Was Twitter The Mystery Buyer of Retweet.com for $250,000?

I ran across an interesting post over at the DomainGang.com blog about the recent sale of Retweet.com on Flippa for $250,000. The post was about the trademark ramifications of the term, “retweet.” Apparently there are two pending trademark applications for the term.

The post details these applications and while I’m sure you’d love to read about all the legal mumbo jumbo, I’ll spare you the details. What’s important is that one of the applications was filed by Twitter and the other one wasn’t. Furthermore, the fact that there are pending applications indicates the term will likely be a registered trademark so where does that leave the buyer of Retweet.com from a legal stand point?

Well accordingly to the post, it might not matter. The author “guesses” that the buyer may in fact be Twitter themselves. How does the author come to that conclusion? Given the proximity of the status update of Twitter’s trademark application (March 1, 2010) and the sale of Retweet.com the following week, Twitter could very well be the buyer.

It makes sense to believe Twitter may be the buyer for a few reasons. One, purchasing a high-traffic domain and service so closely related to their own makes good business sense. Second, paying $250,000 for a domain that is getting 12 million monthly visitors is a drop in the bucket given the valuation of Twitter. Finally, as the author of the post points out, making such a purchase adds weight to their trademark application against the other applicant – giving them the edge in obtaining the trademark.

What Say You? Do You Believe Twitter Was The Buyer?
Sound Off In The Comments Below!

About Travis Van Slooten

Travis is an affiliate marketer and website flipper who ran FlipWebsites.com until the Fall of 2010.

View all posts by Travis | Visit Author's Website

This entry was posted in Buying Websites and tagged Website Sales Analysis.

http://www.flipfilter.com Flip Filter

Apparently, the property market runs in cycles and it seems the dot com industry may do also!

With so many new methods of monetisation appearing in the last few years, and advertisers looking for a better return on investment we could be looking at another dot com boom, with (relatively) small purchases like this by the larger players being the early indicators.

I look forward to the day when the average person will buy and flip a website with their redundancy payout instead of relying solely on bricks and mortar business or property as a hands on investment!

Keep up the fine journalism Travis!

Justin

Travis

Justin:

Thanks for your kind words. I checked out your site. I haven’t signed up for an account yet but I will as I’d like to take it for a test ride. If I like it, I’d like to interview you if you’re interested and give it some exposure. I’ll be in touch!

Travis

http://www.flipfilter.com Flip Filter

Thanks Travis,

Look forward to hearing from you.

http://flippingawesome.com Ian and Amy Anderson

Hey Travis, I was so jealous when that sold! That is a great payday! I’ve been wondering who bought it as well, the domain name whois (http://whois.domaintools.com/retweet.com) says it belongs to this guy:

Tyson Quick
4990 Wildrye Dr.
Boise, Idaho 83703
United States

Maybe that’s a secret Twitter guy? Never know!

Anyway, nice blog man! We flip website as well!
Ian

Travis

Ian:

Thanks for stopping by – and thanks for saving me the time digging up the whois info. I was going to do that next week as an update to this post so thanks for taking care of it for me:)

I know you guys are flippers. I’ve been following you guys – and not in a freaky weird sort of way either…lol. Your blog is great and I enjoyed the interview Flippa did with Amy. I want to interview you (or Amy) as well and ask you some questions that Flippa didn’t ask. I’m going to shoot you an email next week. Take care!

Travis

http://flippingawesome.com Ian and Amy Anderson

I’m glad you like our site! That’s always nice to hear! Send us an email at any time – we’d love to talk!

- Ian

http://www.thetrademarkcompany.com The Trademark Company

But the domain name is not trademark use. So purchase of the domain name in and of itself would not help them with a later-filed application per se. However, the ability to outspend the earlier filer may be in play, especially if a $250K price tag for a domain name is any indication.

In any event, look for either a big buyout or a great fight before the TTAB coming.

Travis

Thanks for your comments. You guys obviously know what you’re talking about since you represent a trademark company. I have a question for you regarding the trademark application. According to the post I referenced, the author said Twitter has a *pending* application and that it was updated on March 1, 2010. You are saying that if Twitter did indeed buy this website it wouldn’t help them with a “later-filed application” – except Twitter already has an application pending. The question then is, would this purchase in fact help them seal the deal in terms of getting the trademark since they have an application already pending?

Travis