Realspace: For Sale

Why am I selling Realspace.com?

After receiving a few unsolicited offers, I have decided to sell the domain Realspace.com.

It was never originally my intent to sell it when I registered it back in 1995. I dreamed up the name to use in one of my own projects. I still have a great fondness for the name and won't like giving it up. But I realized, after people offered to buy it, that everything has its price.

The price for Realspace.com is not cheap. I have it listed on greatdomains.com for $70,000. You can contact me directly to "dicker", but be serious.

Some people have expressed dismay or even anger over the price. It shows they haven't done their research; I have.

Domain names of similar quality (i.e. easy to pronounce, spell, and remember, and somewhat "catchy") often sell for a lot more than I'm asking. Actually, I feel that I've not asking as much as I could, but I have a personal aversion to excessive greed. The price is based partly on the going market rates but mostly on a personal feeling of how much money it would take to get me to give it up. Much less than my asking price, and I'd rather just keep the thing.

But if someone with plenty of money comes along who really wants the name, well, I've got two kids who will need college tuition in a few years.

Where did Realspace.com come from?

My original concept for realspace.com was as the name for an office suite for high tech start-ups. The idea, formed in 1994 was to get little 1-4 person companies out of the garage into a space where they could share resources and generate some synergy with similar ventures.

I envisioned a "funky" space for offices and labs, with a shiny front office with receptionist/secretary and conference/demo rooms which would be shared by the tenants. Besides office/clerical staff, tenants could share copiers, printers, scanners, etc., and technical support staff who could fix your PC or run backups for you at night ("digital janitors"). I wanted a nice common space for eating lunch or hanging out, and planned on bringing in lecturers for seminars.

The centerpiece of the idea was that the space would be completely networked, with a shared, high-speed Internet feed. Remember: this was 1994. There were less than a dozen ISPs at the time, nationwide. Internet connectivity could have been a big draw.

At the time, the term "cyberspace" was in vogue, for describing the Net and virtual worlds created with computers. In contrast, I was interested in a real, physical space where smart people could get together and interact - thus the name "Realspace".

I was busy with a startup company and never got a funding package together to make this space. In the meantime, ISPs sprouted like mushrooms, making home Internet access common, and business "incubators" showed up, offering some of the services I saw as needed. (One difference is that incubators tend to focus on nurturing the business side of your venture, where I meant to nurture the technical side.)

Since then, I've used the domain as a kind of "virtual" office park, to house both my own consulting business and some of my friends' company Web pages.

Why would someone want to buy realspace.com?

I think there are many projects or ventures which might like to use the name, Realspace.com.

I still think my original idea has merit. I think some people would like the idea of forming a "campus" atmosphere out of multiple small ventures (this is what incubators do) with a focus on nurturing technical development. But I don't have the resources or experience to deal with the real estate issues. Maybe someone else does.

General real estate businesses could be interested in the name, especially ones that work on a national level. The name could address home markets or business, or both.

Companies in the aerospace market might like the combination of real + space.

Certain companies seem to be buying up blocks of names starting with "real" or ending with "space".

Virtual reality companies could be interested. There was, for a few years, a VR company called Realspace, Inc. They asked to buy the domain, but I wasn't interested in selling at the time. They've since merged with another company, changing their name, and the new company has apparently gone out of business.

Probably, there's someone out there with a use for the name that I can't even imagine, who will want it and will pay my price for it. I'm waiting to hear from you.