only the former can also be instantiated for no cost (by simply editing the text file).

    Lawsuits always cost money. Even if the suit in the end amounts to nothing more than paperwork, as did the one against God (in modern day terms, “paperwork” often means preparing and editing text files on computers).

  32. Michael H. Berkens says

    I don’t get the naysayers

    I just don’t

    Is Tom Brady not a great QB?

    I mean he has bad games, he doesn’t always win but he is consistently over his career a great quarterback.

    Case closed.

    Mike started Buydomains.com out of nothing sold it for tens of millions, retaining 15% of a company that is one of biggest in the space which owns 1M domains in its own right, and one of the largest aftermarket players Afternic.

    Now he owns hundreds of thousands of domains producing hundreds of thousands of dollars in income each month.

    Mike has been incredibility and unquestionably successful in the domain business.

    Case closed

  33. Robert Clineee says

    @Mike Mann

    I have 800 plus LLL.Co s.

    Contact me if you’re interesting in owning the whole swath of LLL .

    I can give you a good price on them all.

  34. pissnaro jacker says

    Those domains he registered are worth less than $1 per name on average. They are not even reg fee names. What am I missing here. Other than that guy is manic depressive.

  36. Alan says

    @Robert
    I have 800 plus LLL.Co s.Contact me if you’re interesting in owning the whole swath of LLL .
    I can give you a good price on them all.

    Sounds like your trying to “dump” your .co LLL portfolio. My advice is to keep them, they
    will become very valuable when .co overtakes .com

  37. Robert Clineee says

    @Alan

    I know this of course, but who knows. I know for a fact, like 5 years ago they paid $1M for 800 triple .us like LLL.us

    It was in the news at the time.

  38. Dave Zan says

    @MHB – it’s just some people feeling angry at others not doing what they expect, that’s all.

    I’m actually interested in ‘rebutting’ those saying registering and reselling these domains provide no value. I just don’t know how to explain it exactly, but something along the lines that it’s only dependent on two parties agreeing on some kind of ‘value exchange’. Something like that.

  40. INSEO says

    If we don’t stop this. May be in future, the new guys who want to buy a domain for their own website will have to struggle heavily.

  42. Steve M says

    Those (like Mike) who can, do.

    (Too many of) those who can’t, persecute those who can.

    Are you a doer . . . or a persecuter?

  44. Beans says

    If you consider BuyDomains to be the cadillac of the domain name aftermarket then Manns DomainMarket is a PINTO!

    The domain names he is buying are unadulterated crap. In the buydomain days a cheaply listed domain name was 688 or 888. The cheapest I recall seeing on bd was 488 I think.
    The names Mann is buying now are mostly listed for 350 at sedo which means he’d take almost any offer above reg fee. Likely 100 buys many of these domains.

    Its a long road ahead to lliquidate the crap he just bought and it will not be accomplished in his lifetime. When you consider the acquisition costs, sales #s and factor in the scheduled verisign price hikes this strategy looks only slightly better than taking a job for a guaranteed paycheck.

    This guy really is an enigma. Two months ago he lamented that he didn’t have enough money to pay his lawyers, last month he had to put off buying names because of cash flow problems and then last week he registered 14k names? Something is not right here.

    Anyways judging by the quality of the names he would have been better off taking that 100K and GIVING IT TO HIS CHARITIES.

  45. Faceboook says

    Can you say facebook?
    Better yet, can you spell facebook?
    Don’t worry, you’re place in the domain name hall of SHAME is guaranteed!

  46. Mike Mann says

    ‘Mike’ Mann
    2 seconds ago
    Sold TheClare.com $15,000.00, Acquired: 2011-09-11 $7.48 – remind me if the 15,000 names I just registered were a good investment at $100K ?

  47. John says

    Mike
    Was it from the site and priced for the to buy (BuyPrice)?
    Congrats – Love Hand Regs that sell in 5 digits!!!

  51. Brad M. says

    that is a lot of names, there are a TON of great unregistered .co’s out there. I would think some of the .co names I have spied would be more marketable than some of the .com’s being reg’d in this lot. What is to the left of the dot is still most important in reselling the domain.

    I am not one who believes .co will overtake .com but I do see the extension being formidable in the future. I think of all of the young kids growing up coding before they reach high school, wanting domains that they can afford, developing great sites on .co domain names. As the public adopts these new sites and ventures and acclimates to using the extension, it seems inevitable to me that it will gain prominence.

    I also think .co is highly brandable, with Co. representing the word “Company” – there are large volume of plays to that extent.

  52. 3d is my life says

    Brad M., your prediction is highly unlikely, there will be at least hundreds of extensions from among to choose for these young coders. If having available second level names is .Co’s only. selling point, your forecast for prominence will likely not come to pass.

  53. Brad M. says

    Prominence is arbitrary but in a few years and even today I think it will be hard to argue that the .co registry is successful; .co is being employed and they do a great job of showcasing this at go.co. I think .co stands a better chance of being recognized universally alongside the current lot of TLD’s as compared to the gTLD’s that are launched in the future. Many will be very niche oriented while .co has a generality to it and more, it is a truncated version of the .com extension.

    Putting myself into the shoes of a small business owner or an end user in the market for a URL, I am attracted to .co domains as the primary alternative to .com. Of course, that is my perception and an opinion, but the market will decide for itself and with the vast number of new extensions entering the DNS, there will be winners and there will be losers. .com may be the biggest loser.

  54. Mike Mann says

    .Com is king and will always win, every other decent site and app needs the .com perpetually or their competitors will, and for branding and google too, memory, flight to quality forever, no replacement technologies or ideas will beat it. Mark my words and sales.

    .Co is next best bet as my investments show too.

  55. 3D is my life says

    Yes, .com is king. The argument that young coders will adopt .co to hack together something and then this will lead to .co prominence is flawed. Once a site hits a critical point and hopes to continue to grow, they will obtain the .com. That’s why it would be a very rare scenario where a .co site could grow to establish itself in the mainstream mindshare.

  56. Brad M. says

    I agree with you Mike, .com will always be king and the most valuable extension to own. When I refer to .com possibly being the biggest loser, I speak to the possibility that the current .com market cap / valuation is potentially at risk and possibly most adversely affected by the flood of new extensions and the increase of viable alternatives. It is a very basic way to look at the market and likely inaccurate. There is a case to be made for an acceleration in overall market demand that will more than offset the effect of the supply increases on the broader market, and due to the fact that there still will be a fixed supply of premium .com’s, the valuation of these domains stands to benefit more from increased demand and the entry of new market participants. I bullish across the board.

  57. .COM to be Migrated to Peer-2-Peer DNS without ICANN and Verisign says

    “.Com is king….no replacement technologies or ideas will beat it.”

    .COM can be useful in the transition that is coming.

    .COM can be used as the back-end as other name-spaces are built between it and the users.

    .COM can then be removed, like DOS was eventually removed from Windows.

    Things can move quickly or continue to be derailed as the ICANN Insiders continue to enjoy their money machines.

    People gravitate to .COM because it still has some ties to Uncle Sam who threatens ICANN as they wander into the weeds.

  59. Michael H. Berkens says

    Mike

    I don’t think there is a clear 2nd choice, I think it depends on the domain, how intuitive it is how brandable it is.

    Certainly .co is in the running but I like .tv and .me a lot as well

  60. Mike Mann says

    Most of the other TLD investors will eat it unless they focus on the very very top one keywords or build the sites, even the best aTLDs .Co and .Net are very risky, .Com is risky enough and opportune enough not to dig further.

  64. Michael H. Berkens says

    Paul

    The word on the street is that .web is going to be the most sort after.

    Guess we will find more out once ICANN gets its TAS system back up and finally announces the applicants

  65. Paul Sloan says

    Hm. .Web? Doesn’t make a ton of sense to me. I’m doing some digging on this, so send ideas my way. Paul 🙂

  66. Michael H. Berkens says

    Paul

    The feeling is, not that I particularly happen to agree with it, is that .web has a chance to compete with .com as a general TLD.

    As a business the .info registry has around 7 Million registrations which at around $7 wholesale is around $50M a year so not a horrible business.

  67. Michael H. Berkens says

    Paul

    BTW as your looking for new ideas. it would also have been nice if you mentioned thedomains.com in your Mike Mann article since I wrote about it 1st.

  68. Mike Mann says

    Nothing will ever do better than .Co as an Alt did since its obvious and one of first in line and Juan has done a great job marketing and managing, so again if you are looking for investment class assets fly to quality before an emergency, keyword heavy .Coms in perfect English and context is your best bet and many options still to invest, most at http://www.domainmarket.com

  69. prospect says

    I been considering in buying names from mike mann actually and browsing his inventory.

    may need to speak with an agent. disagree on a few things he does but he does have some good inventory in there

  70. Well says

    Breaking news: Apple is planning to add a .co key to the iPhone OSK (on-screen keyboard).

    Not.

    The benefit and purpose of non-com tld’s is specialisation. .co is a cctld. It represents Colombia. Not “company”.

    It’s only artificial scarcity, inflated value and years of domaining (now with ICANN itself getting into the game – they have totally lost face; pathetic) that has led to the pathological repurposing of non-com tld’s for business.

    com = global business

    There was never any other intended purpose for it.

    Ambiguity is no friend to legitimate business. (Though it may be the friend of the scam artist.)

    Aside from today’s internet criminals and the folks who depend on them to make a living (e.g. security consultants, spam fighters), clarity is what we all want.

    Make it easy. Make it simple. Make it crystal clear. Stop playing games.

    New gtld’s will only increase ambiguity and confusion as they try to compete with the one, clear business tld: dot com.

    Chaos, brought to you by ICANN. Aren’t they supposed to be concerned with internet stability, making sure things run smoothly?

  72. yawn says

    @together.tv

    We all know your 15k offer you rejected and sold for 5k.

    Your together.tv 80k offer you claim rejected.

    We have a new fan boy in tell. LOL. You think your helping . Tv and investors? Hmm. Ok.

  73. Brad M. says

    @well, thanks for clearing up that country code for me…it’s a good thing I speak Columbian.

    MARKETABILITY – this is a marketplace, ICANN doesn’t give a rats ass about ambiguity or your need for clarity.

  75. Joe says

    I got out of the game years ago but keep my names… But I am glad for names like Amish.co which I registered myself, and being a former Amish, it is one of my best names.

  76. 3D is my life says

    Sorry Joe, if you’ve kept the names, you’re still in the game. But, if that .co is one of your best names, you probably should have remained Amish and never entered the domain game.

  77. Joe says

    LOL what I mean by not in the game, is that I am not chasing it as I used to, trying to sell names, I used to be a mod on dnf, Etc., and domains were my life, but now I have other interests, such as youtube, and building out sites. I have 3 letter domains, and some one worders, but I like this one cause it is a short brandable one that I have used for a forum to talk about my people.

  78. Joe says

    Oh and I did not leave the Amish for domain names… I just got into them a few years after I left, when I bought Deleted.com, and a year after that I started to post on dnf… and in 06 I was voted “Most Valuable Member” by fellow members. And yes, that was a tie with the lawyer, Dr. John Berryhill. I think if you had a unique past like I did, you would want to have names about it too, like I did.

    I have a few other names related to the Amish, so to name a few:

    formeramish.com
    examish.com
    ex-amish.com (There is a book called “Shunned, Banned, ex communicated, true stories of the Ex-Amish”)
    xamish.com
    amish.co
    amishchurch.com
    amishmemories.com (Name of the book I want to write)
    amishconfidential.com (also the name of a book written by one of my former Amish friends)

    But that is not all the names I own.

  81. 3d is my life says

    Easy, my man. Jeez, it was sincere. Now, breathe deeply and recall your Amish days.