Numeric Domains a Hit?

There’s been a lot of buzz lately regarding numeric domains (domains consisting of only numbers). Numeric domains are used worldwide for a variety of applications, most notably:

-Area codes
-Phone numbers
-Zip codes
-Lucky numbers

Numeric equivalents of words spelled on cell phone key pads
-Radio and TV stations
-Replacement for common short codes
-Addresses

-Dates
-brands, products and promotions

Scarcity:
All 1, 2, 3, and 4-digit numeric .com domains are taken. Within a recent 2 week period, (February 4-15), over 19,000 unregistered 5-digit numeric domains were sold. There none left. Now, all 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5-digit domains can only be purchased on the resale market.

Value:
It is virtually impossible to buy a one or a two digit numeric domain. Three, four and 5-digit domains regularly trade on the aftermarket for hundreds and thousands of dollars. 173.com recently sold for $302,790 making it one of the highest priced numeric domains sold to date.

Market Forces:

• There are over 3 billion cell phones in use around the world and growing. There were over 1 billion new cell phones sold in 2007 alone.
• Handset functionality is steadily improving to enhance the mobile internet experience
• New cell phone subscriptions outnumber new landline installations
• More and more people, especially in Asia and Europe, and increasingly in North America, are accessing the internet on cell phone
• New wireless spectrum is being deployed in the US that will expand wireless services. Flat-rate data plans are becoming the norm
• Several blogs such as www.numericdomains.com are dedicated solely to the discussion and promotion of numeric domains
  Advertising on cell phones is currently at $2 billion annually and growing rapidly

Economic sectors:
-Movies
-Television
-Music
-Games
-Peer-to-peer networks
-Social networks
-Health
-Photo and video sharing
-Banking and payment systems
-Gambling
-Travel and transportation

Search: Google uses 466453.com for mobile search. ChaCha (a popular human assisted search engine) went out and bought not only its numeric domain, 242242.com, it also bought dozens of potential typos of 242242.com.

Pure Numeric Web sites:

Some of the popular Web sites on the Internet use numeric domains as their primary business address, including:

888.com (Gaming)
3663.com (Food)
163.com (Asian)
56.com (Asian)
41414.com (Auction)

One of the most under utilized, and potentially lucrative areas to exploit, is to use numeric domains to access web sites on cell phones. For example, in the case of LinkedIn, in order to get to their mobile web site, users have to input m.linkedin.com –a total of 28 key pad inputs. Using the numeric equivalent of the term LinkedIn – 54653346.com, only requires 15 key pad inputs, nearly 100% fewer inputs.

I predict that this segment will show dramatic growth in the coming years as companies realize the ease of use and versatility of numeric domains.