The LLLL.com sales and discussion thread

[italiandragon]

Hello, I think it would be pretty useful to keep track of all LLLL.com sales , even the little ones under $100 so that , pretty soon , when the available LLLL.com will be finished , we`ll have a better idea on market prices.

It is important that these sales are confirmed. So before to post, make sure payment went OK.

I will start with todays` Sedo confirmed sales:

FISE.com 2,700 Euros
TSRT.com US $760
VEUP.com US $1,700


Also, I found interesting to see this average LLLL, getting bids up to $51 and reserve not me. It says it all.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...110154111735_W0QQ_trksidZm37QQfromZR40QQfviZ1

 

[vlad74]

Is LLLL.com still available to register ?

As of today - none available to hand reg.

 

[accent]

Is LLLL.com still available to register ?

The longer answer is that all LLLL.coms were taken nearly two years ago. The world economic downturn has caused the value of the lower quality names (those with two or more J,K,Q,U,V,W,X,Y,Z primarily) to fall to around registration fee. So most days a small number are abandoned by their owners and can be registered. Usually they are scooped up in a few minutes. Larger groups can last longer and some of us are hoping to increase our holdings as this happens.

The value of lower quality LLLLs has been low for months, those who enjoy telling others that their investments are worthless have seized the situation as proof that they are right, others are quietly accumulating what they believe will be very valuable domains in a few years.

It appears there are no areas of domaining where there are not ranks of nay-sayers chorusing "Fools Fools Fools" - except traffic/revenue domains and expensive keywords. Both those areas require many years of experience to value them, expensive errors abound. They also are rarely available at a discount and are, in most cases, not likely to increase in value much faster than stocks and bonds. So an investor must choose a conservative investment with a lower yield or a speculative one with much greater prospects - and greater risk.

 

[krx]

For those that like typos, ivcq.com ends in 50 minutes. Currently at $10 @ TDNX.

 

[-REECE-]

I really don't understand it to be honest. I couldn't care less about the low ones to be honest and wish those investing in them all the best. I haven't owned any myself forabout 18 months now but the constant discussion about them has led me to invest my time elsewhere where it will be more productive.

There are no doubt plenty of people who make poor investment decisions with any domain segment. The people paying 10 and 20 times revenue for weak domains whose value was largely derived solely from traffic monetization look pretty stupid now. The people who were paying top dollar for typos a couple years back look pretty stupid now. The people buying HD DVD domains look pretty stupid now...

I'm sure we've all made a few dumb mistakes domaining -- important thing is to learn from them. There are good "bad" LLLL.coms and there are bad "bad" LLLL.coms. Just because the LLLL.com isn't premium doesn't mean much without looking into enduser possibilities, whether the term has meaning to someone, somewhere, etc. I had one "bad" LLLL.com a couple years back that made me $25 over at Parked over the course of a year. Lumping them all into the same category is silly.

I do think it's a bad idea to mindlessly invest in LLLL.coms but to be honest, I can't see how it's not a bad idea to do that with anything.

The value of lower quality LLLLs has been low for months, those who enjoy telling others that their investments are worthless have seized the situation as proof that they are right, others are quietly accumulating what they believe will be very valuable domains in a few years.

It appears there are no areas of domaining where there are not ranks of nay-sayers chorusing "Fools Fools Fools" - except traffic/revenue domains and expensive keywords. Both those areas require many years of experience to value them, expensive errors abound. They also are rarely available at a discount and are, in most cases, not likely to increase in value much faster than stocks and bonds. So an investor must choose a conservative investment with a lower yield or a speculative one with much greater prospects - and greater risk.

 

[fastadam]

Well said, Reece.

I think most domainers would agree that the perceived value in the llll.com market hinges directly upon end-user sales. This is where domainers get their hopes up to begin with. I question whether the assumption of perceived demand in the marketplace was as broadly dispersed as suggested by the buyout in the first place.

I would guess that the vast majority of high value llll.com end-user sales (over 90%, probably) fall into categories that have been defined, by such luminaries as yourself, as having "more value" for reason of letter quality, pronounceability, memorability, etc... (Really, I used to read your blog regularly, and even checked it every few days last month. Miss your insight, and your verbage.) What I would argue, is that the scattershot sales that remain can be explained in terms of their relationship to the buyer, or end-user, not because of their llll.com structure.

In other words, rather than lament the state of the game, with the buyout vulnerable, we domainers should focus on the goal --- end-user sales. To this end, we should be working to promote the value in our domains, and to reinforce the line between what is to be considered "premium" and the rest. If we keep our assets qualified on the basis of the 456,976 possibilities, and a floor determined by the worst of these, what chance have we to see the market recognize the value of an end-user sale as normative?

End-user sales are a different animal. A reseller pricing structure has premium/anti-premium letter valuation differences, a preference for rarities, and a real taste for the bottom. Everybody is trying to get a deal with reseller sales, undervaluing the merchandise in order to save a buck or two... exactly the opposite of what a proper negotiation should look like, where the value is built in layers through exposition, and builds to a point where the buyer feels like they have hold of something "valuable" and the seller feels like they were given a "good" return on their investment.

I don't think we should forget to examine each name individually for exact matches to end-user demand, this is certainly the most critical step of the process, but that we should begin to consider our assets as swimming in a smaller, more "elite" pool. I'm not a fan of elitism, in general, but there is a real, discernible difference of a couple hundred thousand llll.coms that is causing the floor to be much lower than it should for the majority of domains that we domainers approach end-users with. We would have an easier case to make if we could point to a floor that was closer.

 

[mwzd]

We would have an easier case to make if we could point to a floor that was closer.

Artificial glass ceilings are counter productive, afaik.

Plus do that and snoop's gonna have a field day :D

Very well written post btw, well worth the read.

 

[snoop]

The longer answer is that all LLLL.coms were taken nearly two years ago. The world economic downturn has caused the value of the lower quality names (those with two or more J,K,Q,U,V,W,X,Y,Z primarily) to fall to around registration fee. So most days a small number are abandoned by their owners and can be registered. Usually they are scooped up in a few minutes. Larger groups can last longer and some of us are hoping to increase our holdings as this happens.

In my view the recession is not the main cause of falling LLLL.com prices, the main issue is the bubble that formed in early 2008 (by which time we were already in recession and the rest of the domain market had fallen heavily), the collapse of financial markets later on in 2008/early 2009 exacerbated the falls but the main issue is still that they made no sense at the high prices they were trading at. They went up nearly ten fold at a time when the rest of the market was falling fast. You can see today the LLLL.com market is still falling, yet other areas have been on this rise for some time. eg low quality LLL.com's bottom many months ago and are now up 20%, stock markets bottom 6 months ago and are up 50%+. It was a bubble situation, that is why low end prices have fallen 100%.

It appears there are no areas of domaining where there are not ranks of nay-sayers chorusing "Fools Fools Fools" - except traffic/revenue domains and expensive keywords. Both those areas require many years of experience to value them, expensive errors abound. They also are rarely available at a discount and are, in most cases, not likely to increase in value much faster than stocks and bonds. So an investor must choose a conservative investment with a lower yield or a speculative one with much greater prospects - and greater risk.

The areas that have really done badly (eg common to see 80%-100% losses) is LLLL.com, .mobi, .tv, in my view the "fools fools fools" comment is an unforunate but accurate one. People got caught up in names that have little/no fundamentals behind them, they got suckered in to bad investments by listening to others who were making the same mistakes and were selling a dream of quick returns ($7000/26?). Ultimately people need to 'man up' and admit where they went wrong instead of getting angry with naysayers. I think for some that point might still be a long way off.

 

[accent]

LLLL.com have excellent fundamentals behind them: The rapid, continuing, compounding growth of the internet, the coming (near certain) explosion of the mobile web, the clear advantage of short domain names - even more so for mobile with their tiny keyboards, the firm limit on the supply of LLLL.coms.

Mobi is in a more gray state, at the moment. I am still buying, although very carefully. The extension is making progress, but many are disappointed with the pace. While I would like to see more, particularly from the corporate backers, my opinion is that .Mobi is likely to do OK. (LLLL.coms are the best Mobile web investment outside of .Mobi, IMHO) I never have seen a way to make money with TV, so I have ignored it.

Once the economy recovers we could easily see a doubling of the number of active websites in three years. That was the rate before the recession. Will the number of buyers for LLLL.com also double? I would say it could, or more. There was some irrationality after the buyout, new investors felt they had missed the boat and tried to swim for it (and got wet), but it also shows how broad the appeal of LLLL.coms is and how easily the values can rise.

1/26th of the LLL.com value? Yep I still expect it. I never said how long, but that is the natural ratio once most of the speculation is worked out, although I agree that renewal costs will eat into that for a while.

Those who go outside established patterns are always called fools. Some are, others become wealthy. The true sad ones are those who never try.

 

[snoop]

LLLL.com have excellent fundamentals behind them: The rapid, continuing, compounding growth of the internet, the coming (near certain) explosion of the mobile web, the clear advantage of short domain names - even more so for mobile with their tiny keyboards, the firm limit on the supply of LLLL.coms.

Mobi is in a more gray state, at the moment. I am still buying, although very carefully. The extension is making progress, but many are disappointed with the pace. While I would like to see more, particularly from the corporate backers, my opinion is that .Mobi is likely to do OK. (LLLL.coms are the best Mobile web investment outside of .Mobi, IMHO) I never have seen a way to make money with TV, so I have ignored it.

Once the economy recovers we could easily see a doubling of the number of active websites in three years. That was the rate before the recession. Will the number of buyers for LLLL.com also double? I would say it could, or more. There was some irrationality after the buyout, new investors felt they had missed the boat and tried to swim for it (and got wet), but it also shows how broad the appeal of LLLL.coms is and how easily the values can rise.

1/26th of the LLL.com value? Yep I still expect it. I never said how long, but that is the natural ratio once most of the speculation is worked out, although I agree that renewal costs will eat into that for a while.

Those who go outside established patterns are always called fools. Some are, others become wealthy. The true sad ones are those who never try.

The question I would ask is at what point does one admit they may have got it wrong rather the hoping yesterday's dreams will one day come true? It is a serious question, when to cut losses.

If in 1/5/10 years low quality are still trading at less than the reg fees already paid would you be changing your viewpoint? Ditto for for the .mobi and .tv markets. Some things come back but alot don't.

---------- Post added at 08:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:58 PM ----------

Those who go outside established patterns are always called fools. Some are, others become wealthy. The true sad ones are those who never try.

I don't think the people buying these names were doing anything particularly novel and ther vast majority have clearly not become wealthy. Most have lost everything they put in, the exception being those who sold out early.

 

[Soofi]

now the question to Reece is, who bought LLLL,com ? :lol:

 

[-REECE-]

Plenty of money to be made in bubbles just like anything else.. Sure, some domainers lost out 10-fold, paying above top dollar at peak in anticipation of higher prices to come... Looking at it the other way, naysayers lost out on a 1000% ROI opportunity to buy and flip these names

Same goes for .mobi -- returns on the LLL.mobi over the first few months after the extension came out made those who dropped a few thousand on them quite handsome returns. I know JohnTV made out quite well with... .tv. The mistake for many wasn't investing in them in the first place, it was not realizing when it was time to sell.

In my view the recession is not the main cause of falling LLLL.com prices, the main issue is the bubble that formed in early 2008 (by which time we were already in recession and the rest of the domain market had fallen heavily), the collapse of financial markets later on in 2008/early 2009 exacerbated the falls but the main issue is still that they made no sense at the high prices they were trading at. They went up nearly ten fold at a time when the rest of the market was falling fast. You can see today the LLLL.com market is still falling, yet other areas have been on this rise for some time. eg low quality LLL.com's bottom many months ago and are now up 20%, stock markets bottom 6 months ago and are up 50%+. It was a bubble situation, that is why low end prices have fallen 100%.



The areas that have really done badly (eg common to see 80%-100% losses) is LLLL.com, .mobi, .tv, in my view the "fools fools fools" comment is an unforunate but accurate one. People got caught up in names that have little/no fundamentals behind them, they got suckered in to bad investments by listening to others who were making the same mistakes and were selling a dream of quick returns ($7000/26?). Ultimately people need to 'man up' and admit where they went wrong instead of getting angry with naysayers. I think for some that point might still be a long way off.

now the question to Reece is, who bought LLLL,com ? :lol:

Let's just say he sees value in LLLL.coms

 

[Soofi]

Let's just say he sees value in LLLL.coms

Who is info still shows you as the registrant tho :P

 

[bmugford]

I am guessing Snoop bought it.

Brad

Let's just say he sees value in LLLL.coms

 

[Soofi]

I am guessing Snoop bought it.

Brad

:lol: :sold:

 

[accent]

The question I would ask is at what point does one admit they may have got it wrong rather the hoping yesterday's dreams will one day come true? It is a serious question, when to cut losses.

If in 1/5/10 years low quality are still trading at less than the reg fees already paid would you be changing your viewpoint? Ditto for for the .mobi and .tv markets. Some things come back but alot don't.

It is a serious question. Actually I own no really low quality LLLL.coms and only a handful or so double premiums without other redeeming points, so there isn't much of a question for me to answer on the lowest level of LLLL.coms.

Domains have a cost of maintaining one's position - renewals. But previous payments are past history (sunk costs) and, beyond accounting, should have no effect on decisions. The question always is: "is this renewal the best move I have for this money?" If it is not, then it is time to abandon the investment. I have dumped a lot of domains this year, replacing them with better ones. I could just as well replaced them with different investments (if I knew any good ones). It is an on-going process of improvement.

Mobi is perhaps a bit easier to quantify - if (when, in a lot of expert's opinion) the mobile web becomes as large as the PC web, .Mobi does not have a significant place in it then it likely never will. --- But the argument could be made that with the long list of globally known companies that already have Mobi sites that that line has already been crossed.

I don't think the people buying these names were doing anything particularly novel and ther vast majority have clearly not become wealthy. Most have lost everything they put in, the exception being those who sold out early.

Very few people bought only at the top, most LLLL.com holders accumulated their stash over a long period - years. I was registering triples with JKUVW well into 2007. Most investments take time to bloom. I suspect many of the later buyers are still holding on -- and who is to say they won't eventually sell at a profit? The economy is improving and domains may become sought-after investments.

The only thing we can change is now-- at current prices are LLLL.coms good investments for you? If so which ones are the best? There are no set answers because each person has different needs.

I am guessing Snoop bought it. (the actual domain LLLL.com)
Brad

LOL ... Could be, it certainly is not low end.

 

[WORDSWORTH]

A few LLLL.com domains just dropped and are available to register. Please click the top link in my signature to view the list for free.

 

[Kate]

Plenty of money to be made in bubbles just like anything else.. Sure, some domainers lost out 10-fold, paying above top dollar at peak in anticipation of higher prices to come... Looking at it the other way, naysayers lost out on a 1000% ROI opportunity to buy and flip these names

True, on the other hand the writing was on the wall: there was a bubble and it would burst. The critical question is when and who will be left holding the bag. In some way flipping like this is too easy - where is the fun
Those who jumped too late on the bandwagon and paid $200+ for crappy combos are the losers. Maybe they will be able to recoup their investment in a few years, but it's very possible the renewal fees will crush them. When you have a dozen or two it's perfectly manageable. When you have hundreds of dogs then cash flow takes a hit. It is essential to have a balanced and diversified portfolio. That is a reality you cannot escape from, at least if you treat domaining like a business and not a hobby.
I even got rid off a few low end LLL.us lately (not the worst of the worst), as they produce no revenue and they wouldn't sell for $35 on the forum.

 

[lll]

A few LLLL.com domains just dropped and are available to register. Please click the top link in my signature to view the list for free.

of course happen while im sleeping smh!! thanks tho!

 

[Tim Schoon]

A few LLLL.com domains just dropped and are available to register. Please click the top link in my signature to view the list for free.

they were all taken pretty fast

 

[WORDSWORTH]

they were all taken pretty fast

I have marked them taken by the time of your post. I was away from the computer.

A deep scan from a much larger data sample completed at 23:45 BST. Three domains from the 300 that originally dropped on 18th September are now available! The buyer deleted them during the grace period for a refund. Please click the top link in my signature to see them.