The name was reportedly sold through Sedo.com, the largest domain name brokerage firm, and the seller was NewMedia Holdings, Inc. The name had been previously licensed to Paley Media, which operates platforms for numerous generic domains:
NewMedia Holdings, Inc. reportedly also owns other generics such as: Algeria.com, Morocco.com, PuertoRico.com, SouthAfrica.com, Scotland.com, Ukraine.com, and others, and has previously listed Scotland.com for sale for $3m, and PuertoRico.com for $3.5m.
Moniker auctioned off Best.com last week for $331,561, and Best.net was also sold for an additional cost $36,840, approximately 11% of the cost of the dot com, totalling $368,401 for the pair.
Sedo.com, the leading online aftermarket domain name brokerage firm, reports that year over year, sales volume has increased 5.5% and average sales prices showed a sharp uptick of 37%. Recession? Not in domain name sales. Likely however, an impact of greater interest in internet startups, as other parts of the economy have slowed.
Its been quite a while since 40z reported on a dot com IPO, but there was one today. Ancestry.com raised $100 million with a successful offering and began trading on the NASDAQ with the ticker ACOM. A total of 7.41 million shares were sold for 13.50 per share in the intial public offering, valuing the company at $572 million. In trading Thursday, ACOM reached an intraday high of $16.32.
In what appears to be the largest domain transaction to date, Insure.com has been sold for $16 million. Insure.com Inc., a publically traded company (Nasdaq ticker: NSUR), will change its corporate name to Life Quotes, Inc. and will continue its business. Revenue from the asset sale transaction, will be recorded as a one time extraordinary gain.
The buyer? QuinStreet, who recently acquired internet.com for $18 million. According to their description at aboutus.org as "a pioneer in pay-for-performance marketing and lead generation" it would appear their intention is sales lead generation.
Insure.com was acquired in December 2001 for $1.6 million.