SPECULATORS SEEK CASH.COM.Byline: Julia Angwin San Francisco Chronicle The San Francisco Chronicle was founded in 1865 as The Daily Dramatic Chronicle by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young.[2] The paper grew along with San Francisco to become the largest circulation newspaper on the West Coast of the The unstoppable Cal Ripken was nearly shut out of cyberspace. When baseball's ironman Ironman - HOLWG, DoD, Jan 1977, revised Jul 1977. Fourth of the series of DoD requirements that led to Ada. "Department of Defense Requirements for High Order Computer Programming Languages", SIGPLAN Notices 12(12):39-54 (Dec 1977). wanted to build a Web site, he discovered he couldn't call it www.calripken.com because that domain name had already been registered by Scott Banister, a 21-year-old Palo Alto Palo Alto, city, California Palo Alto (păl`ō ăl`tō), city (1990 pop. 55,900), Santa Clara co., W Calif.; inc. 1894. Although primarily residential, Palo Alto has aerospace, electronics, and advanced research industries. entrepreneur. Banister said he'd give Ripken the name - for $10,000. Instead, Ripken named his site www.2131.com after the number of games he played consecutively to set a major-league record. Ripken was the victim of cyber-squatters - people who register Web addresses that include the names of companies, celebrities or products with the intent of profiting from reselling or trading them. Speculators pay $100 to buy the rights for a domain name - such as www.yourname.com - for two years. Addresses ending in .com, .org and .net are doled out Adj. 1. doled out - given out in portions apportioned, dealt out, meted out, parceled out distributed - spread out or scattered about or divided up by Network Solutions of Herndon, Va. Some speculators simply sit on the names until they get a call from someone wanting to buy one. Others list their properties with on-line brokerages that match up buyers and sellers. David Milligan, general manager of one of the larger Web-name brokerages - www.bestdomains.com - said names on his site typically sell for $500 to $6,000, with the average being around $4,000. Those prices could fall dramatically. Last week, an international consortium of Internet experts meeting in Geneva Geneva, canton and city, Switzerland Geneva (jənē`və), Fr. Genève, canton (1990 pop. 373,019), 109 sq mi (282 sq km), SW Switzerland, surrounding the southwest tip of the Lake of Geneva. agreed to vastly expand the number of Web addresses available. The United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. government opposes the plan, but the international group said it still plans to issue seven new suffixes - .firm, .store, .web, .arts, .rec, .info. and .nom for commercial use. Some say that the new addresses, which could become available in about 12 months, will put cyber-squatters out of business. ``With the new extensions on the names, the value is going to disappear,'' said Kenneth Cameron of Seattle, who said he has sold more than 25,000 domain names in the past few years. Cameron plans to get out of the business for good after he sells his last 93 domain names. Others say the new names will simply increase the worth of the addresses ending with the popular .com. ``Dot com (.com) is king, and it is unlikely that this will change,'' said Milligan, the name broker from New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of . The Internet gold rush began in the early '90s, when people could register Web addresses for free. They'd often register dozens of variations of a name, such as Gates.org, billg.com and billgates.net. In 1995, when Network Solutions started charging for domain names, many cyber-squatters stopped registering names but others jumped into the game. Soon after, the middlemen arrived. There are now 15 to 20 name brokerages on the Web. Most brokers charge a fee to list a domain name and also take a cut of sales. Alex Tajirian, who runs Domain Mart from his San Francisco office, charges a $10 listing fee and takes a 7 percent to 18 percent commission on transactions. So if he sells www.biznet.com for $125,000 as listed on his site, he could earn up to $22,500 to broker the transaction. But Tajirian doesn't take any financial risk himself. ``I let somebody else do the speculation,'' he said. ``I just provide a market.'' MTV MTV in full Music Television U.S. cable television network, established in 1980 to present videos of musicians and singers performing new rock music. MTV won a wide following among rock-music fans worldwide and greatly affected the popular-music business. is rumored to have paid $100,000 for the name www.mtv.com. An MTV spokeswoman said the company paid for the name but wouldn't say how much. Some say it's the American way. ``Some people like it, some people don't - that's tough,'' said Denny Hammerton, a domain name speculator Speculator A person who trades (i.e. derivatives, commodities, bonds, equities or currencies) with a higher-than-average risk, in return for a higher-than-average profit potential. in Minneola minneola Noun a juicy citrus fruit that is a cross between a tangerine and a grapefruit , Fla. ``It's real estate is what it is. If I buy land that somebody wants, then lucky me.'' Hammerton claims to own the rights to some 2,000 Web site names, including www.jimihendrix.com, www.jethrotull.com and www.fleetwoodmac.com. He hopes to make enough money from domain names to finance his dream of building inflatable homes for the homeless Homes for the Homeless is an organization which provides housing and employment trainining for homeless people in New York City. It was founded in 1986 through a collaboration with Leonard N. Stern, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and the city of New York. . Julian Lennon, John's son, battled with Hammerton for more than a year over control of www.johnlenCnon.com. Hammerton registered the name but never paid the $100 fee to own it. CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: ``Cyber-squatter'' Scott Banister, 21, of Palo Alto, stands in front of his brainstorming board. San Francisco Chronicle |
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