Kudos to Elliot Silver on getting the full scoop on X.com being acquired by it’s original owner Elon Musk.
Someone asked me, “where I thought the remaining 23 one letter .com would sell for in an auction environment, with no reserve?”
Z.com is the only sale we have to go on currently. That domain sold for $6.8 million.
Q.com is owned by Century Link, and of course X.com was just acquired.
So where do you think the other 23 single letter .coms would sell for?
A poll on Namepros got several votes:
How much do you think a single letter .com is worth?
-
$1 to $9 Million
188 vote(s)37.2% -
*
$10 to $49 Million
183 vote(s)36.2% -
$50 to $99 Million
59 vote(s)11.7% -
$100 to $199 Million
27 vote(s)5.3% -
$200 to $499 Million
15 vote(s)3.0% -
Over $500 Million
34 vote(s)6.7%
I am in the $10 to $49 million camp for this vote. If I had to pick an average closing price in an ICANN auction where every name closed the same day, I would say $25 million.
Back in 2005 ICANN first considered making these names available, they then decided it against it. Then in 2007 they asked the community for ideas on how to release 1 character domains.
Here is an interesting article from back then, Matt Bentley who was CEO at the time of Sedo, said the following:
Matt Bentley, chief executive of domain name broker Sedo.com LLC, said single-letter “.com” names could fetch six-figure sums, and a few might even command more than $1 million from some of the Internet’s biggest companies. Yahoo Inc. applied for a trademark to “y.com” this year.
“Obviously there’s nothing more exquisite than names that are in extremely rare supply like that,” Bentley said. “They would have a lot of cachet as a brand name. I could see there would be tons of demand.”
In 2005 several corporations sent letters to ICANN to explain why they thought they were entitled to a certain letter.
David Filo one of the founders wrote ICANN to explain why Yahoo should get Y.com. You can read it here
U Magazine changed their name to U.com and filed a trademark, they sent ICANN a letter saying why they should get U.com.
The TM was cancelled last year.
Word Mark | U.COM |
Goods and Services | (CANCELLED) IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: Computer services directed to university, college and high school students, namely, providing online magazines in the field of education, colleges, universities, graduate and professional schools, courses, training materials, student life, and student issues; Computer services directed to university, college and high school students, namely, providing online magazines in the field of career opportunities, employment searching, and career planning tools; Computer services directed to university, college and high school students, namely, providing online magazines in the fields of technology, computers, computing, computer software, electronic gaming, electronic communications, electronic commerce, consumer electronics, and digital technologies; Computer services directed to university, college and high school students, namely, providing online magazines in the field of diverse human cultures, beliefs, and lifestyles; Computer services directed to university, college and high school students, namely, providing online magazines in the field of fashion. FIRST USE: 20051202. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20051202 |
Standard Characters Claimed | |
Mark Drawing Code | (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK |
Trademark Search Facility Classification Code | LETS-1 U A single letter, multiples of a single letter or in combination with a design NOTATION-SYMBOLS Notation Symbols such as Non-Latin characters,punctuation and mathematical signs,zodiac signs,prescription marks |
Serial Number | 78765903 |
Filing Date | December 2, 2005 |
Current Basis | 1A |
Original Filing Basis | 1A |
Published for Opposition | March 10, 2009 |
Registration Number | 3676500 |
Registration Date | September 1, 2009 |
Owner | (REGISTRANT) U. Inc. CORPORATION CALIFORNIA 12250 El Camino Real, Suite 104 San Diego CALIFORNIA 92130 |
Attorney of Record | Sean Collin |
Type of Mark | SERVICE MARK |
Register | PRINCIPAL |
Live/Dead Indicator | DEAD |
Cancellation Date | April 8, 2016 |
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$18mil
wow