Rolf Larsen, .Global CEO and Desktop.com founder.
Rolf Larsen bought Desktop.com via the Sedo brokerage service, and we exclusively covered that great domain sale.
Coming next year, Desktop.com will be a new platform for web apps.
But Rolf Larsen is also an operator of dot .Global, a (new) gTLD. Do these two functions clash?
In the eyes of ignorant domainers, Rolf Larsen’s act was hypocritical. The truth is, that new gTLDs are just 5 years old – not 35 like .com. The ability to roll out products and services on two different TLDs is tested by the product and service, not by the domain. Products and services benefit from the ability to leverage the power of new gTLDs, which are seen by Google as SEO juice generators. It’s all about content, not extensions.
For this particular product and service, Rolf Larsen picked the best TLD available, presumably at a great – and probably discounted – price point.
Sedo interviewed Rolf Larsen, here are some excerpts:
Why did you decide to purchase Desktop.com?
“In September of this year, I woke in the middle of the night with a business idea to create a virtual desktop service to help businesses in the distribution, organization and security related to apps to be used by employees. The idea came from my own pain points relating to these areas, and the fact that in my opinion there are no good solutions available. I believe such a service can be of use to most businesses, and to some extent even consumers. If I’m right, it’s a big market and area for opportunity. I would never seek to launch a service that would grow rapidly and become highly valuable, with anything but a great brand. Desktop.com defines exactly the service I want to provide and is at the same time good to use as a brand name. It was my top choice of all the domain alternatives I came up with.”
Why was it so important for you to acquire this domain name? What kind of benefit do you expect by getting this short keyword domain name?
This particular domain is unique to the service I plan to launch, in that people can immediately identify what type of service is behind such a name, even without an explanation. I think some of the benefits will be: an inexpensive way to get relevant traffic from search engines. In addition, people will easily remember the name after having heard about the service only once. Lastly, the domain name will make my company appear to be on a larger scale from day one with minimal effort.
What were the benefits of working with Sedo? Had you tried to obtain the domain directly yourself prior to enlisting Sedo?
For this particular domain, it resolved to the owner and then I chose to contact them directly. They connected me with Sedo who was representing them in this sale along with their whole domain portfolio and I began working with one of their top brokers, Negar Hajikhani. From start to finish I had a very good experience with Sedo in solidifying the deal. I have purchased several domains using Sedo previously, and therefore I was already familiar with the process. Throughout the purchase, Sedo was instrumental in structuring the legal framework and installment plan for this deal, and being that they’re one of the most trusted service providers in the domain industry, I had no doubts this would go as smoothly as it did.
Read the full interview at Sedo.com.
It’s not HYPOCRITICAL. It’s the .com ppl that HATE nTLD. (not so much the other way around). Mostly because domain investors spent 10-20 years making premium .com portfolios.
I invest in .com AND nTLD. I think if you have a feel for the WHOLE SPHERE of domaining and what’s possible with nTLD, you can NAIL GREAT .coms down too.
I DO think .com (mediocre) is DEAD. ‘Premium’ .com will be fine, while premium nTLD has A LOT of room to GROW.
I believe there is typically 10-1000 ‘premium’ nTLD in any given ext. MAYBE 500k WORTHY domains in the WHOLE nTLD program. That leaves MILLIONS of great .coms that can ‘hang in there’.
The automated .com appraisal at GD and such is a HUGE advantage for .com investors. It’s going to keep that boat afloat for awhile. Automated appraisal is best thing to EVER happen for 2 word .com investors. It couldn’t have come around at a better time.
It seems like Rolf bought desk.top as well