Mr. Xiao Sheng LIU (刘晓生), CEO of You Ming Wang was interviewed during the conference. You Ming Wang is a marketplace for buying and selling of domain names. Its official website is 62.com which has more than 100,000 users according to Baidu Baike.
Liu has a positive view on the new extensions. He thinks they have investment value and will make the whole domain industry much bigger. While he’s not able to name any winner, he suggested the same criteria can be applied to both the new and the old extensions—short is good. However, when it comes to his own investment, Liu still invests mostly in .com; he has not bought domain name in any new extension. His advice to investors is, regardless of the extension, always focus on premium domain names.
Liu is also the owner of the much talked about domain name Banana.com. The story started when he was asked by a customer to acquire the domain name from overseas. After the domain names moved to China, it was later sold twice before finally landing in Liu’s hand at a much higher price. He considers banana.com a collector’s item but nevertheless put it to an auction at the Global Domain Industry Summit in June this year. The domain name was not sold at the final bid of $3.4m (22.4m yuan) because he was expecting $10m.
Liu agreed the current market is not moving much, but premium domain names still sell and end users still have funds to buy. He’s not surprised by the sudden fall of the market because it’s normal to have ups and downs in any market. The next rise will depend on inflow of investment funds, which may come in one or two months or later this year, he said.
After reading this interview, here are my two thoughts: (1) Liu reinforces my belief that “short is good” in China. (2) He does not follow the general wisdom (domain name matching company or product/service name). His company is Shen Zhen Hu Lian Gong Chang (深圳市互联工场) and the marketplace is called You Ming Wang (优名网=excellent names net), but 62.com does not rhyme with either name.
Sources:
http://news.west.cn/7773.html
http://baike.baidu.com/view/10466462.htm
Great article on the current and future popularity/liquidity of short .com domains.
Banana.com is short, catchy, easy to spell, easy to type and easy to share (passes the radio test) in any country/culture.
Tortillas.com is another great example of a liquid internationally brand-able one word .com domain that can be used for a wide variety of Product and Service Businesses or Marketing Campaigns.
Just found out Tortillas means omelette in Spanish. One-word names on .com are precious. Congratulations on your ownership.