Mr Burton said it would provide an invaluable portal for those interested in New Zealand tourism, commerce or industry."On the evidence and given the function it will perform, it was a sound investment."
Mr Burton said the South African Government had offered US$10 million for SouthAfrica.com and Korea.com was sold for US$5 million.
Source [nzherald.co.nz]
Shak
I think I'll put in a tender to develop and optimise the site. I'll baffle them with a few 3-syllable words and throw in the odd acronym or two. I figure something in the six figure range should do nicely :)
**rubbing hands together gleefully and sporting a maniacal grin**
2odd...
we could double team 'em with double speak, then double the estimate and duration every couple of months... and then double that again on the invoicing...
not to mention the add on fee for the stunning logo from Sox & Jay Design (was it half a mill for Te Papa?... reckon we could double that pretty easily don't you?)
But why stop there? We could tie it in to the Treaty somehow (always good for a few bucks), contract the actual work out to John Davy - I hear he's looking for a job and is very, very qualified in this department - (sorry folks, that was a private Kiwi/Canadian/Afghanistani joke), and we can just lie back on some palm-frilled beach, while a number of struggling SEO's-come-webmasters (doing part time waitering work to make ends meet) tend to our every whim?
**the wind changed direction and now the maniacal grin is a permanent fixture**
2odd...
Even if the 2nd internet boom is coming, domain name squatters still need to get a reality check because they are living in a 1998 reality.
Yeah, I am talking to the squatters. You are the blacksmiths of the 19th Century. Nobody is buying what you are selling.
Domain squatting is dead.
Here's an idea new to you.
Buy a good domain. Develop it as a general info site. Build up Page Rank, links, Search Engine Ranking, search engine listing, multiple translations, 100s of pages, - and then lease it out like a piece of commercial real estate property as half info/half commercial.
That is the new way to make money on the internet. Or, actually, the Zapatista way of making money. = Leasing domains/websites out like pieces of commercial real estate.
I am not an SEO who gets paid once by a client for building a website and I do not work an affiliate program based on commission. I get paid a set rate every month by leasing my sites out monthly because they are the internet equivalent of a piece of commercial real estate and have proven themselves worthy of a monthly rental fee.
That is the Smart way, the Zapatista Way, of making money in today's internet market place. And I only work 10-15 hours a month for a nice little sum of money.
Leasing sites is In, Domain Squatting is out.
That's Just MY Opinion.
Have a Nice Day!
Zapatista
Domain Squatting is out.
Hang on - it isn't really squatting. Domain squatting is when you that a copyrighted or trademarked name and buy the domain, with no intention of developing it.
I look at addresses like newzealand.com and popularwidgetof yourchoice.com as investments - much like property - if you were there early enough you can buy the land at a great price and then sell at a profit when other people cotton on. There isn't anything wrong with this - it's just sound business sense.
Sounds like typical business to me.
I feel your passion (!), and I totally agree with you - but I agree with you in moral terms only. Likening this to the real world, with real land, what does it matter what the previous owner did with the land if you want to build a multi-storey carpark on it?. If you saw a nice piece of prime real-estate on the beach front in a tourist area, wouldn't you want to snap it up? Especially in the hopes of selling it later on? Whether you put a garage on it, or left it blank wouldn't make one iota of a difference to the market. In this instance (the newzealand.com domain name) the name itself was owned by a company (Virtual Countries Inc) that did indeed provide content and information relating to the country concerned - however thinly disguised. I personally have no doubt that they were biding their time to cash in, but in the interim they apparently gave substance to the name. I never saw the site so I may be wrong there, but that's what I'm led to believe.
As far as I know, the NZ govt went to war over the .biz domain name and won. They tried the same with the .com name and lost. I'm led to believe the outcomes were due to existing content.
In the end, they paid a mutually agreed price for a piece of virtual real estate. They (the Govt) deemed it worth it, the seller did so too. That's market forces for you.
As for leasing? At some point in time the power shifts to the 'lesser' - and with a brand like this (NZ), that would be a very, very strong bargaining chip for the owner of the domain.
From your point of view as a lesser, you're on to a good thing, and good on you. This whole forum is driven by people at the leading edge of this new frontier. Good luck to you. As a Kiwi who regularly sees the incompetence of a bunch of career politicians screw this country down, I'm just aghast that it's taken this long into the internet revolution for those morons to see the value, and the necessity, of newzealand.com.
Time for bed :)
2odd...
