Buying or not buying "programa.com" That is the question

A few days ago he concluded unsuccessfully auction programa.com through Sedo. The reserve price was not hedged.

Last Friday at an internal meeting were discussing the possibility of trying to buy this domain name.

But the story begins more or less a year. We decided to buy the domain name programas.com in November 2007 for $ 60,000 (approx. 47,000 euros to the change of date) with the intent to develop it as a portal for downloading programs. 2 months after we receive an offer and after some internal debate we decided to sell the domain for $ 193,000 (135,000 euros to change), excluding commissions, a capital gain of about 74,000 Euros in 2 months or so as Carlos Blanco said in her blog.

The sale of programas.com entered in the top of the domains most expensive sold in Spanish. I was somewhat penalty sell, but the gains in 2 months was very interesting and we made it difficult to relinquish it.

The first thing I did after selling programas.com is to invest, and I think with a certain amount of luck and intelligently, a small part of the capital gain on the purchase of 2 other domains where we could launch the project as an alternative software download we are preparing. Thus, in this way, we buy in the following weeks 2 generic alternatives to our site software, and bought, I think a good price: archivos.com by $ 6,000 (about 4,500 euros) and programas.info by $ 1,000 (about 650 euros).

We are working for many months in the database portal downloads and we intend to launch in the coming months, after completing the program (I hope this will be online by 2009).

Well, when we saw that he was leaving the sale programa.com doubt and we met at the office to assess whether we should buy it. The domain went on sale at Sedo, then to auction, and I had been offered by the owner by email at a similar figure-highest-something to which we acquired in its day programas.com.

In the meeting we had, as always several sensitivities, on the one hand Alberto was in favor of buying, Monica said that when the market was not the same as 1 year ago and had to be careful with expenditures and investments (by the way: Great truth!), Jaume that it was a lot of money .... As you can see views for all tastes.

I tried to reason the purchase from the point of view of the launch of our portal downloads on www.archivos.com. Firstly, I think that the big sales and big operations domains have been cooled down, possibly due to fears arising from the economic crisis in recent months. We noticed a very sharp fall especially since December 2007.

On the other side for me there is much difference between "programas.com" and "programa.com" I think the "S" in the plural mark the ability of the service and that very important. In fact, to launch a portal of its kind ever think of 1) descargas.com 2) programas.com 3) archivos.com not appreciate the unique to that level, and for that reason, we have seen in a domain portfolio that we can use for this project in a more clear, I have decided on Friday declined the offer to purchase at least for now, at least in those quantities.

What do you think about it?, You believe that I was wrong?, You see most appropriate programa.com archivos.com that, I love to hear your opinions.

Tags: archivos.com, downloads, domains, premium domains, Investments, premium, programa.com, programas.com, programas.info

Entertainment Networks buys the blog todowow.com

Through this post I take to announce one of the transactions he spoke a few days ago, when publishing the hearing in July of the Network of blogs Entertainment Networks.

We have agreed to purchase the blog todowow.com and joining our network to all intents and purposes since August 1 (with the incorporation metric Nielsen will be dated Sept. 1).
TodoWow is a leading Spanish-language publications devoted to role-play massively multiplayer online World of Warcraft fansite Spanish officer of Blizzard Entertainment's that had been led by Raul Perez, a young Cuban expert based in Madrid in the game that starting now becomes part of the editorial team of Entertainment Networks, and will remain ultimately responsible publisher of this publication.

TodoWow.com was created in late 2007 and has about 75,000 unique visitors per month and 300,000 page views per month. We look forward to the synergies of our network and the good of the team headed by Jaume, Diego and Monica, able to grow this new blog.

I am very interested in going into publishing segment in certain very specific thematic carriers. In the segment we games already consolas.es which is a consolidated blog video game and is curious look like a publication as a generalist consolas.es has a traffic pageviews similar to a theme very well in public and segmented todowow.com.

We expect shortly to announce new acquisitions of blogs that I am studying at the moment and I hope that resolved before leaving to go back to the office the next day on August 18. With todowow.com and the rest of operations that we are studying, we hope to expand the inventory thematic synergies between publications and global audience of the Network Blog Entertainment Networks.

Tags: procurement, Buying / Selling, buying blogs, Entertainment Networks, todowow.com, sell blogs

About Enrique Dubois and Wamba

Kike know from many many years ago, and yesterday gave me joy, after a long time without seeing at least a couple of years-eat with him at a restaurant in La Moraleja in Madrid. Genie appears and nobody can stop looking with the corner of the eye he does. I met him when I was 16 or 17 years and since that time, in various sectors within the Internet, nobody can deny that it has been one of the people who best know monetize the network.

Enrique is placed on the Internet a peculiar character. Will remember that 1 year and a half or maybe 2 years and who called me and told me about what is now his current project, the social network Wamba. Yesterday we discussed several projects that have in mind, and one of mine and we will be seeing what points we encounter between the two.

On Wamba, I must admit that it is not too encouraging, it is more than I thought it was really difficult that might get some results as relevant social network traffic.

At this time I have been following its development, chatting with him occasionally by phone and MSN and I must admit that some things have surprised me very positively.

First Enrique has evolved with Wamba. The site was born with some mistakes, structural concept, trying to cover too, with programming flaws and marked by a lack of traffic. Even as I remember joking with him every time I went to see him and that he saw 10 pictures of 5 were "Enrique on the beach, on a boat Enrique, Enrique with a drink ... "Has spent much of that time and there has been a huge trend that nobody can deny.

Wamba has purchased 2 webs, one Spanish and one in Latin America of the highest traffic and just integrate a very intelligent, which causes that currently has a greater volume of unique visitors to other sites that are more recognized for it as Sonic , A Latino, or Tuenti, level Spanish. I estimate that these integrations Wamba closed after the month with 8 or 9 million unique users in Nielsen. Never before have I seen something like this in just 2 years of work, and a lot of controversy or criticism it has attracted, quite frankly, I'd love to have achieved those 9 million users in 2 years myself, to take off his hat.

I am sure we will soon have a corporate press release with Wamba and I am not surprised that Kike and his investor Morten Lund will come to sell all or part of the company. Certainly not in 1000 million euros as suggested by Morten (dammit, what people write barbarities), but if the figures possibly both be happy and be grown from an interesting revenue.

I think it is true that several controversial purchase and type of content that were in vagos.es but always encouraged him to close that operation. He bought the site, users migrated, it has a very positive and has been removing the disputed content. It looks to me a clever and round out your project, in which the key is traffic. Now the challenge will be the monetization.

I also have our draft Yes.fm some synergy ... do not forget that Wamba is an online music radio, wamba.fm and I believe that we are not going to cost a lot of power found in that aspect, after opening at Yes.fm the next month of September a point of collaboration.

Enrique, who has a particular sense of humor, sends me this video in which he has had the courage and little sense of the ridiculous (dammit, Enrique, what laughter, I could not) from recorded in a peculiar version of Rodolfo Chiquilicuatre (or as hell is said). Those who know strongly recommend you see it:

Also, from another perspective, talk of Wamba in Loogic

Tags: Enrique Dubois, Sonic, tuenti, Wamba