I know there are a number of domain investors who like to buy “trend” domain names, and while it may be a smart move, it’s not something I do very often. I read an article in the New York Observer today about how some hedge funds are coping with doomsday scenarios, in the event of high inflation and political uncertainty.

After reading about how several hedge funds and mutual funds have started “agriculture funds,” with investments in farm lands and related assets, it led me to do some domain research on that topic to see if there were any interesting domain names for sale.

I saw that the owner of AgricultureFunds.com is asking $14,500 for the domain name at Go Daddy. I also saw that Buy Domains owns the singular AgricultureFund.com domain name, and the asking price is much more reasonable, at under $1,500.  IMO, it’s a pretty good price for this domain name since it seems that many leading investment firms have started or are thinking about starting an agriculture fund.

If the name is of interest to you, I recommend emailing sonia @ buydomains.com to but it. You can also follow the link on the landing page and buy it that way.  I think it’s a good price, and if I was interested in longer term investments on trending domain names, it would be a name I’d buy.

BTW, there is no affiliate link here and nobody from Buy Domains / NameMedia asked me to post this. I am getting nothing from this post… just want to be clear.

TechCrunch is one of my favorite websites to read, and I have to say, I spend quite a bit of time on the site. I especially enjoy reading articles by Michael Arrington, Robin Wauters, and Erick Schonfeld, two TechCrunch staff journalists. Unfortunately, I disagree with the portrayal of Mike Mann’s Domain Asset Holdings in yesterday’s article about Facebook’s UDRP filing for 21 domain names.

First, let’s start with the case. Facebook filed a UDRP for 21 domain names owned by Domain Asset Holdings that included the term “Facebook” in them. Some of these names include FacebookBabes.com, FacebookCheats.com…etc. Some might think it’s a cut and dry case, but with trademark law, there’s very little that is cut and dry.

When I was in college, there was a freshman facebook distributed to all RAs, administrators, and freshmen. I am sure there are plenty of other colleges that did and still do the same. Facebook the company did not coin the term “facebook” despite making it into a well-known brand. That being said, according to Domain Asset Holdings founder, Mike Mann, “those names were registered by accident and we are trying to give them back to them.”

My biggest issue with the article is Robin’s characterization of Mann’s company. The article stated that these 21 “domain names are all currently owned by a company called Domain Asset Holdings, a known domain squatter based in Potomac, Maryland.” The article linked to a legal action for the domain name CustomResins.com, which appears to have settled.

There are two organizations that handle UDRP cases: World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and National Arbitration Forum (NAF). According to the WIPO database, there were no UDRP decisions with Domain Asset Holdings listed as the respondent. The NAF database lists two decisions with Domain Asset Holdings as the respondent. Both of these cases ended with Domain Asset Holdings winning.

In looking at Domain Asset Holdings’ nameservers, the company appears to own over one hundred thousand domain names. Having just two UDRP decisions (not including the recent Facebook filing) is quite remarkable for a company with this many domain names. This surely isn’t the sign of a company that’s a “known domain squatter.”

Furthermore, Mike Mann is the entrepreneur who previously sold BuyDomains to NameMedia. I don’t know the purchase price, but I’ve heard it was many millions of dollars. I’ve seen BuyDomains lose very few UDRP cases. Both of Mann’s companies generally invest in descriptive domain names, not trademarks.

For whatever reason, Domain Asset Holdings “accidentally” registered a group of names with trademarks in them and is trying to give them back to the company (according to Mike Mann). In my opinion, the description of Mann’s company as a known domain squatter is quite inaccurate, and I would hope Robin considers changing it.

***Update***

Mike Mann posted a comment on Robin’s article today stating “we have 150,000 names many of which a machine registered.”

I am not a fan of domain appraisals. I don’t believe in them at all, especially automated domain appraisals that really can’t have a “gut feel” about the value, which is often the most important thing for me when considering a domain name.

In fact, I actually have a template I use when I am trying to buy a domain name and the owner mentions or suggests an appraisal.

Ok, now that this caveat is out of the way, I will admit that I checked out an appraisal on Estibot the other day, and I noticed they now seem to list domain names that are for sale in a manner similar to DomainTools.

The name in the graphic above is owned by iReit, and is currently listed for sale at DomainMarketplace.com.  I am not sure what sales platforms are integrated with Estibot, but I checked a Buy Domains-owned name and it had a sales link, but a Sedo listed name did not have the for sale listing.

It”s a bit strange to me, but there are a lot of domain investors that don’t know the best way to reply to a domain offer. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as easy and as clear cut as it may seem, but in my opinion, if you are going to be a domain investor with a goal of selling domain names, you need to know how to reply to an offer to close a deal.

First off, it’s critical to research who your potential buyer might be by using the email address, name, IP address and/or anything else revealing about the potential buyer. This is important to make sure they aren’t going to use your reply in a UDRP or lawsuit, and so you are able to know why the domain name is coveted and how it will be used. I don’t like pricing domain names based on the size of the wallet of the buyer, but it would suck to sell a domain name for $5,000 when the buyer is going to spend millions of dollars to market a new brand around a specific domain name.

With that being said, I want to give you a recommendation to learn a good way to reply to potential buyers: attempt to buy a domain name from one of the industry leading companies or domain investors. I am sure some people will probably not like to get emails from non-buyers posing as prospects, but it’s a good way to learn from experienced domain investors and domain sellers.

For example, Buy Domains has successfully sold millions of dollars in domain inventory, and they get inquiries every single day from potential buyers. They’ve probably got a pretty good response down by now, and you may be able to learn from that.

The one caveat is that you can’t be too passive in this exercise because many companies may not even reply unless you make a significant opening offer, which says a lot right there without even saying anything. Needless to say, a company like Buy Domains will probably reply no matter what, and perhaps they will try to cross-sell, down-sell, or up-sell you depending on the domain name.

Although the domain business isn’t yet mature, there are plenty of leading companies out there whose insight can be gleaned by others. Your success can only help them in the future.

There’s an interesting article in the New York Times today about the Corn Refiners Association’s attempt to rebrand the high-fructose corn syrup ingredient that’s apparently earned the scorn and concern of health conscience consumers.

If you’ve ever read the label of just about any type of processed food, you’ve probably seen high-fructose corn syrup close to the top of the ingredient list. I don’t know much about this product, but according to the article and some research published by a market research firm, “about 58 percent of Americans say they are concerned that high-fructose corn syrup poses a health risk.”

I guess in an effort to change perceptions of this ingredient, the Corn Refiners Association has chosen to refer to this ingredient as “Corn Sugar.” The organization smartly bought the corresponding CornSugar.com domain name, and they have information about it on the website.

Perhaps as a result of owning the exact match keyword domain name, CornSugar.com ranks in the top 10 in Google for the “corn sugar” search, despite the fact that the domain name has only been owned by the organization since June of 2010. For some reason, the registration is showing a creation date of June 2010, but if you look at its Whois History, you can see this domain name was previously owned by Buy Domains as recently as May 2010.

Smart move by the CRA to own the brand in .com (.net and .org, too).