Friday, December 19, 2008

Numerics News

A great Wall Street Journal article about numeric domains, written by Carl Bialik. Even mentions an NNNNN.com! Here is an excerpt:
There are other advantages to building a brand identity on a number. Flavio Masson, owner of the Web-design firm 10012.com, named it after the ZIP Code of his original Manhattan headquarters (since moved to nearby SoHo, ZIP 10013). He's a Brazilian citizen, and his company's name, 10012 LLC, tops the alphabetical list of more than 800 businesses in the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce's member directory.
There are other factors making numeric domain names more intriguing to businesses lately. Radio stations could make use of names that match their frequency. Marchex Inc. has snapped up domains for more than 96% of ZIP Codes nationwide, such as 90210.com, for a network of local Web sites. The increase in Web navigation from cellphones adds to the trend, because on a numeric keypad, it's easier to type out a two-digit domain than a long word.
Also, an NNNNN.com that starts with 0 and is not a zip code is currently at $90 USD on Sedo.