Sedo's numeric auction debut includes an intruder

On Monday, Sedo released a media advisory titled 'Sedo Reports Continued Momentum of Numeric Domain Sales in 2008' in advance of its upcoming first-ever Numeric (Domain) Auction that begins Thursday (Nov. 27, 2008). Sedo is certain to make a splash in the numeric domain aftermarket-place with its upcoming auction, which features mostly shorter-length numerics and a few attractive zip codes. Strangely, the several-dozen long list of auction items includes one item that doesn't fit, KWA.com. Poor KWA.com wants to be a numeric! Maybe KWA.com was raised by a NN.org and NNN.com. Or, it's first date was with 5683.com. Ok, we accept you, kwa.com. You're a numeric no matter what you look like.

Target now owns its wordnumber in 4 TLDs

Target, the popular retailer known for its red and white bullseye logo, has registered various TLDs - including the .net and .org versions - of its wordnumber 827438. WordDial, the New Zealand-based pioneer of wordnumber domaining, owns the dotcom version. Interestingly, that domain, 827438.com, does not resolve at all, unlike most of WordDial's domains which forward to the company's vast portal network.

The domains 827438.net/org/info/biz, owned by Target, resolve to Target.com. The registrant of those domains is DNStination, Inc., which owns other alpha-domains of the retailer including TGT.com, which also goes to Target.com. Target joins a growing number of brands, such as Expedia, Yahoo, Amazon and ChaCha, that own several TLDs of their brand wordnumber numeric domain.

Numeric domains on Sedo in November

So it turns out that Sedo plans its first numeric domain auction beginning on November 27. It'll include all sorts of numeric types including zip codes but won't be a great place to buy dotcom wordnumbers. Sedo has imposed several restrictions for the auction that appear to exclude domains that are longer than 5 digits. When will they learn? The auction will close on December 4.

Uniquely and much more interesting and also an unrelated event, an auction at Sedo of the domain 4632339.com, which spells Godaddy, ended on November 5 for the final bid (with only 1 bidder) of $75. Yep, not $7,500 or $750, but a measly seventy-five bucks. What next? 466453.com will go for $120? And 6977223.com (Myspace) go for $95? I sincerely doubt we'll see more sales at these low altitudes. Wordnumber investors know that this sale price is on some hardcore Halloween drugs.

The Offer Description that accompanied the Sedo listing: (note that the Sedo seller wasn't author of the description but appropriated it only citing the source)

4632339.com = GODADDY.COM (Numeric)

What is a numeric domain?

That venerable organization, UNCTAD, (who dat?, ed.) an offshoot of the UN claims that "Mobile phone users in developing nations now make up 58% of handset subscribers worldwide". And according to the ITU , mobile phone penetration rates are expected to reach 50 percent by early this year with the three billion subscription mark already passed some months ago.

Unsurprisingly, most of that growth is coming from emerging markets like Africa, which has come up with a growth rate of 50 percent in the last few years. The stars of the show, equally predictably, have been the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) adding one billion new users between them last year.

Undoubtedly, the vast majority of the mobile phones being purchased are NOT of the Smart phone and qwerty keyboard variety. They are of the standard key pad alpha-numeric configuration used on billions of cell phones world wide.

As our unofficial anecdotal learning curve suggests, many new cell phone users will type-in random numbers into their browsers to test the wireless internet waters. These meanderings eventually lead subscribers to properly formatted internet sites designed to deliver information and services. As their efforts improve access over time, they will come to realize that inputting 42637.com leads to "games", 2428.com leads to "chat", 6397.com leads to "news", 32232665.com leads to Facebook etc. Companies delivering mobile content such as Worddial continue to see growing traffic from these developing countries.

Source: http://www.numericdomains.com/numeri cdomains/mobile_phones/