TechCrunch.com published a post today on the domain name MobileApps.com which the owner is selling for a cool million plus.
According to the story the owner already has a possible buy which is ” a big company (and I mean big)”.
The Seller went on to say ““One broker is speaking to [redacted] and they have expressed interest despite us telling them it is a 7-figure offer that we are looking for”
Now sfgate.com has picked up on the story as well.
So let me be the 1st to say as a domain name MobileApps.com is not a $1 million dollar domain.
I don’t get it.
I don’t get the value, I don’t get the use of the domain especially since its most logical was a “app aggregating marketplaces” which seems to have failed even after $400K investment.
Apps were basically developed for the smart phone mobile market. Apple has Apps for laptops and desktops as well but at the end of the day over 95% of all downloaded apps are used for mobile devices so when I hear mobile apps I want to say what other kind are there?
For $1 Million dollars there are tons of better domains not sure why TechCrunch.com picked this one to write about.
It’s probably not a pure domain buy, but will likely include the business plan, client lists, and any other proprietary stuff that the business had.
Still, $1 million? Very nice sale.
Agreed.
Names with the “apps” suffix can be valuable, but that figure is unrealistic.
Knock off a zero from that figure and they’ll likely sell it, IMO.
Just noticed on the web page that it reads –
“We are selling our most prized asset: the MobileApps.com domain name.
(and also MobileAds.com)”
I think MobileAds.com is actually the better name here.
MB, let the market decide.
I am sure a lot of people said the same when you sold the name Meet.me for $450k last year.
Alan
I hope the guy gets $5 Million for the domain
I’m actually questioning the coverage this domain name is getting on TechCrunch.com and other publications
MobileApps.com has closed shop =(
We are selling our most prized asset: the MobileApps.com domain name.
(and also MobileAds.com)
**********
how fast will they lose their PR (rank) with that sign?
Redundant if you ask me.
Most people search for “apps” , period.
It seems to be more of an Asian concern domain (see G trends) very few “exact searches” coming from the USA for the price.
in addition here it comes .app
Interesting. It’s a great sale, if it goes through, but I thought only Chrysler could actually sell a losing company. Anyway, there are plenty of dumb names to go around. MobileApps.com does sound nice. It’s short. It’s definitely relevant, and it’s very easy to remember. But as Mike pointed out, what other kind are there? It’s like selling “OnlineDomains.com” or “InternetWebsites.com”. Redundancy ruins the short tail.
I have a few mobile domains, but they’re longer term speculative names and they’re also longer tail and more tech oriented. We’ll see if the gamble pays off.
Let’s see if he really can sell this dead weight. As 5D said, it probably includes quite a bit more than just the domain.
soon it won’t include their rank…
One of the few things it gives this doamin “intrinsical value”.
Go figure.
It is worth a million to a buyer who uses it properly, but it will be sold for a fraction of that, hopefully to me.
Better than owning the entire .Ninja spectrum
The Techcrunch article sounds a little like a press release
in disguise… Having said that, good luck to the owner, I
hope he gets his wish!
🙂
Mike
Whole different business model and it only cost $185k.
I Will tell you rightly or wrongly the guys at Demand are very excited about that one.
I think there is psychological double-standard for sure. When you have a failed startup with a perfect domain – like toys.com or startups.com – their competitors and journalists always get it that the domain is obviously very valuable and someone should buy it for a lot of money. But when you have equally good domains by themselves, the same companies and journalists do not take them seriously.
Mike, you’re right to question the coverage. I’m surprised TechCrunch took the bait on this one.
The article actually has some interesting info about the apps market. But leading with “this domain is for sale” is silly.
Then again, TechCrunch isn’t the same site it was a couple years ago.
true, AndroidApps or iosApps may have this value
Andriod apps would be a TM violation
Great domain name, but traffic seems very low. Not worth 1M even if the previous project (shop clients, database, .etc) is included.
If MobileApps.com gets $1 million, what value would you put on CellphoneApps.com ?
“a TM violation”
not if acquired, owned and used by Google
MobileApps sounds almost redundant, since the future *is* apps on mobile devices. But in any event, given that the iOS market has well over 500,000 apps so far, and it’s only been a few years, the market should increase exponentially as more and more companies from around the world join the fray. The market is huge already, and Apple, at $99 per year, makes it cheap and easy for new developers to join.
Apps.com forwards to Intuit’s website. The price wasn’t disclosed on that sale, (which included Apps.com’s business as well, established in 1999), but it had to be a mucho-multi-million dollar deal. A million for MobileApps.com doesn’t sound unreasonable if the right company came along to pick it up.
Hi
HologramApps.com sells much cheaper! 🙂
App in front is always a better choice …
Lots of companies out there using it that way.
In this case someone is using AppMobile.com
mobileapps.com is as redundant as onlinewallet.com – both domains are worthless
@humble domainer
Everything starts off as being worthless… with potential. It just depends on what a buyer would do with the name. Many companies worth billions today, could easily be worth much, much less, (or be totally bankrupt) if they didn’t have the right vision for their companies. It’s been a very long journey for Apple, but now they’re the most valuable company in the world.
In any event, the name isn’t what really matters. It’s the value of the product or service that the name is connected to that will determine how people see it.
I don’t get it either. Then again, I don’t get most of the .com valuations. There is no proven system to determine valuations, unlike real estate or stocks. There are few metrics. It’s mostly “pie in the sky” sales to other domainers and some end users with more money than sense (large corps for example). Now with the new gTLDs rolling out, who knows how .coms wills be valued going forward? I heard a domainer once describe the business as the “wild, wild west”. Nothing has changed.
The only person who can put a value on a domain is the buyer. But that value is meaningless to anyone else, which is why we occasionally see a domain that sold for $300,000 or so a year ago, sell for half that price today.
Buying a piece of art is somewhat similar, since there is no way of assessing a value of a work, other than going by past sales. And even then, sale prices can be wildly different, and wax and wane as the popularity of an artist’s work changes.
Owner of MobileApp.com must be more eager to see how much MobileApps.com sells for.
I reckon for a company like TechCrunch whose revenue is more than USD $10 Million, paying $1 Million for a domain like this is not a big deal. Also, if you look at no. of people searching for just the word ‘mobile apps’ is more than 1 Million a month. So, I think it’s worth an investment. Would love to hear techcrunch’s point of view on this…
Going forward with smartphones, tablets, and cloud based software; “mobile” apps would be able to refer to native mobile phone apps, HTML 5 mobile web apps, tablet focused mobile apps, and mobile cloud based apps.
4 very nice growing categories
Granted, apps dot com is the killer category name.
But Intuit is not really using it for its potential as its own destination etc…
s/
anyhow, I think that TV Apps related domains will worth much more than Mobile Apps domains since the smart TV market is potentially bigger
please delete the previous post in italian, thanks