
Not for sale - MrJagil
http://milk.com/value/
======
c_t_montgomery
Unrelated: Dan (the guy who owns this domain) is an incredibly brilliant
engineer. I had the honor of working with him during my time at Lift (he
worked for Obvious at the time). Cool to see his site pop up here.

~~~
Kiro
The maker of Android's VM.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalvik_(software)>

------
goatforce5
<http://milk.com/faq> is one of my favourite pages on the web, and has been
for 15 or so years.

Moo!

~~~
cafard
Guess he wants to join the 1%...

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mvkel
Two things I love about this domain owner:

1) He tries to expertly avoid having to give a solid number, but then he comes
right out and says he'd take 10mm for it. Sweet negotiation skills.

2) The best company he could come up with to buy the domain does just 110mm in
revenue, nevermind profits. There are a few billion dollar companies who might
bite, but any company making less probably couldnt afford it.

~~~
martinced
One thing this domain owner loves about you:

1) he owns a very good four-letters dot com while you don't.

------
jschuur
There's 2 ways of looking at this: What's the investment he's put into product
he's trying to sell (in this case, none), and what's the value of the product
to the person who wants it?

Obviously, economics is about what the buyer is willing to pay, but it feels
wrong for someone whose only contribution to the property was to register it
early on to attempt to sell it for $10 million.

He's not going to get that much money for it. Ever. And yet he put up that
page, either to satisfy his need to make a public point, or as a very
conscious attempt to start negotiations and still manage the volume of
requests he might get.

~~~
vasco
>someone whose only contribution to the property was to register it early on
Why do you seem to think this has no value? The world is made of other such
occurrences being valued immensely.

~~~
67726e
Generally the "real-world" instances of someone buying into stock, real-
estate, etc. early, they take on a large risk of losing his/her investment.

In the case of squatting on a domain, you are depriving someone of the
productive use of that domain, while also trying to extort large sums of money
simply for the ability to rent it. Of course generally when this happens, it
involves a shady company that also seeds the site with loads of sketchy ads.

~~~
larrys
"Generally the "real-world" instances of someone buying into stock, real-
estate, etc. early, they take on a large risk of losing his/her investment."

Back when many of these domains were acquired the investment was either $70 or
$100 (or $0) depending on the year acquired.

Do you think it was so obvious that that $100 investment (for 2 years reg with
NSI) was a sure bet? Guess what, it wasn't. It was a gamble or people would
have bet everything they had to acquire as many names as they could.

Explain to me why buying a share of stock at $100 and risking $100 is
different than thinking a domain _might_ be valuable and risking $100 on that?

And what do you mean "depriving someone of the productive use of that domain"?
What if the domain was owned by some small nobody on Main Street who didn't
want to sell? Or Warren Buffet? Who do you think is going to determine what
the best use of a domain is exactly?

~~~
67726e
And what do you mean "depriving someone of the productive use of that domain"?

Well, if I have a company that, I don't know, sells milk, well I may just have
a use for that domain in promoting my product. Maybe I have some startup that
deals in milk. That would be a good domain to have. But unfortunately I cannot
use that domain to host my website, or web application. Someone decided to
lease that domain for what is likely a measly $20 USD per year, and thinks a
reasonable price to transfer that lease to me is about $10.000.000 USD.

Instead this fine gentleman decided to purchase the domain and thinks acting
like a child on a playground by going "Nanananana, you can't have it".

~~~
larrys
"I don't know, sells milk, well I may just have a use for that domain in
promoting my product."

So what? I can drive around my neighborhood and somebody might have beat me to
the last breakfast sandwich at the Starbucks and they might take one bite and
throw it away. The world doesn't work by the fact that you or anyone might
have a use for something better than someone else. You pay the money, you buy
something, you decide what you want to do with it.

I think what you don't understand is that there is a business model built
around buying and selling domains. And there is nothing wrong with doing this
even though it upsets many people who just think "it's not fair!".

With your hypothetical company that wants that domain what happens if what you
are doing with it (for your "little" store) doesn't match up to some big dairy
when they think they should have it. Are you going to just give it to them or
would you try to make money? More importantly you seem to assume that
"milk.com" would be available right when you want it. The truth is the owner
could have sold it years ago to someone for $5,000 that is using it for
something and then you wouldn't get it anyway.

I'd like to say that I agree that he, for lack of a better way to put it, is
being "a dick". But the truth is that's actually good if you want to buy it
because it will scare many people away who could buy the domain in the past
who believe his (what I feel is) false bravado.

~~~
67726e
I think you don't understand my original point. This guy is nothing more than
what we both have agreed, a "dick".

"there is nothing wrong with doing this"

Of course in the case where someone has a domain infringing on another's
trademark, that is in fact very wrong and can lead to legal problems.

------
ck2
There have been cases of generic words being UDRP-ed for insignificant use.

It all comes down to how neutrual the judges are and if they see their next
paycheck coming indirectly from a corporate entity (ie. funding wipo).

~~~
RobAley
Have you got any examples of these?

~~~
blowski
Deutsche Post was refused a UDRP request on Post.com, Interior Design Group
was refused InteriorDesign.com, etc.

Successful UDRP requests usually mean the current owner is using the name in
bad faith.

The usual explanation is if an apple orchard which has been in business for 50
years had bought the domain apple.com, then it would be considered entirely
reasonable for them to keep it - even if their business was not called Apple.
Whereas if an electronics form founded a few weeks tried to do the same thing,
they would lose it.

I'm not aware of any outrageously bad decisions in this area. It seems to be
quite sensible.

------
jschuur
The title is incorrect. The owner claims the domain is for sale. Just for the
right price.

~~~
MrJagil
This is also for the mods, who might wish to change the title:

The title is taken from the link near the bottom at <http://milk.com/>

So, it is in a sense the original, correct title. If you _really_ want to know
whether the domain is actually for sale or not, ask the owner.

------
djrobstep
Has anybody ever come up with a domain name allocation scheme that's more
advanced than first come first served? Surely there's a better way.

~~~
benologist
Why should domains get special treatment? Business names and trademarks are
also first come first serve, and if you're too late it's time to think of a
new arrangement of words or letters.

~~~
soult
Starting and running a company costs significantly more money than buying a
domain, and a trademark has to be used, not just registered like a domain.

Squatting a domain on the other hand requires minimal effort and money, and
there is no danger of losing the domain even if it is unused (or parked).

------
lepunk
color spent "only" $350,000 on color.com so $10 million seems to be bit high
for milk.com. On the other hand i totally understand the guy: He doesn't need
the money too badly so why would he sell? Also domain prices are only going up
so it is a good long term strategy to hold onto it

~~~
leoedin
> domain prices are only going up so it is a good long term strategy to hold
> onto it

Is there any basis for saying this? With the recent moves by ICANN to allow
more TLDs (including corporate ones), surely the value of .com is being
diluted? My feeling is that consumers are so used to weird domains at this
point that nobody really cares about particular domains. Is having milk.com
rather than johnsdairy.com really advantageous to a company?

Color seems to have been a disasterous excercise in spending other peoples
money from the beginning, so it's probably a poor example for sensible
business practice.

~~~
alistairSH
"My feeling is that consumers are so used to weird domains at this point that
nobody really cares about particular domains..."

I'd love to see some research indicating this is true. While I certainly am
used to "weird domains", I still often default to .com when trying to find
things. If I want to look at Ford's current line-up, my first instinct would
be to try ford.com.

Of course, that fails spectacularly when searching for Nissan cars.

~~~
leoedin
Youtube is full of instructional videos with no real content made by 14 year
olds. I've watched a few of these relevant to a website I run, and I was
amazed to find that rather than suggesting that users type the domain into the
address bar, a lot of seperate videos suggested that users google the name of
the site and click the first link.

I think there's a certain generational divide at play. If you have only really
used browsers with universal search in the address bar, and you've only lived
in a time in which the web is commonplace, your attitudes and habits are
likely to be quite different. When I first started using the web you had to
put the full and correct domain and protocol. Search bars didn't even exist.
Habits die hard.

I'm not actually sure if we're disagreeing. Ford only means cars because Henry
Ford started a car company. The argument for valuable domains (like milk.com)
is that the simple "Milk" brand is more valuable than building your brand
around a unique name. Consumers don't care that google is at google.com and
not search.com.

I think to some extent when the internet emerged, people transferred the
trademark way of thinking into the internet domain. The first dotcom bubble
was defined by people pouring money into something they didn't understand.
That included spending outrageous amounts on generic simple domains when in
fact, time showed that if you had a valid product (eg google, reddit, flickr)
you didn't need a simple expensive name to get widespread recognition. Search
completely sidelined the strategy that investors were going for - that if
someone was looking for something online they'd first try "buy.com" or
"pets.com".

------
JacobAldridge
Why not $10 million. As I just said in relation to the Wired / McDonalds post,
I wish I'd had the foresight to do this.

And if I had, you can bet I'd be milking it for everything I could.

~~~
hornetblack
I see what you did there.

------
jzwinck
This would be a good time for someone in the US to buy it:
[http://www.boston.com/dailydose/2013/01/15/demand-for-
breast...](http://www.boston.com/dailydose/2013/01/15/demand-for-breast-pumps-
surge-with-new-coverage-under-health-law/vpKgXHHkQNiu5sgs7Ir9BK/story.html)

------
sideproject
Have to admit, that's a pretty good domain to hold onto. :)

~~~
crusso
It's a good domain to sell. Increasing consumer acceptance of domains that end
in something other than .com dilutes the value of squatting on one particular
domain too long.

------
danielhughes
This is why I'm happy when I see other domain suffixes catching on in the
public domain (no pun intended). While I fully support this guy's right to
sell this domain for whatever price he can extract and to park it for as long
as he wants, it's a waste of a good piece of real estate. It's hard enough as
a developer to find a good domain for a project. I hope that one day the
public will be so accustomed to using suffixes other than .com that it will no
longer be necessary to pay such exorbitant prices in the secondary market.

------
tomelders
Why not rent it out?

------
logn
He should redirect (for free) to an almond or soy milk maker. I think the
dairy industry would be more interested. Or perhaps research on the percent of
puss in milk. Or PETA. Ok, I guess I'm evil.

------
hornetblack
It's good to know that there are a no <blink>s on his site.

------
smallegan
I bet if he was offered $5,000,000 cash he'd take it.

~~~
smspence
I bet he wants $5,000,000 after taxes. Knowing that Uncle Sam will take half
of whatever he sells for, he asks for $10,000,000.

------
tkahnoski
I cant help but mention <http://www.dairy.com/> as a related domain put to
legitimate use.

------
runewell
I understand your point of view. I am trying to sell Gnome.co and Dungeons.co
for just a few thousand bucks to no avail yet everyday I see many web-based
fantasy games launch on horribly difficult domain names.

Sometimes it's just best to keep the domains you like and wait until you have
the time to start a project.

~~~
Kiro
I rather take a bad .com name than launching my game on a .co. Sorry.

------
startupfounder
Moo Money Moo Problems!

------
thehodge
reminds me of steam.com

~~~
robotrobot
This guy is crazy if he thinks an organisation with annual /revenues/ of $110M
will spend $10M+ on a domain name.

~~~
guynamedloren
Well its not just any organization... the organization's sole purpose is
promotion (or at least that's what I gather from the name, _National Fluid
Milk Processor Promotion Program_ ) - and the internet happens to be a damn
good place to promote, especially on a memorable domain like milk.com. And
$110M a year revenue over 10 years is $1.1B revenue, and I think milk.com
would probably still be relavent and valuable 10 years out. So $10M of $1.1B
doesn't seem so bad at all.

~~~
blowski
Assuming, of course, that their business model predicts that over the course
of those 10 years $10M extra profit will be made from having the domain
milk.com.

I have no idea about the milk business, especially not its promotion. But I
would imagine that few people would not spend as much money on milk because
this organisation does not own the domain 'milk.com'.

It's more likely to be bought by a corporate wanting a pretty memorable
domain.

------
propelledjeans
Moo.

------
martinced
You guys don't get it.

He has a good job and doesn't care much for money.

In other words, he has enough fuck you money to say "fuck you", and that's
exactly what he's doing.

Wanna own this very cool four-letters dot com? You can't because he's giving
you the finger.

Well... You _could_ , but you'd have to fork out _at least_ $10 million.

At which point he's pretty much still giving you the finger.

~~~
larrys
Let me start by saying that I have been doing domains since the 90's and have
both bought and sold domains in the hundreds of thousands of dollars multiple
times.

And have made money doing this.

The domains I have purchased have mainly been for others so I have a good idea
of the "mentality" of a domain seller.

In addition by being an owner I get approached by plenty of people who want to
buy a domain that I own. I have seen every single approach out there on the
buy side multiple times.

As far as "not needing to sell" the only 2 times I ever failed to buy a domain
(for a client) was a domain that google owned where I was not able to buy that
domain for a client. I even tried to trade them domains that I owned that they
might need. And I was talking to the "right" people at google (high up contact
referred by a well known person at google.) They carefully considered and then
decided they weren't interested and would keep the domain that I needed. I
used this strategy because obviously I quickly recognized that money was not
going to make the deal (google doesn't need the money) which is why I went the
route of a trade and it actually almost worked (where "almost" means they
considered making a trade and took some time to ponder and pass around the
domains I offered for any projects in the pipeline.) The other time was a
domain that was owned by a Fortune 500 non-profit that a chinese buyer wanted.
I was the go between. The non-profit didn't want to sell (buyer was willing to
pay $50,000 nothing to sneeze at and the domain was not that valuable and well
worth it to sell at that price). They buyer came to me because they had bought
another domains from me and thought I could help them get this name. I still
feel I had an angle to get the domain from them but the client didn't want to
pay more money to try that angle. (Bonus points to anyone who can figure out
that angle it's not a legal angle by the way.)

No matter what this seller tries to feign my belief is there is a weak point
that would make him sell for way way less than 10,000,000 which of course is
absurd for this domain. There aren't many buyers for this domain at even a
$500k value. He may say he does not need the money but more than likely he is
what I call the "lottery ticket" mentality where he is hoping that some big
fish comes along and buys the domain for millions. While that _could_ happen
and he could be proven correct I don't think that _will_ happen based on my 17
years of experience doing this.

The other thing is he is trying to hard to justify why he won't sell the
domain and isn't interested. Shakespear comes to mind. As someone who owns
plenty of domains I know exactly how many inquiries someone gets when they own
a "good" short domain. Guess what? You don't get that many inquiries to be
annoyed when you own 1 or even 10 domains.

I could write a book on this obviously but the way to approach (a seller like
this) is not to send an email but to dangle a formal offer in front of him
with a deadline and see what he says then. Or I might get into a plane and fly
out and try to casually meet him to determine what makes him tick or uncover
some other info about him that will help me buy the domain (which could be 6
mos. later so the events aren't tied together).

~~~
gbelote
I would love to read that book - I've always found domain negotiation
fascinating.

~~~
larrys
Thanks.

The strategies that are used are unique and sometimes they are made up on the
fly depending on hunches that I have. And creativity is a must.

A recent deal I did was a domain where both the buyer (my client) and the
seller agreed to a price ($60,000) and both were happy. I perceived to much
eagerness on the part of the seller (the tempo of his replies and his voice on
the phone) and as a result managed to get him to lower his price by another
$4,000 which almost covered my entire fee. All this w/o the buyer even knowing
about it. (I did the entire deal from the start and the start price was $200k
and it's a pretty good name actually.)

It would be hard to put in words why I decided to take that chance along with
the risks etc. (And it didn't put any more money in my pocket I did it just
for the fun of following my hunch).

On the sell side I once raised a price by $50,000 merely hearing the buyers
voice over the phone. That said almost all deals are done by email not in
person and not over the phone. (See if you can guess why I prefer to do it
like that.)

This is all psychology and pattern matching and I've been doing it for many
years (as well as with things that have nothing to do with domains at all)
I've never read a book on it and I wouldn't do that because it would mess up
my instincts.

I also do work for VC's and angels acquiring domains and I've helped plenty of
people for free (but can't really do that because it's very time consuming).
Questions are always invited obviously.

------
thoughtcriminal
If you read between the lines this guy is saying he wants to sell it and is
expecting a lot for it. He has even researched numbers. Now he has a for sale
sign up: Milk.com for $10 Mil.

Better he just come out and say it.

------
moreo
Noone's mentioned the fact that "significant digits" could mean digits after
the decimal point.

~~~
sp332
ahem _8 significant digits to the left of the decimal point_

