Host.al, an accredited registrar for .al domains informed that the domain VOK.AL was sold for 1000 US$.
Although the name of the buyer was not been made public initially, the domain seems to be the main brand for the Start-up GETVOKAL. (GET)VOK.AL is an audio social network for creating, sharing and discovering entertaining, hilarious Vokes (audio clips). Normally the users can signup to create “vokes” of up to 1 minute in length
edit, add special effects in real time. The vokes can be posted privately or publicly.
VOK.AL has headquarters in Bengaluru, Karnataka India. Their crunchbase page indicates that they have raised funds from some prominent investors such as Accel Partners or Blume Partners.
There are continously question on what a domain hack is, or if a domain is a domain hack or not.
Below is a set of categories that constitute domain hacks. If you domain fits into any of the following categories, then you have a domain hack:
Word Hack
A domain where both sides of the dot combine to form a word,
Ever heard a salesman scream: Buy 1, Get 2!?
Well actually with this domain, you buy one and you get at least 10… domain hacks!
The short domain CI.AL has been placed for sale on a Flippa Auction.
What makes this domain so special, is the combination of English word domain hacks which can be created based on this name. A domain hack is a domain name that suggests a word, phrase, or name when concatenating two or more adjacent levels of that domain. In this case, CI.AL can serve as second level to many combinations which form a set of interesting English Words.
SO.CI.AL
SPE.CI.AL
CRU.CI.AL
RA.CI.AL
OFFI.CI.AL
PROVIN.CI.AL
FA.CI.AL
FINAN.CI.AL
SPA.CI.AL
The list below includes just a few of domain hacks which are based on ci.al. Someone with experience in domain hacks sales, will not miss the reference to SOCI.AL, a domain hack which as sold for 50,000$ a few years back to Meet.Me. Seems that CI.AL can create a more orthodox and interesting domain as in SO.CI.AL
But why should one use a domain hack!?
Domain hacks are for the bold and for those who provide memorable services in internet.
Some of the most succesful initiatives on internet have relied on domain hacks including:
Instagr.am
Chee.rs
Famo.us
Grou.ps
Bit.ly
Adf.ly
Del.icio.us
Indoo.rs
Instant.ly
Who.is
Pea.rs
Mov.ie
Illustrato.rs
Trib.al
YouTu.Be
etc
The price for domain hacks is also quite high depending on the value of the hack-terms:
Local.ly sold to Infor for $100,000
Me.ga sold to Kim Dotcom for $98,800
E.co sold to B52 Media for $81,000
T.ag sold to Kinetic Fin for $60,000
Soci.al sold to (Meet.me) for $50,000
Ma.de sold to Made Innovative for $25,000
Gr.ee sold to GREE for $25,000
Aweso.me sold to Theorydot for $24,189
Rep.ly sold to Social Media Ltd for $22,050
Love.ly sold to Quotidian Ventures for $20,000
K.im sold to Kim Dotcom for $20,000
futu.re sold to russian sci-fi author Dmitry Glukhovsky for $20,000
Gr.am sold to HP for for $18,000
Ae.ro sold to AeroFS for $10,000
Kro.me sold to Google for $10,000
And since we are discussing a .al domain, these are some prominent sales in this ccTLD.
Soci.al $50,000
Origin.al $20,000
Booking.al $12,000
Mur.al $10,000
LivingSoci.al €8,500
Sport.al €7,500
Loc.al x,xxx$
Port.al $5,000
Domaining is definitely a very interesting business. If you are up for a challenge, have some, own a piece of internet, own some virtual property, register a .al domain today ☺
Domain Hacks are a creative way to brand names in the internet culture. They make use of domain extensions to express words within the context of a domain such as: pla.net for a planet related website, who.is for a (domain) whois related website, del.icio.us for a website that appeals to visitors sense of pleasure! and so on. Domain hacks have been used by startups and big corporations. Instagr.am, ti.me, goo.gl, trib.al, bit.ly are just some of the examples of services we see everyday in our social lifes represented in domain hacks. Such domains stick with us because they are beautiful and because of the first impression they make. As the recognition of a word in a domain hack is also an intellectual operation, these domains are not easy to forget.
As number of new tlds in the market, increases everyday, the combinations to provide domain hacks increases as well. Xona Domain Hack tool provides a combination of more than 300 000 domain hacks accross different domain tlds. While the Xona tools is based on English as a dictionary, domain hacks can be created in any other language. As you might have imagined, there are good domain hacks, and worthless domains hacks, but in an industry of about 271 million domains, creative domains are always worth the attention.
As one cannot trace all the domain extensions, my experience has been related with .al domains. (.al domains are cheaper (12.99€) than let’s say .ly domains (75$), and more “secure” than .ng domains. From a geo-political position, .al domains are controlled from a country with similar outreach as the country controlling the generic .me). The .al zone, has more than 14000 domain hack combinations in the Xona list (and the list is based is only on English dictionary; the -al suffix is also used in Turkish and some other eastern languages to create words). All the .al zone has no more than 12 000 second level domains registered at this moment. As one might imagine, only a small portion are domain hacks.
I started registering domain hacks in this zone for pure pleasure, and I realized that while some domains sell for high bucks, there is also a market in domains which sell for a few bucks. For example, while soci.al sold for 50 000$ in September 2011, other domains may sell for less, and still provide a value to the customers. Domain aeri.al sold on Flippa for a sum between 50–60$. Finding those good domains like soci.al might be difficult, but finding domain hacks like aeri.al which still have a value is quite easy. Beside going through the Xona Listing and checking for domains which are not registered yet, you can also check for domains which are about to expire. Host.al, one of the accredited registrars for .al domains, provides a backorder service. Through this service, you can check domains which are about to expire and backorder them (a practice used by many big registrars like Godaddy, Name.com etc). As you scroll through that list, you might find valuable domain hacks such as minim.al (available for backorder at the time this article was being written) which will probably not sell for thousand of dolllars, but is a cool domain; and might probably sell for a few hundreds. At the moment the .al zone has some interesting domains for sale. medic.al, de.al, digit.al, an.al are some of the coolest hacks.
Do not risk much, have some fun and own a piece of internet, own some internet property ☺
There are still those thinking that domains are being overestimated. And yet another domain sale that hits the record. Social.org was sold for 228,600$ on NameJet. This may be considered a big sale, but it is still less then 10% of the price payed for the social.com domain a year ago in an auction. Social.com was sold for 2,600,000$ on a SnapNames auction. Beside these sales, another domain hack soci.al was sold for 50,000$ just a year ago.
It is reported that for the social.org domain, a total of 415 bidders signed up for the heavily promoted auction. This means that the interest in the actual trends in Internet will be always high. If you get a feeling what the content in the next internet will be about, than this is the moment to get a good domain.
Some of the good domains on the list are already registered, but there are still a lot of good domain hacks in between. The list contains more than 3500 domains. I have registered a few but if anyone would like to register more, I would easily recommend host.al for the .al domains.
