Remember Rick’s $750,000 iReport.com deal? Remember how many i+keyword domain name owners started daydreaming afterwards? Remember how many people started to foolishly invest in absolutely worthless i+keyword domains?
iPad.com = iReport.com 2.0?
Is the domain name iPad.com worth a LOT of money at this point? Yes, nobody can deny that.
If Microsoft decides to rename “Windows 7″ to “Please Buy These Socks”, will the domain “PleaseBuyTheseSocks.com” be extremely valuable? Yep.
Look: cases such as these are extremely rare. Of course, all of us would be thrilled to find out that a motivated corporation (after all, a million bucks is peanuts to a company such as Microsoft, CNN or Apple) launched an “ABCDEFG” product and that it desperately wants the “brandable” ABCDEFG.com domain we bought or hand regged without even thinking that something like this could happen but the odds of something like this happening are slim to none.
Should we all start buying or hand regging brandables like there’s no tomorrow just because we read about an isolated incident? Of course not!
There’s a fine line between being rational and daydreaming, we as domainers should know this better than anyone else. A top dollar sale is always beneficial to our industry but we should definitely not make the mistake of thinking that buying or hand regging lots of brandables in the hope that a major company will eventually launch a TV show or a product with the exact same name is a viable business model.
January 27th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
ipleasebuythesesocks.com is available, I just had to say this
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January 27th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
Sorry if it’s not on the topic but I was always wondering whats the difference between e and i in front of the keyword? I stands for internet and e stands for what? Or do both stand for internet?
January 27th, 2010 at 11:05 pm
If you guys really think ipad.com is worth a million dollars to apple, then how much do you think i-pad.com is worth?
You can buy it right now for only $3250.
i-phone.com, i-pod.com is not owned by apple…so i guess apple doesn’t want i-pad.com either!
iphone.com, ipod.com, ipad.com …these domain names do not get that much traffic…check the alexa ranking.
I personally think these domains are not worth that much to apple…apple don’t care…they know people will end up at apple.com
January 27th, 2010 at 11:25 pm
@Anunt: is 1 million bucks really “that much” to Apple? I’m not saying that they couldn’t “live” without this domain but let’s not forget that Apple was worth $158.66 billion back in May 2008 (not sure how things stand atm, I’ll do a bit of research later)
January 27th, 2010 at 11:33 pm
It seems that Apple is worth about $189.72 billion atm. In other words, by paying a million bucks for iPad.com, they would be investing about 1/189,000 of their market value and again, even though they can definitely do business without this domain, I wouldn’t see purchasing iPad.com for $1,000,000 as a foolish decision, not by a long shot.
January 27th, 2010 at 11:48 pm
They may not own i-pod.com and i-phone.com but they do own ipod.com and iphone.com. What they don’t own is ipad.com and my guess is that they want it. If I were Apple, I’d pay $1 mil for it.
January 28th, 2010 at 12:02 am
Just because you have alot of money doesnt mean you should spend it foolishly by overpaying for everything.
iphone is very popular…still the domain name iphone.com does not get that much traffic. I really doubt ipad is going to be as popular as the iphone…therefore ipad.com will not even get half as much traffic as the iphone.com
i think apple should not even worry about purchasing ipad.com even though it would help it a little bit…but apple doesnt need this little extra traffic.
most people will still just go directly to apple.com …few people that goto ipad.com will eventually go to apple.com
January 28th, 2010 at 12:27 am
I think Apple would pay over 10 million for the iPad.com domain. They would be stupid not to. If I owned it i would not sell for less than 10 million. I guarantee they will buy it once their trademarks are all settled. They have over 35 billion in cash just sitting there. One million is less than one day of interest. Even ten million is pocket change to them. They will probably spend hundreds of millions of dollars marketing the new device. @Anunt, its not about how much traffic it gets, they will get the name because that is their brand now. Apple could care less what the traffic is like on it. Obviously it wont have decent traffic before today since it was just announced anyway.
January 28th, 2010 at 12:41 am
I bet iphone.com does get a lot of traffic, same with ipod.com. What I wonder is if the ipad will be anywhere near as successful as iphone and ipod. My guess is it won’t outsell either of the other two products.
January 28th, 2010 at 1:17 am
Dudes! I really have to make a comment here.
Everytime I see Steve Jobs at these unveiling Apple events, he reminds me of how much of a genius he really is! For anyone who is in doubt about the iPad trouncing the iphone, here is why:
The iPad is revolutionary not only interms of its functions which are similar to iphone, but because it now represents the first mobile device that does pretty much everything “VISUALLY”. Not in a squinted display like mobile phones. You simply can now download any book from itunes on your bookshelf and start flicking pages with your fingers!! That is revolutionary. Mags, games, video, web and great apps are all now at your fingertips with the first really touch screen tablet device …iPAD! Well guys, i snapped up iPads.co.in today at reg fee, couldn’t believe my luck! I billion Indians will one day be carry iPads to school and university and that my friends is the future…pure and simple!
One last thing, Apple will buy ipad.com for whatever it takes because it will be well worth it over the long term. This is the first true device that students all over the world can download all those massive text books on one device… the possibilities are endless. Now that’s a massive market!
January 28th, 2010 at 1:46 am
@Anunt: I’m convinced that the folks from Apple don’t even care how much traffic iPad.com is receiving. As I’ve mentioned previously, these guys are playing in the big league. Put yourself in the position of the person in charge of their marketing department. Let’s assume that you have a $100,000,000 budget at your disposal to advertise the iPad. Would you be willing to invest 1% of that budget in order to buy the best possible domain for your campaign?
January 28th, 2010 at 10:42 am
I like “i” and “e” keyword names. Alot.
Here’s why.
In the old days .com didn’t have that much traffic but as more and more companies adopted .com, critical mass was reached, .com became the de facto top established tld and continues to grow at a break-neck pace.
Tons of i and e names are in my portfolio. They’re getting more and more traffic not to mention, sales inquiries. I even have two and three word names with “i” or “e” in front of them getting traffic.
When you have big companies using those types of names like, iGoogle, iPhone, iReport and so forth, branding is getting done, just like .com…
January 28th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
If a domain name is related to a particular product that the company has or will have 4 sale they buy the domain name so they can mzximize revenue since many people will type in the product name and then the .com ext.
So Apple will make that investment to buy the rlevant domain name.
January 28th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
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It’s quite likely that Apple already has ipad.com.
Clues can be found in the whois of enero6.com
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January 29th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Apple’s revolutionary computer will soon evolve after the push launch during it’s unveiling. The A4 chip and Job’s potential to fix defections will start to make the iPad a huge product in years to come.
January 30th, 2010 at 3:43 am
That should be common sense, but it seems that the business world still needs a lot of educating.
Using a long, unmemorable domain on a cell would be like a real-life situation where lots of people are coming to your restaurant and then are never able to fully explain to others where it is at when making a dining recommendation.
February 8th, 2010 at 11:35 pm
F*CK Apple! Please stop launching anymore cool gadget plz… I just cant afford to own more iPod, iPhone, iPad(#iTampoon).