Certainly nothing has been in the domain news, even the general news much more in the past few days than the tenative approval of the .XXX extension by ICANN.
Beyond the ICM registry who owns the .XXX TLD, the biggest other beneficiary very well maybe the owner of XXX.com.
Now you will have the chance to be that guy, the owner of XXX.com because that domain is hitting the auction block at Domainfest New York on August 18th.
The reserve price is stated to be in excess of $5 Million Dollars.
No doubt that the value of the domain XXX.com grew once .XXX registry got its tentative approval.
The ICM registry has approximately $10 Million invested in the .XXX registry to date and promises to heavily promote the .XXX extension once final approval is given by ICANN which should occur sometime this year.
You would think this domains traffic, which is already considerable will grow substantially once the .XXX registry rolls out.
On the negative side, the ICM registry has spent approximately $10 Million in getting the entire .XXX registry to date and we don’t know what the actual number is.
Also owning XXX.com does not give you any rights to getting XXX.XXX and no one knows how much traffic will be diverted in the future from adult .com sites to .XXX sites.
It’s certainly the most timely domain in the 200 Million +, universe of domain registrations and it will be VERY interesting to if the domain sells, if it does, how much it will sell for and again if it sells who the buyer will be.
We will keep our eye on this one.
todaro says
June 30, 2010 at 10:05 pmbut pussy will always be valuable… right?
i wouldn’t pay 5 million for xxx.com. but i don’t have 5 million anyway. i like to underpay for good domains plus
the tube sites have taken the profit out of porn.
but i might buy a couple of .xxx’s if they come in at a good price.
Yaron says
July 1, 2010 at 1:12 ambad timing imho. if the owner waited until now, why not wait another few months?
BullS says
July 1, 2010 at 1:24 amhype hype hype–all talk
remember mobi,tel,asia,eu,job and soon dot bullshit
Go spend your damn money…
Aggro says
July 1, 2010 at 3:15 am@ Yaron
You don’t get it.
“Sell the rumor”
$5 M for xxx.com (main value being for confusion traffic) is fully priced even if .xxx becomes extremely successful – which I seriously doubt it ever will.
Do some people have any idea know how much annual return they can earn from $5 M cash in relatively low risk investments (non domain)?!?
Aggro says
July 1, 2010 at 3:29 amCorrection: “Sell the hype” instead of “Sell the rumor”
fx says
July 1, 2010 at 3:43 amside bet, 100:1 it’s not gonna sell
Rick Schwartz says
July 1, 2010 at 7:27 amxxx.com is a great domain name but $5M is absurd. I don’t think the traffic will support a figure anywhere in that ballpark.
As for xxx.xxx whatever 53 visitors a day is worth.
R.M. says
July 1, 2010 at 9:40 amRick,
I highly respect your opinion.
And, you have been right most of the time when I thought you were wrong.
However, if you owned this domain, I would think you would also ask
$ 5 mil. for it.
I believe the only thing holding back a possible sale is the global economy.
What could make it happen if Sex,com sold for $ 10 mil. or more.
rick says
July 1, 2010 at 10:16 amThey are making a mistake and trying to auction it off at domainfest. Sedo has far more players and I doubt domainfest attracts more than a handful of investors. Whatever it goes for, it will be under market value.
Another words, if it does sell for 5.. its really worth 7-8.. etc.
Rick Schwartz says
July 1, 2010 at 10:29 amI guess we will all see. I have been wrong before. But I think it is an uphill climb in this environment at that number. What happens when you have a $5 million reserve, is you get a bunch of showboaters that want to bid $3M or $4M but would not dare go over the reserve and at the end of the day you still don’t even walk away with a market value. I guess it depends if you are looking for a sale or a headline. 😉
The only serious way to sell xxx.com or buy it is with published visitor stats and earnings from last night, last week, last month, last year. But a minimum is a snapshot of the past 30 days.
Without making this info public, there is only one possible suitor imho and buying that domain would defeat his entire pitch on .xxx. How’s that for a catch 22 scenario and a possible peak behind the scenes?? Just 100% guesswork on my part. Oh well, smebody already got ballsqueezer.com. 🙂
I don’t think the Sex.com sale will make a difference in what xxx.com bids for. Two different animals.
Stuart Lawley says
July 1, 2010 at 10:52 amICM Registry will NOT be bidding on XXX.com
Chirag says
July 1, 2010 at 12:58 pmThey are making a mistake and trying to auction it off at domainfest. Sedo has far more players and I doubt domainfest attracts more than a handful of investors.
FX says
July 1, 2010 at 7:16 pmsex.com has value, xxx.com doesn’t.
porn is free in case you guys haven’t noticed.
Larry paid around $600k for xxx.com 4 years ago at its peak and now wants $5m when the market is dead. I’d rather buy the Brooklyn bridge.
However i do agree with Mike that its the most timely domain sale ever.
BreakingNewsBlog.us says
July 1, 2010 at 8:21 pm.
and xxx.xxx ???
.
owen@frager.us says
July 1, 2010 at 10:57 pmUse your imagination guys. Generic words with .com aren’t pigeon holed into sex so they will always demand. A bigger value is as a brand backed by an advertising campaign. Sex could be a line of underwear, a perfume, a name for a band, a book, a movie or the next American Idol. It’s ideal for the Sex in The City movie franchise and all the Sex in The City parties exploding as a trend for bridal shower themes.
Breasts could be a site about cancer awareness or plastic surgery. What better call to action for such a campaign? Note that a drug company may spend hundreds of millions of dollars on media using cryptic names now you could sell them instant improvement in response and ROI.
Look at Armani Men who will drop a couple of million on a 3 minute runway show and pays the highest rent per square foot to have prime positions in department stores and showrooms in all the major cities and malls. When the big billboards in Times Square and signage in store use Men.com – how more memorable and category defining can that be?
Plus all of these brands are doing social media and looking to establish communities with their own branding. They have budgets but have no idea how to apply it.
Bottom line, the old rules and the old formulas don’t apply. Problem is that all these venues and sales channels being tapped are reaching the wrong audience. It’s an audience that doesn’t need to spend money to make money. They need to sell their own assets. What’s needed is a different approach. Fresh meat. But that’s an old story.
owen frager says
July 2, 2010 at 11:46 amxxx.com- easy make it a MySpace for every escort, cam site, producer whatever
$10 a year to a vanity listing on XXX .com with your own page and email versus $60 or more for .XXX reg fee only
serve ads at log in and on emails
The market is actually the small guys who are killing the market
Being on XXX.com is the ultimate clout they are missing now being spread all over the web
Get discovered by more new customers etc
Size of the market: “Craigslist does ban illegal activity in their terms of use. After contacting them they say they do everything they can to prevent anything illegal on their website but it’s impossible to review each of the more than 30 million free postings submitted each month.”
http://www.newsplex.com/home/headlines/15857092.html
owen frager says
July 2, 2010 at 11:50 amPs, size of market:
“Veronica paid LA Exotics $100 to list her for a month. She says she got more than 250 phone calls off that, which produced three new men who’ve hired her at least once, and who, she predicts, will be added to her stable of regulars.”
http://www.slate.com/id/73797
“Just as Amazon.com has gotten people buying hardcover books who previously stuck to paperbacks or didn’t buy books at all, the Internet is expanding the high end of the prostitution market, both relative to streetwalking and in absolute terms.”
“In the business world, this is called “disintermediation” or, colloquially, “cutting out the middleman.” Somewhere between Alex and his girls, the traditional roles of the pimp and madam have disappeared.”
This is where XXX.com can come in to play
FX says
July 3, 2010 at 6:05 pmif one wanted an advice from owen fager, they’d ask…
isis says
July 6, 2010 at 9:51 amStewart Lawley has NO support from the adult community. Those who have pre-registered did so defensively–in order to protect their property. This guy is a self-proclaimed industry outsider who wants nothing but to rape and pillage an industry that he sees as easy prey.
Stuart Lawley says
July 6, 2010 at 10:13 amIsis,
Do grow up
Over 8,000 adult webmaster pre registered so far form over 83 different countries.
They get a choice to pre reserve names they already own in other TLD’s plus the chance to request other names they don’t already own.
Over 50% of the names pre reserved are such “wish list” names and 48% of all registrants have entered names into both baskets.
By definition ” defensive” registrations they are NOT.