CNN Picks Up iReport.com

By Doug Caverly - Fri, 01/18/2008 - 10:24am.

Pays $750,000 to further citizen journalism

Perhaps we're just happy it's Friday, but this sounds like good news all around: CNN has bought the domain iReport.com for $750,000.

Michael Learmonth reports that the seller was Rick Schwartz, and that Schwartz paid between $70 and $100 to register both iReport.com and i-Report.com (which he tossed into the deal for free) in 1997. That's a tidy enough profit to pay for a few Lamborghinis. CNN Picks Up iReport.com

The arrangement, as a whole, is also a sort of endorsement of bloggers; even if so-called "iReporters" don't necessarily put writing or recordings online, the same style of citizen journalism is a hallmark in both groups.

Want to look at this in a wider fashion? Call the sale a boost to eBusiness, considering that it took place despite the Nasdaq's plummet. Or even a boost to the economy in general, since the DJIA took a similar fall.

All right, maybe our positive outlook is just caused by your typical Friday euphoria, but in any case, domain name sales of this magnitude are worth noting; Ron Jackson writes, "A $750,000 deal would have ranked among the 12 largest sales of 2007."

News Tags: Deals, iReport.com, Rick Schwartz, CNN, domain names

About the author:
Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.

Comments

Submitted by Guest (WPN reader) on Mon, 01/28/2008 - 12:32am.

drm-free-mp3s & domain names

Here's a question: what value is there in/ or how does one put a value on names relating to the topic of the digital music scene? Specifically, the whole thing with drm free mp3s?

Now there's been quite a bit of news on this, as you may know, lately. Super Bowl ad/Justin Timberlake// Pepsi and Amazon, not to mention the major labels trying to figure things out. I mean, now Yahoo! Music looks like they're getting involved. Big bucks behind the football ads... the give-away itself will be valued at as many as 1 billion songs from Amazon MP3.

With a quote like this: ""MP3 music is the future of the industry and Pepsi Stuff is an accelerator," Danny Socolof, president of Las Vegas-based MEGA, Inc., the company that is managing the promotion, said in a statement." [http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3721576] how do you value/appraise these?

So, if one had names like:
drmfreealbum.com
drmfreealbums.com
drmfreedownload.com
drmfreedownloads.com
drmfreemp3.com
drmfreemp3s.com
drmfreemusic.info
drmfreemusicdownloads.com
drmfreesongs.com
drmfreetrack.com
drmfreetracks.com

Just curious; wanted to start a conversation. Wonder how many eyeballs the Super Bowl gets? I don't really even watch football.
References:

http://news.google.com/news?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&um=1&tab=wn&q=%22drm+free+mp3%22+&btnG=Search+News
http://news.google.com/news?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&um=1&tab=wn&q=%22drm+free+mp3%22+super+bowl&btnG=Search+News

WebProNews