Greetings!

It’s Saturday again!!!

Mint.com sold for $170 Million
The big news this week is the sale of Mint.com for $170 million. No, it was NOT the sale of a domain name. Neither was it the sale of a website. It was the sale of a business. Well, in this case, an ebusiness, as it operated solely online (I think).

I was jut really disappointed, to say the least to see a lot of domainers, including prominent bloggers trying to have the domain industry claim this Mint.com sale. This was not a domain sale. It was the sale of an ebusiness.

I even saw people trying to compare the sale to a typical domain sale, by mentioning that the sales price represents 17x the annual revenues of Mint.com ($10 million annual revenue).

Domains are normally priced based on parking revenues where the value is set at a X times monthly/yearly parking revenues.

But quite frankly, that is not how you sell a real business. Far from it.

It was only last week that I blogged about branding. If you do not understand the concept of branding, then you need to look no further than this Mint.com sale. Read the article at TechCrunch.com that is written by Aaron Patzer, the CEO and founder of Mint.com to learn how Mint.com was created and subsequently sold for $170 million in just TWO YEARS.

In my opinion the domain name Mint.com had nothing to do with the $170 million price tag. When I think of “mint”, 2 things come to mind: the place were money is manufactured (literally) and a type of sweet/candy (for example Polo Mint, the mint with the hole in it).

Mint only has 4 letters and passes the domain commercial test with flying colours. However the owner of the domain name would have been extremely lucky if he could sell the domain name by itself for $300,000 in today’s domain aftermarket. Just my opinion.

So how did they manage to get the $170 million price tag? BRANDING.

I have been preaching this gospel for too long now and I now hope people can finally appreciate why I’m so obsessed with branding.

Read the article and take a look at the Mint.com website. It has first class design, great user-experience and great connections to social networking media.

The site also has a very large user-base. I am sure the 36,000+ Facebook fans, 19,000+ Twitter followers and 1.5 million users (as per its Facebook page) played a great deal in the valuation process.

The website is obviously powered by robust technologies. However, in accountancy, you can only value Research and Development at cost (how much you actually spent for wages, experts etc.) and this cost is depreciated over time.

So, when you add up all of the Mint.com assets (at cost less any depreciation, plus any amortisation) I would assume that it would barely surpass $50 million. It is private company so I am just assuming. Don’t quote me. However in my opinion, even that figure is quite generous for the value of Mint.com’s assets at book value.

So that would mean that Intuit, the buyer could have possible spent an extra $120 million more than the book value to acquire Mint.com.

In accountancy, that $120 million is referred to as goodwill. In marketing, it is known as the value of the BRAND.

Now do you really see the true potential of branding?

Branding in this case is all about the potential. I would assume that the $10 million revenue per year played a very minute role in the negotiations. Why? The company is just 2 years old. So the owners could have easily said that they were busy building the brand, user-base and technologies, and weren’t too focused on the revenue side of things. Hence, the bulk of the negotiations would be centered on the potential of the BRAND.

I would give a more in-depth analysis, but I will keep the rest close to my chest. One thing is for sure; this is a brand that I will be studying as a true benchmark of what domain branding can achieve.

So while most domainers are throwing tantrums over declining PPC revenues and Google closing Adsense accounts without warning, they are in reality failing to see the mountains because they are too focused on the foothills. Hey, I am entitled to my opinion.

Big Announcements
I am hoping to make some major announcements next week. So stay tuned. Our newsletter subscribers will be the first to know. You can subscribe here.

Have a great weekend!!

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Firstly, I believe the term “brandable domain name” confuses a lot of people. In my mind any domain name that makes sense can be a brandable domain name, including the best of one-word generic domain names.

When I use the term brandable domain name, I refer to a premium domain name that meets the C.O.M.M.E.RC.I.A.L. test that I outlined in this premium domains article. These domains can be anything from Fly.com to Aeroplanes.com to Blue.com to GetARoom.com.

For some people, what they refer to as brandable domain names are domains that do not form a particular word, but are just simply pronounceable. Twitter.com, Bing.com, Yahoo.com, Lycos.com, Expedia.com, Travelocity.com and Opodo.com are all powerful brands using domains that does not necessarily contain real words found in the English dictionary, but are pronounceable, and in some cases, catchy.

I personally prefer to refer to these domains as Concept domains. It is really all about creating something new from something that didn’t exist before. It is a concept, an idea, a general notion or something like that.

So, in the past when I used the term brandable domain names, I was referring to domains that meet the C.O.M.ME.R.C.I.A.L. test. What people seem to call brandable domain names, are what I prefer to call concept domains.

Now, how much are concept domains worth?

We can easily tell how much a domain name such as Fly.com could be worth, even prior to its recent sale. This is because we knew the industry it belongs to and its worth to any major player in that industry.

But with a concept domain name, it is really tricky business. Personally, when I sell a concept domain, I price it based on the length, letters in the domain name, and the domain extension. If I personally have development plans for the domain name then it becomes of trade-off between what the domain means to me, and how much the buyer is willing to pay.

You see, a concept domain name could be the new name for a local car wash, as well as it could be the new name for a major search engine.

If you know who the buyer is, then of course who are in a better position to judge its worth to the buyer. You could then proceed to price the domain name for the maximum selling price.

Again, however, that is very tricky. You wouldn’t want to overcharge a big buyer/spender, as they could easily take their cash somewhere else, or even afford to splash out on a generic domain name. Also these big buyers often prefer to spend minimal amounts on domain acquisition, and then splash out on developing and marketing the new brand.

The reality is that concept domains will depend heavily on savvy, and most likely very costly marketing campaigns before they become household names. That is the case even if you going via the social networking route. You may not pay for the massive promotions, but you will have to pay for the costly upfront web development and ongoing hosting and website maintenance fees.

So, how much are concept domains worth? Quite simply, they are only worth just as much as the buyer is willing to pay for them.

Need an affordable premium domain for your eBusiness?
Choose from over 500,000 quality aftermarket domains at eBusinessDomains.com!
Simply enter your keyword and click search in the Domain Search Box.
Instant domain transfer with most domains!

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Our logo contest for Aeroplanes.com has ended over at 99Designs. We have painstakingly chosen 16 entries as finalists and will now undergo a consultation process with various experts to select a winner.

Click here to view our 16 finalists.

Aeroplanes.com is now on Twitter. You can follow Aeroplanes on Twitter for regular updates, as we build the brand.

http://twitter.com/aeroplanes_com

Need an affordable premium domain for your eBusiness?
Choose from over 500,000 quality aftermarket domains at eBusinessDomains.com!
Simply enter your keyword and click search in the Domain Search Box.
Instant domain transfer with most domains!

Domains | Domain Auctions | Premium Domains | Domain Newsletter | Domain Forum | Skull

I am not sure if there are any Twitter rules that were created to specifically eliminate the use of usernames that may infringe on registered trademarks.

With the growing popularity of Twitter, and the widespread knowledge and existence of domain squatting, it was only a matter of time before squatting wars reach Twitter.

I was in the process of some branding-related research when I stumbled upon a very interesting Twitter status of what seems to be the official Twitter page for Fly.com (@fly_com).

” @spam the @fly profile is a squatter”

At the time of writing, the Twitter account @Fly only had 2 tweets, which just barely says “Hello”. Looking a bit closer, I noticed that the first Tweet was made on 2nd March 2009, a month after the Fly.com domain name was sold for $1,760,000, on 3rd February. Perhaps the sale was reported around the beginning of March?

It should be interesting to see what happens next, if anything will happen in terms of the @fly Twitter account.

In my opinion, there is some form Twitter Squatting going on. I tried to secure the Twitter accounts for some domains that I intend to develop, only to find that the usernames are already taken. Most of them have no pictures, updates and/or even followers.

It is becoming obvious that not only has a company got to ensure that it secures the right domain name, but it has to ensure that it also secures the username for the domain/brand on major social networking sites.

The question is, how do Twitter squatters, if there are any, plan to benefit from this type of squatting?

Welcome to the new world of social networking media, and branding!

Need an affordable premium domain for your eBusiness?
Choose from over 500,000 quality aftermarket domains at eBusinessDomains.com!
Simply enter your keyword and click search in the Domain Search Box.
Instant domain transfer with most domains!

Domains | Domain Auctions | Premium Domains | Domain Newsletter | Domain Forum | Skull

We are now in day four of the logo contest for Aeroplanes.com, and already over 125 entries have been submitted.

The entries are getting better and better, and we now feel confident to guarantee the prize.

There are some concepts that we are really excited about, and it is getting extremely hard to select favourites. Each day, we see new concepts being submitted that change the game altogether.

Although this brand will be taken through many stages before we reach the end-result, we really can’t get started until we have the perfect logo to work with.

In the travel industry, there are lots of companies to choose from when making travel reservations. Branding is extremely important. We are extremely fortunate to have one of the most powerful domain names in this space. However, even the best of domains need the right logo in order to successfully create and build a brand identity.

Are you’re a logo artist? We would love for you to submit your designs. The winner will most likely receive a lot of exposure!

Only 3 more days left in the contest. Click here to submit your designs.

Need an affordable premium domain for your eBusiness?
Choose from over 500,000 quality aftermarket domains at eBusinessDomains.com!
Simply enter your keyword and click search in the Domain Search Box.
Instant domain transfer with most domains!

Domains | Domain Auctions | Premium Domains | Domain Newsletter | Domain Forum | Skull