CNN Buys iReport.com for $750,000

in their defense, rick may have wanted $100k for the name then and when some producer for the show said “lets spend $100k for a name for a program that we haven’t launched yet and that we don’t know will last 8 weeks ” people understandably would have been nervous.

I am amazed some big projects even get launched before securing the domain name for it, especially when the project is so intertwined with the Internet. Excellent for Rick and the industry.

***UPDATED BY ELLIOT***

I tend to agree with Gordon. Knowing Rick, the price for that name was probably mid 6 figures before CNN or anyone every even came to the table. It’s a great generic domain name, and Rick would have no reason to sell unless he received a great offer. However, if a company went to market with a “brandable” name and didn’t buy the corresponding domain name, I would take them to task.

As Gordon said, mid-6 figures is alot to pay for something that was originally just a segment on CNN but grew.

On the other hand, I blogged about Citibank and their “Thank You” Rewards program. I think it was dumb not to purchase ThankYou.com right away, because with that program, they were branding EVERYTHING as “Thank You.” I worked on the retail merchandising team at their direct marketing agency, and everything was associated with Thanking customers. With a branded program that Citi threw millions of dollars behind, they should have bought ThankYou.com before they launched instead of after.

CNN’s plans probably weren’t as ambitious when i-Report came out. Just my opinions.

Nice Sale

and maybe Frank Schilling can sell them ireporter.com for another 750,000k…

j

My theory is that Rick did his homework and saw it had matured into a hit show. The point where the producers really dropped the ball was when the show’s option was picked up. That would have been over a year ago and they would have paid far less than 750K if they went for it then. I don’t agree that it’s a great generic name because I doubt it was doing any intuitive traffic before that show came on the air. No one types in “ireport.com” unless there’s a reason.

Does this have anything to do with the ireporter tool found on moguling.com? Looks like blogs will put your typical domainer out of business. Hats off to people who actually put some work into developing their blog

This is all very, very interesting if true; but you decide.
http://www.we-report.com
or
http://www.wereport.com

[...] the email to me, this person mentioned Rick Schwartz’s sale of iReport.com to CNN as a reason that he registered some of the names. I replied to this person with my advice, and I [...]

[...] about everyone in the domain industry knows that CNN paid $750,000 to acquire iReport.com from Rick “Domain King” Schwartz in early 2008. On iReport.com, [...]