(image source: WSJ)
Via The Wall Street Journal:
Devised a quarter century ago, the Internet’s domain-name system was meant to spare the general public from numbers. Easy-to-remember words or initializations such as toys.com and cbs.com were allowed to stand in as aliases for 11-digit computer addresses.
Now, numbers could be making a comeback. Industry watchers say Web users should get used to visiting sites whose names are numeric. A group in Australia plans to develop 100.com into a search engine that will deliver the 100 most relevant results. An Aspen, Colo., equity researcher has spent more than $1 million on numeric domains for a project that is yet to be determined. And on Thursday, an auction of dozens of numeric domain names closed, with bids as high as $325,000 for 88.com.
Few factors here to pay attention to:
Numeric domain names always had a special appeal for us as they are universal (language free) however, majority of them get no type-in traffic. As with other domains that get no type in traffic and cannot justify their price based on PPC, the two other options for ROI are either to flip or develop.
Informative article overall. Further reading from the WSJ (different article then link above) here.
I think people like these names because they are short, simple and easy to brand.
With regards to E8.com who has spent of a million dollars - This is for a much larger project which we shall see next year.
Some people get them others dont - I believe they are a great investment and shall have a strong comeback as branded companies.
I dont think we shall see many people branding domains like 4482058 - Doesnt make sense but short and simple nn.com nnn.com & nnnn.com are great investments.
Have we had confirmation if 88.com sold? I dont think it met its reserve $325K imo was a cheap price to pitch for a great name.
Regards,
Robbie
Thanks for sharing Sahar — what a great article they wrote up! Sad to see a few idiot domainers spam their garbage as comments to it however
Kinda ironic is’nt it
I’v noticed that Japanese seem to love short numeric domains, I think their value will also increase as they are ideal for the huge mobile market. Alot easier than typing in words.
The Wall Street Journal blog piece was interesting and good to see more coverage on domains as always at mainstream and well respected sources… But numbers domains do have very limited potential and there aren’t going to be too many success stories. Sometimes no matter how hard you try you just aren’t going to get the results you would with a simple domain that actually makes sense. It’s called business 101.
Mike
http://www.wannadevelop.com
Good numeric Domain Names have a mnemonic meaning to a large segment of the population where the sequence of numbers relate to an action, some known event, product, etc.
88.com makes me think immediately of my neighbor’s Buick “88″. He owned several different ones over the years. They were nice luxury cars.
“21″ is a club I’ve never been to. In “1999″ we would party like there’s no tomorrow according to Prince. “1941″ was a good John Belushi movie.
Ever owned a Colt “45″ or a Harley “45″? Or a “74″? Or a “883″? Or a “441″ Victor special? Ariel Square “4″? I’m watching “Close Encounters of the Third (”3rd”) Kind” right now.
And that was the purpose of domains anyway. A mnemonic way to relate a dotted quad IP to something a little easier to remember. A way to get to “project167.com” without remembering 66.84.69.10:80. And domain names are even more important now with virtual servers and http/1.1.
Hmmmm??? If I owned 1.com and had a machine there called “1″ I could have a URL like http://1.1.com/RFC2616/confuses/me.pl?help. My point here is to show numbers have bigger meanings which make them good Domain Names by themselves or as additions to common words to enhance the value of the common word as a more meaningful Domain Name.
Then there’s “149″. 1 x 4 x 9 - The square of the first three integers. The dimensions of the monolith in “2001″ A Space Odyssey.
Flight “19″ back in “45″. Hanger “18″ In Dayton, Ohio. Certain sequences of numbers come up all the time in conversations and they often mean something important to various groups. Adding dot com to those numeric sequences can yield a very memorable domain.
In the Chinese culture, some numbers have a positive meaning while others are more negative. For instance 4 is very close from “death” VS 8 is closer to luck. (more meanings here)
And they tend to use a lot of numeric domains…