13 January 2008
Perceived value
Posted by Opinioneer under: On Domains .
It appears that when I don’t have time to read other blogs for a few days, I run out of topics to write about. I guess that’s normal. So here is a thought I’ve had for quite a bit of time, which I am guessing others have discussed as well:
Is the value of a registered domain, the same as an unregistered one? What do I mean by that? Years ago I had a mini publishing empire, that included about 10 vertical b2b channels, each with its own domain name. At some point I sold a good chunk of the business and shut down the rest, including letting some domains expire.
Last week I realized that some of those domains had been picked up by domain parkers while others were still available. In my opinion, some of the available ones where more valuable than the ones that had been re-registered by others. In any case, I re-registered some of the available names myself.
And that was when I started wondering again; why had nobody registered those names? Were the names that had been re-registered more valuable? Now that I was registering a name, would that make it more desirable by others simply because it was a registered name?
We tend to want what others have, and that in itself might give something value that otherwise would not be there. The mere idea that a domain is registered and that somebody else finds value in it, assuming it is a reasonably useful name, is enough to make some people desire it and find value in it too.
