A Web 2.0 boom is fueling domain name purchases. Recently, we had a post called Good Luck Finding a Domain Name. Om Malik has another post on the rapidly growing domain industry.
The domains are so hot that domain squatters are making more profits than some of them real estate speculators. About 2.2 million new domains are being snapped up every month in the US alone, according to some estimates. Marchex, a Seattle-based public startup which has built up a massive portfolio of domain names claimed in a Business 2.0 article that it was nearly 10 percent of the global paid search market, about $9 billion or so. Another proof, Donald Trump is no money-genius.
The madness is going global it seems. IPWalk says that new .eu domain, when opened to all European Union residents last week (aka Landrush) has zoomed past the .biz domain and will lap .info in about four months. EURid, the registry of .eu, received 346.218 applications, in comparison with approximately 800.000 applications within the first 24 hours. Today there are 1.454.128 active .eu domain names, a number that surpasses 1.352.984 active .biz domain names.
Om Malik also says that Go Daddy, a domain name merchant, might be going public. A lot of web hosting companies have also added domain name services because it can be a lucrative business. A list of domain name retailers can be found here and some domain name resources can be found here.
