NNNNN.com full-buyout

Late last night the full buyout of NNNNN.com was completed. Credit must be given to those who played significant roles in this unprecedented and major accomplishment in numeric domaining history:

The grand prize goes to rkbdomain, who officially started the buyout 'campaign' and, through long days of hard work on his blog and domaining forums, carried just about everyone over the river of doubt to the other shores of NuDom-don. The second prize goes to another domainer who actually predicted (last month) that February 2008 would be when the numeric domain floodgates would burst open. That person said something to the effect that 2/08 would be when domainers 'on the fringes' will 'scurry in an effort to own a piece of the numeric domain rock' after the dam broke. Would that person care to step forward and claim credit for predicting that a buyout would occur before even rkbdomain did and also offer up any more predictions? Finally, we shamelessly would like to take the third prize for predicting the buyout would happen by Friday - which was more or less true depending on which time zone in the U.S. you were in when it happened. There are many 4th, 5th, 6th, etc... prizes but those folks will get their rewards in the long-term through appreciation of their recently acquired numeric domain portfolios.

Perhaps even more significant than the full-buyout of NNNNN.com's is the recent explosive growth of the numeric domain community. Dozens, perhaps more than a hundred, new domainers now have their fingers in the numeric domain pie and, naturally, they will be seeking more information and updates about trends in this field. Already, questions on NamePros.com are being asked about prior sales history of NNNNN.com's, the future aftermarket picture of NNNNN.com's, how to determine which numeric domains spell words (on a phone keypad) and if there will be a market for those dotcom wordnumbers.

What efforts can help maintain this momentum in numeric domain acquisition after the NNNNN.com full-buyout? What catalyst can serve to reinject the domaining community with vigor and reason to continue portfolio building and discussion? In our opinion, significantly more attention would be given to the numeric domain industry if the financial details of content partnership deals and sales was made public or, at the very least, better known in even vague terms. Most of the hot deals surrounding dotcom wordnumbers, for instance, are happening privately and account for more than $100,000 annually exchanging hands between investors, companies and through content partnerships. Investors and mobile directory content firms can help invigorate the marketplace and the perception of this niche field by increasing transparency. Utilizing press releases and providing details on their websites concerning successful sales or trades, partnership details and plans for numeric domain development could serve as the catalyst to take the current momentum with numeric domain speculation to the next, exciting level. The NNNNN.com buyout was mostly driven according to the principle of scarcity - that since LLLL.com's and NNNN.com's are gone/scarce but appreciating/selling for nice amounts, therefore so will NNNNN.com's. Little attention (and thought) was focused on the dotcom wordnumber arena - numeric domains that spell words. Looking around at other blogs by numeric domainers (actually there is just one 'other' blog for now), it is clear that this is where the most money can be made. However there is no proof. There are arguably no full details on dotcom wordnumber sales - that state the actual domain and actual sales price. What the numeric domaining community needs is for the top-players to share more details to give their colleagues a rationale for investing in NNNNNN.com or 7+N.com wordnumbers. Without provision of data that is needed for investors to benchmark, appraise and valuate, we predict there will likely be a slowdown in numeric domain speculation.