Poker.org For a Million and New .INFO Releases
Poker.org was just purchased for $1 million by PokerCompany.com (source DNJournal). Sedo is reported to have brokered the deal. Pure poker, casino, and gambling domain names are high interest keywords, and generally have sold for substantial amounts in recent years. Poker.org is the highest ever “publicized” .org domain name sale.
Also of special interest is a post at DomainNameWire regarding Afilias. The entry reports that Afilias has requested approval from ICANN to release 1 and 2 character .info domain names from their reserved list. The Neustar Registry did something similar several months ago with the .BIZ web address resulting in a number of 5-figure sales for 1 character .biz domain names.
Lastly, consider this a public service announcement -> Avoid automated domain name appraisals. Like the ones you find advertised & sold on domain name registration websites. Sadly, I have noticed a new wave of people selling (pushing) automated domain appraisals, quoting them in domain forums, and referencing them in email inquiries.
Quality domain names in particular cannot be properly appraised using the simple metrics that automated appraisals employ. Those who sell automated domain appraisals are looking to cash in on the gullibility of new domain investors and buyers. An experienced domain professional will never make reference to automated domain appraisals as they are uniformly understood to be nothing more than a gimmick or toy.
There may come a day when automated appraisal algorithms are sophisticated enough to tap into real value and produce a defensible price range for premium domain names. At the current time, nothing comes close to doing this. All automated appraisals have enormous margins of error such that they consistently fail tests for validity and reliability.
