twitter.co.uk

[disruptive]

Looks like this has now been sold! Not sure for how much though.

 

[doodlebug]

Aww ! no more donation advertising deals

 

[disruptive]

It was being offered for £30k, whether this was reached I do not know. A heads up, but I don't know the details.

 

[rjs_essex]

Finally! Would be very interested to hear some more details on how this aquisition panned out...

Rich

 

[wb]

If it was only bought for £30k then I think Twitter got a bargain (still a lot of money of course, but the power really was in the previous owners hands).

 

[dp]

I was on there a week or so ago and I'm sure it was being offered for £12k

 

[wb]

Just did a quick search, not sure if this is the most recent version of the website but searching for Twitter.co.uk brings up this showing a £30k price tag.

 

[accelerator]

I note that the page:

http://www.azabat.co.uk/twitter/

is saying that they offered the name to Twitter and they turned them down, but the name is indeed now showing as registered to Twitter Inc.

Rgds

 

[doodlebug]

I note that the page:

http://www.azabat.co.uk/twitter/

is saying that they offered the name to Twitter and they turned them down, but the name is indeed now showing as registered to Twitter Inc.

Rgds

It was common sense to make the purchase mate, they should have done it sooner :neutral:

 

[bensd]

If it was only bought for £30k then I think Twitter got a bargain (still a lot of money of course, but the power really was in the previous owners hands).

You could say they got a bargain, but who else would have bought it?

 

[doodlebug]

You could say they got a bargain, but who else would have bought it?

I agree mate, more like held to ransom but then we would all have done the same under the circumstances ;-)

 

[edo]

I actually looked into the logistics of buying the name last summer, but there's just no getting around the fact that Twitter have a trademark for the word "twitter". Meaning the name is worthless to you or I.

 

[disruptive]

I actually looked into the logistics of buying the name last summer, but there's just no getting around the fact that Twitter have a trademark for the word "twitter". Meaning the name is worthless to you or I.

Why pay 30k and find that you lose it in a DRS claim.

 

[edo]

Because "twitter" is a dictionary generic word. Hence the original owner was allowed to keep it because he got there first before Twitter Inc successfully applied to trademark the term. Without the trademark I think you'd have been able to sell it to Twitter for a handsome sum.

 

[dougs]

lost

So why not just say I want £1 million ......£30K will make no difference to anyones life.

Assuming the drs was ok I would have taken that punt Pay £30K and just sit waiting for the £1 million

Doug

 

[Ashton]

So why not just say I want £1 million ......£30K will make no difference to anyones life.

Assuming the drs was ok I would have taken that punt Pay £30K and just sit waiting for the £1 million

Doug

You might Doug, as you might not have a requirement to sell.

However, they do not use the .co.uk as they are global, its just a nicety to own it and keep that typo traffic to themselves. Also they could use it for local emails in future.

Better to receive 30k than for them to ignore it.

 

[wb]

Yes, £30k will make a difference to many people... but I still think a better sale would have been made if the previous owner had priced it higher

Facebook.com started out with TheFacebook.com and bought their current domain for $200k if I remember correctly, which is a similar situation from a domain owners point of view.

Regarding the Gmail example I may be wrong as this is from memory, however I think they needed to buy Gmail.co.uk to secure rights to actually use that name in the UK from a legal aspect. They already had the .com which was used at first, but then changed to using 'GoogleMail' for a while before getting the UK domain and going back to 'Gmail'.

 

[foz]

To some people £30K isn't much. Probably the owner wasn't well off and caved, if that was the amount.

 

[bb99]

Do we know that it was definitely sold? If not then it could have been handed over for £nowt under threat of legal action or during DRS mediation...

 

[Ashton]

Facebook.com started out with TheFacebook.com and bought their current domain for $200k if I remember correctly, which is a similar situation from a domain owners point of view.

No offence, but that is a very stretched comparison. Perhaps hallmark.com buying the .co.uk for £29,375 is a little more relevant.

However since hallmark deal in an off-line product, then they have more need for the co.uk than twitter does (who are a global service)

Whilst the seller could have held out for more (probably) he got a price he was happy with - he wasn't in financial stress to sell it or he wouldn't have been using it for raising money for charity or stuck with that price for so long.

I would also doubt it being a DRS due to the generic nature of the domain and that he registered it before twitter existed (2005, twitter came into existence in 2006)