Sex.com sold for $12 million in January, Blue.com for $500,000 and "even frequently misspelled names sell: Mortage.com went for $242,400 this month," according to USA Today. It reports:
Sales of 5,851 domain names generated $29 million in 2005, compared with the sale of 3,813 names for $15 million in 2004, says market researcher Zetetic. And the pace is quickening: In the first three months of this year, 1,949 names have generated $14.2 million, says Domain Name Journal magazine.
The companies that make a living out of this kind of speculation are spending big bucks, too. "Publicly traded Marchex spent $164 million on more than 100,000 domain names, including destination.com and debts.com last year. It works with Yahoo to direct advertisers to specialized websites such as videocamera.com. Separately, Marchex has acquired 74,000 ZIP code domains, such as 90210.com," says the story.
