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Strategies & Market Trends : The Thread Formerly Known as No Rest For The Wicked -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: charlie mcgeehan who wrote (75756)	12/1/1999 12:01:00 AM
From: Tim Luke	Respond to of 90042

go figure: ; ; ; ; Tuesday November 30 10:27 PM ET ECompanies pays $7.5 million for business.com name LOS ANGELES (AP) - A Houston entrepreneur sold the Internet domain name business.com for a record $7.5 million US in a deal announced Tuesday that highlights the skyrocketing prices for prime Web addresses. Marc Ostrofsky sold the name to eCompanies, the Santa Monica, Calif.-based business incubator founded by former Disney Internet chief Jake Winebaum and Earthlink founder Sky Dayton, the company said. "I'm a technology wildcatter. I've made a lot of money in my 38 years of life doing that," Ostrofsky said in an interview. "Technology wildcatting is about using your head and knowledge of the market to know where to drill." The easy-to-remember name was worth the price because it will save eCompanies millions of dollars in advertising costs, Winebaum said. "It's a choice piece of real estate and we've got a great service that we're building to go behind the brand," said Winebaum. "If you look at what companies are spending to build a brand, I think it's a prudent investment." Winebaum said he plans to use the name for a new business devoted to helping other businesses tap into the world of electronic commerce. Ostrofsky, who will become an adviser to the project, purchased the business.com name from a British Internet service provider three years ago for $150,000 US - a price considered stratospheric at the time. "Everyone thought I was a fool. People thought I was going out of my mind," Ostrofsky said from Houston. "I had to just ignore them because I knew the market better than they did." The $7.5-million US price for business.com was the highest yet for a domain name, said Jeff Tinsley, chief executive of Greatdomains.com, an auction site for domain names. The record may not last for long. Greatdomains recently became agent for the name America.com. A bid greater than $7.5 million US already has been tendered and rejected by the seller, Tinsley said. "I think that's just the beginning of what's going to come. These names are going to command a significant price," he said. In May, the name Wallstreet.com was sold for $1 million US to a Venezuelan company. Last year, Compaq Computer Corp (NYSE:CPQ - news). paid $3.35 million US for the name AltaVista.com for its AltaVista search engine. Since then, Compaq sold a controlling stake in the search engine to the Internet investment company CMGI Inc (NasdaqNM:CMGI - news).