Tech & Biz

U.S. Man Sells Pizza.com Domain for $2.6 Million

by Jarrett Martineau | April 4, 2008 at 07:26 pm

502 views | 10 Recommendations | 1 comment

Oh the dot com boom: a time when your average domain squatter could snatch up a big brand name domain name, like IBM.com, and then attempt to persuade said brand to buy the domain back from them at a hefty price.

It's rare that we hear those stories anymore, now that the web 2.0 world has bought up every conceivable 'real word' and forced startups to brand themselves using an array of dropped vowels and strange made-up words.

Well, for the few holdouts who still have a great, single word, noun-based domain in their possession, the time has never been better to sell it off.

Just to talk to Chris Clark, he delivered 'Pizza.com' to a new owner today for a nice fat slice of cash worth $2.6 million.

A US man has sold the domain name pizza.com for $2.6m (£1.3m) - after maintaining the site for just $20 a year since 1994.

Chris Clark, 43, accepted the offer from an anonymous bidder after a week-long online auction.

"It's crazy, it's just crazy," Mr Clark, who lives in North Potomac, Maryland, was quoted as saying by the Baltimore Sun newspaper.

"It will make a significant difference in my life, for sure," he added.

Mr Clark registered the domain name in 1994, when the world wide web was just starting.

He had hoped that pizza.com would help to get a contract with a pizza firm for his consulting company.

He sold his business in 2000, but kept paying the $20 annual fees for maintaining the domain, which he also used to sell advertisements.

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Albert Milliron

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 07:50 on April 5th, 2008

Jarrett Martineau, ok world I will sell my ironmill.com for half that, what a deal eh? I remember 1998-2000 where domain names were going for a cool mil every other day. Pizza.com is a good one