The sale and purchase of domain names has been a lucrative trade ever since the dot com bubble. Ordinarily, you can get a .com domain from GoDaddy for just $10. But there are people who rake in bucks by buying, and then selling big, valuable domain names. Here is a list of the top 10 most expensive domain names ever sold. Only those domain names are listed which were sold purely as domain names i.e. only the domain name was the part of the deal, and not the website itself.
It is worth noticing that all of these domains are .com domains, which goes on to say that they're the most valuable. These domain names are single-worded and are heavily searched by internet users, and get tonnes of direct traffic. So there you are, you just got yourself a tip: always try to buy single-worded domain, i
f you ever so chose to go into the domain trading business :)
1. insure.com - $16 Million
Insure.com was purchased by QuinStreet, an online marketing services and technology company. It is the single largest domain name ever sold. It was originally acquired by Insure.com for $1.6 million in December 2001. The website now provides life, car and health insurance quotes among others.
2. fund.com - $14.9
fund.com is owned by “Gentile, Philip “. Gentile, Philip bought this domain for £9.9 million in March 2008, which amounted to about $14.9 Million. However, this domain is not yet live.
3. fb.com - $8.5 Million
This domain was purchased by Facebook, Inc. on September 2010 for $8.5 million. Currently this domain redirects to Facebook.com. Facebook purchased this domain from American Farm Bureau Federation.
4. business.com - $7.5 Million
It is a business search engine and web directory founded in 1999 by Jake Winebaum, former chairman of the Walt Disney Internet Group. In July 2007 business.com, the company, was sold to Yellow Pages publisher RH Donnelly for $345 million.
5. diamond.com - $7.5 Million
Although priced the same as business.com, this domain was purchased more than 7 years later in 2006, hence making it a slightly lower-value purchase (due to the depreciation of the dollar over time). It was bought by online jewellery retailer ice.com, and is quite simply an online diamond jewellery store.
6. beer.com - $7 Million
Beer.com was purchased by Thought Convergence, LLC in Jan 2004 for” $7 million”. This domain is also currently not in use for any purpose.
7. Israel.com - $5.88 Million
Billed as "your first and best source for information about Israel". It was bought in 1994 by Joel Noel Friedman, a 46-year-old Jewish American. Rather than seek profit, he originally bought the site in fear that it would be misused by somebody else.
8. casino.com - $5.5 Million
casino.com was purchased by Mansion Limited of Gibraltar in November 2003 for $5.5 million. As the name suggests, this website hosts several online gambling games.
9. slots.com - $5.5 Million
slots.com was purchased by ”Bodog Media” in June 2010 for “$5.5 million”. This website also hosts several online gambling and slot games.
10. toys.com - $5.1 Million
Purchased in March 2009 for $5.1 Million by ToysRUs, a leading toy and video game company. Surely, this domain’s price is nothing as compared to the revenue that is being generated from it.
Note: For family-safety, adult domain names have not been included in this list.
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Facebook will reportedly soon be coming out with a Flipboard-like news reader app called 'Paper', to engage more people looking to catch up on news.
According to a report by re/code, Facebook is readying to launch a news reading service built for mobile devices in the coming weeks. The website cites an unnamed source for the information regarding the app. The app will apparently be known as 'Paper' and can be similar to Flipboard.
"Paper and Flipboard share a number of similarities", the source is said to have told the website.
As per the source, it's not clear that the app will be a standalone mobile application or a web experience suited for mobile devices. As for the launch date, the re/code source says that the launch time can change, but for now it is expected to come before the end of January.
"We do not comment on rumours and speculation" Facebook spokeswoman Jessie Baker said when contacted by the website.
The alleged Paper app, apart from news, will reportedly also feature status updates from Facebook users, acting as aggregator of rich media content. It is said to display a mix of news stories from different publications.
The report says that the entire project is known as Project Reader, and is headed by Chris Cox, Facebook's VP of product, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg also directly involved in the development. Apparently, the project was originally to develop a feature for the News Feed, but was abandoned.
Recently the search giant Google had also combined its Currents app and Play Magazines app into one, named it Google Play Newsstand. Now the Google Play Newsstand app is the single destination through which users can purchase newspaper and magazine subscriptions as well as read content from online publications, blogs and news feeds.
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