Internet REIT Buys Netster.com

Internet REIT (iREIT) has acquired the Netster.com web portal and major portions of the Netster domain name portfolio. Netster is the latest in a series of deals for iREIT, which has acquired more than 50 portfolios of Internet traffic in the past 15 months, and gives iREIT more than 400,000 domain properties under management and traffic up to 50 million visitors per month.

While most Internet advertising networks "lease" their traffic from third- party Web sites, iREIT owns all of its traffic since this traffic is generated from the company's Web sites. Owning its traffic gives iREIT a tremendous advantage in the space: iREIT has the flexibility to sell its traffic to Google, to Yahoo! or directly to an advertiser.

"iREIT is working in partnership with top domain name portfolio owners to build the world's largest, most profitable and highest-quality portfolio of Internet domain names that have traffic on par with the world's leading media properties," said Bob Martin, chief executive officer of iREIT. "iREIT's acquisition of the Netster.com portal and high-quality components of the Netster portfolio marks a key milestone towards this goal. Netster not only brings significant traffic to our portfolio, but also offers synergistic qualities that will accelerate monetization of other sites in our network. We look forward to further developing the portal to offer more functionality and generate more high-quality traffic."

Posted by RichM May 22, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter

May 21, 2006

Domains and RSS Services - Perfect Together?

Are RSS services the next business opportunity for domain registrars? Dave Winer believes registrars could be key players in the future of RSS feed management services such as Feedburner, Pheedo and the new FeedPass service, which has prompted renewed debate about the repurposing of feeds. As a FeedBurner user, I love the added functionality it allows me add to my RSS feeds. But I'm also aware that there's huge headache potential if Feeburner fails or is sold. There are serious trust issues in branding my feed with a URL I don't control.

That's where registrars come into the picture. Combining domain management and RSS management would address many of the control issues, as Dave explains in a post titled How to Compete With FeedBurner.

First, I'd either do a deal with a registrar, become a registrar, or merge or partner with one. It's absolutely essential that the user own the domain that their feed is hosted at, so that, in case of emergency, they can switch to a different hosting service. If they don't own the domain, it doesn't matter how many promises the vendor makes, or how well-intentioned they are, an act of god could result in a blackout of
a huge portion of the RSS network. It's irresponsible to host a large percentage of the net's RSS feeds at one domain. I would set it up so it's the other way around. My hosting service won't host your feed unless you own the domain.

Dave emphasizes that he's not launching such a service, but would invest in one.

Posted by RichM May 21, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter

May 11, 2006

Diamond.com Sells for $7.5 Million

Odimo Incorporated said Wednesday that it had sold the domain name diamond.com for $7.5 million to online retailer Ice.com, making the deal one of the biggest domain sales of all time. Odimo's diamond and jewelry inventory and corporate packaging were sold to Ice.com for an additional $2.0 million, as the parties appear to have separated the sale of the domain and parts of the underlying business, a distinction that has been an issue in other recent big-ticket sales.

The Diamond.com sale price equals the $7.5 million paid for Business.com in 1999, which was recognized for many years as the highest domain sale of all time. In January Sex.com was sold for a higher price, with various reports placing the sale price at $14 million. However, the sale included an adult web site and underlying business, in addition to the domain. Some domainers - including Marc Ostrofsky, the seller in the record Business.com sale - say that because the Sex.com price included a business as well as a domain, it's an apples-to-oranges comparison.

Posted by RichM May 11, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter