“You Can’t Believe Most of the Quotes You Read On the Internet” -Abraham Lincoln

I love reading all the domain blogs.  I read most of them daily.  I get a kick out of the “data” and comments that appear each day.  No doubt Michael Berkens and Domain Name Wire have as accurate of information on the net as there is possible,  but the people that comment and some of the other blogs?  Well don’t believe what you read.

When you read about final prices or who purchased what domain, you have to take it all with a grain of salt.  This is business.  There is the marketing side of business and the business side of business.  People release information they want people to know.  I’m not saying that a name that was announced to be a sale for a million dollars didn’t change hands for a million, I’m just saying that it is great publicity to have a name trade hands for high dollars regardless of whether than type of money actually changed hands.  The only people that will ever know the real price are the buyer and seller, their lawyers, and the tax man.  As long as they are not publicly traded they can say whatever price they want.  The buyer looks wealthy and now appears as a major player and the seller looks like he made a fortune.  What the general public doesn’t know won’t hurt them.

The comments are great as well.  On Berkens’ blog today “Shawn” wrote this

e.com did resolve in 1999-2000 or thereabout. I don’t remember if it was Sun or IBM that was using it for marketing campaign, but it was used on loan from the registry and I think it was just used as a redirect. There are still some back links floating around if you dig, many of them are typos of google such as googl.e.com.

Other single letters that have been used:
q.com was used by Qwest for several years until the registry took it back in 2007.

x.com was the first online bank, and merged with Paypal. Paypal retained the x.com domain until 2008 when it was taken back.

z.com was originally registered by an individual in 1994. Nissan acquired it in 1999 (I believe the terms of the deal were 3 cars: 2 current production models and a 350z when it was released) when they announced the relaunch of the Z series in preparation for the 350Z that was released in 2002. The registry took it back in 2008.

Sounds like great information doesn’t it?  None of it is remotely true. E.com never resolved,  X.com is still owned by PayPal, Q.com by Quest, and z.com by Nissan.  Remember, everyone on the net is rich, intelligent, and good looking.  As far as you know.  Google has made data checking so much easier which is causing the far fetched stories to disappear.  My great Uncle used to show me a baseball he kept in the drawer.  He said it was the baseball that Babe Ruth hit out when he did the legendary point to the outfield with his bat.  If that would have happened today it would have been all over You Tube and on TV.  Back then it was radio and everyone looks the same on radio.  As far as his friends know it WAS him. He WAS at the game and he did have a baseball,  but nobody knew if he caught a fly ball or THE ball.  I didn’t really care if the story was true because I liked the story. Heck the story went on for 60 years so regardless if it was true he put a lot of effort into it.

So I assume half of what I read is exaggerated or perhaps not even true and that’s what I love about our domain blogs.  They are pieces of fact wrapped up with opinions, exaggeration, and little bit of lying.  Especially this one.