The Illinois Domain Project.

The Illinois University at Urbana-Champaign made the domainer news recently, with the announcement that due to budget cuts they are looking to find a buyer for their top-tier domain, Tech.com

Not only is the Illinois University at Urbana-Champaign tech-savvy, it is also one of the oldest educational institutions to have integrated the modern methods of online communications and the Internet into the daily life at the campus.

In fact, the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) server operated by the UIUC in 1994 was our first experience of real-time interaction with people from all over the world, using the Internet. Those were still the days of monochrome monitors, 386 Intel processors and Windows 3.1 – all while domains were still free to register.

An example of the complexity of the management at the Illinois University at Urbana-Champaign can be found in a fine specimen of analysis about descriptive and generic domains, versus acronyms.

The Illinois University at Urbana-Champaign defined what is called “The Illinois Domain Project” – a white paper that is still in development with current updates.

With regards to the Internet branding, the introduction of this white paper states:

[...] Web and e-mail addresses are the vehicles through which many audiences recognize the University. Additionally, the continued use of “uiuc” has caused division in how our internal audiences (faculty, staff and students) refer to the campus. These are the University’s ambassadors to the world. The more consistently we present ourselves as “Illinois,” the better we communicate the comprehensive excellence of the University.

In other words, the Illinois University at Urbana-Champaign defends its use of long, descriptive terms versus the initials UIUC – a slap in the face of other institutions such as UCLA and USC; to them, brand recognition comes from the generic terms “University of Illinois”.

Additionally, the brains of the technology sector reside at the Office of Technology Management – the very folks that recently announced that Tech.com is for sale.

Surprisingly, in its handbook for investors and innovators, the Illinois University at Urbana-Champaign states that:

With an annual funded research budget of more than $645 million dollars, the University of Illinois is a leader in generating advances that translate into products and services that have a profound impact on human lives.

The research budget volume appears to be tied to the University’s research curriculum – when it comes down to financing other aspects of its budget the numbers would obviously be considerably smaller, hence the intention to sell off assets such as Tech.com

Whatever the course of action might be and despite the evaluation by domainers of Tech.com as a domain with high potential, it remains to be seen whether the Illinois University at Urbana-Champaign will choose a “hard cash” offer versus the potential of a higher sale via an auction – an uncertain method of liquidating its valuable asset, Tech.com

Fresh domainer flesh!

No sooner did we announce that the cash-strapped University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign considers putting its ultra-generic domain, Tech.com on the market for sale – the vultures rushed in.

Smelling fresh domainer flesh, the predators started lowballing this magnificent and truly ancient domain that was registered in 1992.

“I’ll give you a suitcase full of money – all $40,000 of it”, said one.

Apparently, several offers in the $50k – $80k range are already coming in – all well below the true value of Tech.com

But surely, a domain such as Tech.com deserves a sales price well past the mid six figures.

While the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a freshman at domain negotiations, they are by no means stupid. In fact, since they have some pretty savvy people working for the Office of Technology Management, they should stop negotiating with small-time “flippers” and talk to the big guys.

The best option right now would be to approach a large technology or blue chip corporation – and there are plenty: Intel, AMD, Texas Instruments, IBM, NVidia, SONY, Nokia, Apple, Google – the list is practically endless. This way the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will maximize their ROI.

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The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign owns Tech.com

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign registered the ultra-generic Tech.com in September of 1992 – two full years before launching their successful Internet Relay Chat server (IRC) that some of us spent hundreds of hours on.

Tech.com was intended to be the online home of the University-sponsored Research Park; however, several different sites were hosted on Tech.com since then.

Currently, information about research done at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been utilized commercially by external companies and is presented at Tech.com in the form of a technology blog or gazette.

With all the big brains that have passed through the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, one would expect that they’d realize the high value of the domain name, Tech.com and would have utilized it in a better way.

Apparently, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was recently contacted by a third party interested in the domain name Tech.com. Even at this point, the Office of Technology Management (OTM) has no clue how to value the domain.

Valuate.com calculates the value of Tech.com to $773,000

We’ll have to wait and see whether the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is actually willing to place one of its most precious assets, Tech.com onto the chopping block; apparently there are more than 700 domains under its command, according to DomainTools.

Oranges are oranges but imagery of lemons is a bad indicator of an item's value and should be avoided

I’m sure you’ve read about the new venture by Francois of Domaining.com – it’s called BargainDomains.com

Essentially, it’s a new marketplace with a lower revenue goal than typical domain selling platforms, which often delusion domainers with high reserve prices.

In fact, the domains listed there are especially priced for domainers – who *love* good deals – as much as 30% lower than their Valuate.com estimated value.

Incidentally, Valuate.com is yet another brainchild of Francois; or of his nephew, according to our research.

It works; Francois also created a banner about BargainDomains that is so large, it was tested at IMAX theaters first.

One slight problem: the banner includes images of oranges and lemons, as if it were a popular market stand, selling fruit.

Lemons?

Hold on, Francois.

A “lemon” reference is indicative of a “bad deal” or of an item that appears pretty on the outside but it’s sour or ruined on the inside. Although people like lemonade because it contains sugar. Or something like that.

So, Francois, take those lemons out of the banner – that’s our free marketing advice of the day

Jean-Pierre Gaston Carrillo is a math genius with a degree from Sorbonne University and a deep interest in Napoleonic era literature

Sponsored by CarrotJuice.com

It has been several days now that the new brainchild of Francois – Valuate.com – has been issuing remarkably accurate domain evaluations; the estimates are matching real world sales with an incredible precision.

The tool publicly discloses that it’s running Estibot 2.0 – the artificial intelligence engine created by Finnish neurosurgeon Dr. Esa-Pekka Palvimaki.

However, the truth behind the overnight success of Valuate.com appears to be something entirely different, so we decided to investigate further.

“I used Valuate.com to estimate the true liquid value of my domain”, says Jimmy Hutchinson – a NamePros regular. “When I sold it for $127 at the forum, it was amazing how perfectly it matched the prediction of Valuate.com”, he added.

Other such examples around the domain forums reveal a similar, suspiciously perfect accuracy – this one from a clearly ticked-off domainer who got tired of lowball offers:

“I have to give it to Valuate.com for its accuracy. Get this, mate. There’s a literal army of shady bottom feeders, spammers, tire kickers, and goofballs, continually attempting to force a 6 – 12 months revenue model on to sellers who are offering a domain that does not fit into this bottom tier valuation model. So now, up yours! I use Valuate.com and give them a price they cannot challenge. In your face! In your face!”

And yet more such reports:

“If you’re one of the idiots roaming around the internet attempting to pull off this 6 – 12 months revenue heist on valuable  domains, then I want you to stop what you’re doing and go look in the mirror. Your purchase inquiry makes you sound a like dog saliva covered tennis ball, what do you see when you look at yourself? There’s carving out a respectable living by buying low and selling high, and then there’s being a time wasting asshole.  Learn to distinguish the difference.”

We just had to hear it from the horse’s mouth – Francois himself. A few key punches later, we were talking to Francois Carrillo – who also runs Domaining.com as everyone on the Internet knows.

“Hey, how are you, you call me again about what this time? Haha, no worry, I am awake and have showered and drinking coffee. So what you want, tell me, I will say.”

“Greetings Francois, I’ll get right to the point: how the heck is Valuate.com so accurate? You claim Estibot 2.0 – the main engine – is the secret but something’s not right here.”

“Well, well…Um, I know Valuate.com works and my God, does it have to be a reason? No? But yes, it works, so use it!”

“Francois, come on – let’s be honest here. No machine performs so well in evaluating domains. What’s going on? What happens in the split-seconds after a domainer enters the domains to be evaluated?”

“Oh shit, okay, okay. Look. I will say but you must keep silent about, okay? Keep silent about, because I am not at, how you say, I am not at liberte to announce the man who does this. It’s agreement, it’s agreement.”

“Wait…Francois, you’re saying that there is a person that manually estimates a domain’s worth each time it’s requested at Valuate.com? This is insane. Who is the genius?”

“But I said you, cannot say, cannot say. Oh damn it. Look, you want scoop, I give you scoop, now you ask more. What you want, Valuate.com simply magnifique! It works. Ok. Look, damn it, my nephew Jean-Pierre Gaston Carrillo is doing it, ok? He math genius, fast at calculation and when it enters domain, he finds value in his head.”

“Holy crap, Francois – so Jean-Pierre Gaston Carrillo is actually the person who finds the true value of every domain, every time someone submits it to Valuate.com! What an amazing guy. It’s astonishing. Does he ever sleep?”

“Well, see, we have a problem, for sure. And when night in France, we sleep, no? So Valuate.com use Indian domainer in Mumbai to do valuation. Very good though and cheap, we outsource. I have to go now, it’s time for the newsletter, ok? Bye!”

So there you have it, folks. Francois and his genius nephew run a remarkable service, outperforming every computer-generated domain evaluation in the market today. In the few days that Valuate.com has gone live, domainers around the world are raving about its perfectly calculated results, so go ahead and give it a spin. As long as it’s daytime in France.