For me, domain names represent internet real estate. And in the virtual world just as in the real world, prime real estate is worth serious money.

Take the domain name blue.com for example. It sold earlier this year for US$500,00. NHS.com sold for US$151,300. Darts.com sold for €45,000 and so it goes on. There are plenty more examples.

Genuine dotcoms - as in .coms - are generally the most valuable of domain names because of their worldwide appeal, but country domain names can often be just as valuable. History.co.uk sold recently for £12,500, BeHappy.co.uk for £5,287 and Lyrics.co.uk for US$80,000.

I have a portfolio of around 300 domain names and only wish I had had the foresight back in the 1990s to register some of the names that I have since had to buy on the resale market (and of course plenty of others that I would love, but can’t afford).
And tomorrow at 10am UK time, a new domain name land rush will begin as the new .eu domain name - the new European Top Level Domain extension - makes its public debut, allowing businesses and individuals to register names on a first-come first-served basis.

Already 300,000 .eu domain names have been registered during a sunrise period, mainly by trademark holders and businesses and as many as half a million could be registered tomorrow alone.

A large number of those names will be registered by domain name traders who will be hoping to sell them on for a profit, and no doubt money will be made.

I will be happy to watch the fun from the sidelines because .eu domain names just don’t do it for me. I really just don’t see the need for them or indeed the point of them, except perhaps for multi-national companies and pan-European organisations.

The main interest is likely to come from speculators and there are certainly thousands of names that are worth the £10 or so it will cost to register a .eu domain name. But thousands more will be bought that will languish in cyberspace, doing nothing and earning nothing for their new keepers.

Me, I’ll stick to country level domains, but each to their own and I can only say good luck, bonne chance, viel glück and bueno suerte to those who will be entering the fray tomorrow.