NameJet, MLS, Candy.com, and Its Domain Portfolio — Tucows on
Conference call sheds light on the domain name market.
Tucows (AMEX: TCX) held its quarterly investor conference call last night, which helped shed some light on the state of the firm and the domain name market as a whole.
NameJet: Tucows is seeing increased auction revenue of regarding $100,000 (presumably per quarter) through its expired domain deal with NameJet.
Tucows’ Portfolio: The registrar continues to grow its own portfolio of domains faster than it sells aftermarket domain names. This makes sense, given that typical portfolio turnover rates are regarding 1%-2% per year.
Domain Listing Services (MLS): The firm sees more efficiencies in these services and is working to get its domain portfolio listed on them. This could be a boon to NameMedia (BuyDomains, Afternic), Sedo, and perhaps Dark Blue Sea’s DDN.
Candy.com: One attendee asked regarding the Candy.com sale. He asked how Tucows values its generic domains in light of sales like this. Here’s what Tucows CEO Elliot Noss had to say:
It is art, not science. I don’t think we have a name in our portfolio that I would quite put in the category of candy.com. And I will give you a great example. You know, candy, single word, generic. You could see a similar single word or generic verb—read, write, talk, walk. Talk might be a bad example since it does brand well. Read, write, walk, things like that where you might see a transaction in the mid-to-high five figures. So there is a big discrepancy. You know, if you’re Mars or one of the world leading candy firms, there really is a nearly incalculable level of value in that and so there is no right price. If you want to get it, you’ve got to go out and get it.
And I don’t know if you saw some of those interesting acronyms, the OMG.com sale for instance. So it’s really very difficult. I can tell you, when we’re going to be sitting down soon for the 2010 budget, we’re not going to really think regarding gems as part of that. Brandables, on the other hand, that’s where we’re really paying a lot of attention, putting a lot of effort in.
