Is it Time to Buy a Drone Domain?

Drones are everywhere today and the industry seems poised for geometric growth. Projections for industry employment and revenue grow with each new pundit forecast. So is now the time to snatch up a few “drone” and “uav” domains in advance of the gold rush? Think about the stacks of cash that were made in the sale of computer and mobile generic domain names. Will there be a million dollar domain name sale in the drone space?  To whet the appetite, here’s a list from Wikipedia of the most expensive domain sales of all time:

• Insurance.com $35.6 million in 2010
• VacationRentals.com $35 million in 2007
• PrivateJet.com $30.1 million in 2012
• Internet.com $18 million in 2009
• Insure.com $16 million in 2009
• Sex.com for $14 million in November 2010
• Hotels.com $11 million in 2001
• Fund.com 2008 £9.99 million
• Porn.com 2007 $9.5 million
• Fb.com by Facebook for $8.5 million in November 2010
• Business.com for $7.5 million in December 1999
• Diamond.com 2006 $7.5 million
• Beer.com 2004 $7 million

DJI Innovations, proud manufacturer of the phantom line of drones, bought the three letter domain, DJI.com for a reported $300,000 last summer.

So what about the biggies, drone.com, drones.com, uav.com? Well, drone.com is a parked domain apparently waiting for the right buyer. Attempts to reach the owner were unsuccessful. Drones.com is owned and operated by Shamim Mohamed, an individual apparently focused on the failures of the Bush administration with an image of the “important caribou calving areas” on its homepage.

UAV.com is owned by General Atomics.  “Founded originally in 1955 as a division of General Dynamics, General Atomics (“GA”) and its affiliated companies now constitute one of the world’s leading resources for high-technology systems ranging from the nuclear fuel cycle to electromagnetic systems, remotely operated surveillance aircraft, airborne sensors, and advanced electronic, wireless and laser technologies.”

Are you ready to get the checkbook out and own some domain real estate in the drone space? Here’s what $10,000 will buy (give or take a couple of thousand):

DroneMarketPlace.com
Farmingdrones.com
MARIJUANADELIVERYDRONE.COM
droneflyer.com
dronevision.com
peepingdrones.com

At the $5,000 investment level, you could have:
dronecatalog.com
dronesolution.com
wdrone.com
ABCDrones.com

Time will tell for drone domains, but a wise and rich man once said “Domains have and will continue to go up in value faster than any other commodity ever known to man”. Of course, that same man failed to register his own domain name, BillGates.com.

For reference, SAJ Technologies, Inc., the parent company of DRONELIFE.com paid $1,500 for their domain (dronelife.com) in February of 2014.