As we’ve read countless times over the last few weeks, Social.com is up for auction. Nobody is going to be more excited if it sells than Scott Carter, the present owner of the domain. DomainFest Barcelona has picked up the name as their headliner in the upcoming Live Auction on Wednesday. It’s the kind of story that all original domain investors dream about. Carter registered the name in 1995, holds the name for 16 years until he finally gets the millions of dollars. Of course, Carter would have settled for a lot less back in 1997 and again in 2007.
According to TechCrunch
Social.com was not always such a hot commodity. Back in 1995, Carter wanted it for a dating site. “It was my intention at the time to build a dating web site to compete with Match.com,” he tells me, “but the effort never got underway. Social.com wasn’t my first choice, but I thought the name was okay.” He ended up using it for a discussion forum called The Social Cafe, which was named a “Cool Site Of The Day on June 22, 1995.
Carter put the domain up for sale in 1997 for $50,000, but had no takers for two years. He tried using the site to promote different businesses, including a social networking directory from 2007 to 2009 and most recently his Twitter tool BigTweet. “I never did quite come up with the right way to develop Social.com,
It also went up for sale in 2007 with no sale and not much has changed in the domain marketplace other than the upcoming influx of VC capital and IPO money being thrown at high flying start-ups. My bet is that the name gets sold in the next few weeks either at the auction or a deal after the auction. Somebody is going to buy this name and while I don’t think it will be the $5 million Carter is seeking, it will certainly be in the millions. In today’s world the word social may be one of the most valuable words on the Internet. Compare the purchase of this domain vs the cost of one commercial and you’ll see that the price is still a true bargain compared to other marketing expenses.
Am i missing something here? Why is social.com such a desirable name? It only gets a few thousand type-ins according to compete.com. You can duplicate that type of traffic with ads on google for a couple of thousand of dollars (probably for a lot less than that.)
Its a disservice to the whole domain community when the auctioneer promotes a domain name that is waaaaaaay overvalued. The media then picks up the headline as in the domain industry is very soft rather than social.com is grossly overpriced.
Domainfest seems to have lost the war with sedo… Just fold for the good of the industry.
rick must be one of those minisite seo geeks.
It’s one of the most brandable names in the hottest segment around.
It passes the radio test and allows the new owner to become instantly recognizable and remembered. All for 0.01% of Facebook’s annual revenue.
There are plenty of generics that fit into the so-so category, but I’d argue that this one is downright perfect.
We’ll see what happens, could be wrong.
You saying this is going to sell Shane ? You want to wager ?
Its funny to see the appraisals it got back in 2004 at NP
http://www.namepros.com/domain-appraisals/45705-social-com.html
It’s a great name, but isn’t the word “social” one used by companies, experts and the media only?
How many regular people use the word “social” or “social networking” for that sake when talking about their online habits?
Anyway, it certainly is every domainer’s dream, so good luck to seller.
Stop hyping up the domain name social.com
It’s NOT going to sell.
It’s NOT even worth $100k.
The only people that might be interested in buying this domain name is the owner of livingsocial.com…and i really doubt they are interested…they don’t need it.
Nobody else would even pay $100k…not worth it.
So stop hyping it up…
Anunt,
And groupon is not worth $30 billion but thousands of people are going to buy the stock. I’ve seen companies spend $5 million on much stupider things than this. You don’t have enough money to be foolish.
Shane, i agree with you…but the problem is…those foolish companies with deep pockets dont know about this auction. Domain auctions are not being marketed properly. Most of the time, only domainers know about these auctions…and thats not enough. They need to spend money marketing to end users and companies that could use these premium domains.
I agree that an auction is the proper way to sell such a name – should be brokered to some deep pockets companies
What’s the problem that some of you seem to have, of this not being a desirable name, not selling, or not being worth the money? Is it jealously, or what? Because I’m having a hard time figuring it out.
Plenty of other domains that could have been of questionable value in their day (depending on whose eyes you’re looking through) have sold for 6 and 7 figures. And that’s what it’s all about. What it’s worth to the buyer. So yeah, personally I wouldn’t buy this for millions. And there are many famous paintings I wouldn’t buy for millions either. But there are buyers out there who have the money and are able to. (In both cases.)
As people who sell domains, shouldn’t those of you who are negative about this sale hope that it sells for what he wants? Isn’t it good for everyone to see domains sell for significant amounts of money? Domain names are basically “land,” on the Internet after all. And like land in real life, its value varies, depending on location. But in the end, it’s all just dirt, whether you pay hundreds or millions for it.
Anyway, again, I just don’t get some of your negative mindsets on this issue.