There have been some decent numeric sales over the last few days in China. 791.com sold for $246,400. The sale was reported on Ename.cn.
English translation from Kassey Lee of Coreile.com:
791.com sold for 1.62m CNY in recent auction. 9 is a lucky number and 791 is the dialing code of 南昌 (Nanchang). Similar domain names already developed into websites are PT791.com and FZ791.com.
12345678.com sold for 800,000 CNY or $121,600. Reported by Ename.cn.
Even more impressively 4567.com sold for 2.92 million CNY. In the same post 8686.com sold for 1million CNY. Ename reported here.
Kassey Lee noted:
Both numbers are very easy to remember and 86 means easy to make a fortune. But, 4 wins and 4567.com was sold for more than double the price of 8686.com.
Just to offer an opinion, IMHO in old internet parlance. These prices for a good .com seem very depressed. My theory is that the private networks, like facebook, twitter, instagram, etc. which do not use domains, are gaining more eyes or growing faster than domain driven traffic. I’ll bet Trump’s twitter feed is viewed by more people than his web page (if he has one).
The real question for me is, are these viable businesses. Twitter for one is having trouble making money. Facebook is making money but it is quite annoying to me how they feed me the content they want instead of what I search out. It is like broadcast TV. Its an esoteric point but I think the ultra low interest rates which fuelled the financial markets are propping up these new enterprises and aiding their survival.
Obviously they may continue to gain eyes and succeed. Plus, even if they fail long term, maybe something else will replace DNS as the way people get to Internet resources. But perhaps domain names will move back into the forefront of internet real estate. In that case, a good .com, which is powerful worldwide, should be much more valuable than current transactions indicate.
I don’t think Facebook and Twitter will dominate forever. The pendulum will swing back. Getting free traffic via social media is like living under someone else’s roof and depending on the kindness of strangers. Companies are gradually realizing that bringing audience back to your own castle (website) and keeping them there is a better option. Technology will advance to a point when you can easily socialize with your audience right from your website.
Trouble is, there is little faith the chinese buyer will actually pay.
With a domain you control the keyword and access to your website. With social media someone else controls your website. Ie Google changes its algo and your website position in the SERPs is randomly decided by a third party. Twitter, FB, Snap chat all have idiots millions on their websites. There is no value. additionally they have junk content. With your own website and domain you set the stage no Zuckenberg. deciding anything.
Also social media offers little value, Snap chat offers nothing, FB offers nothing and twitter offers nothing. Zuckenberg predicted that in 5 yrs FB will be all videos and pictures no text. This clearly indicates the stupidity of their billion users. They cannot read. I am not interested in communicating with a dumbed down audience. This is accentuated by the red lines in Google search. Who has facilitated the fall of the masses that cannot spell. Better to be in control of your website at all costs.
enough money to create a new company