While the entire world freaks out about the ebola virus, a couple of guys are kicking back and listening to offers for their "of the moment" domain name Ebola.com. Jon Schultz bought Ebola.com for an undisclosed sum back in 2008 and now him and business partner Chris Hood are looking to sell out at the price of $150,000.
The Nevada-based owner of Blue String Ventures outlined to CNBC why the domain would be a cracking investment: "Ebola.com would be a great domain for a pharmaceutical company working on a vaccine or cure, a company selling pandemic or disaster-preparedness supplies, or a medical company wishing to provide information and advertise services. There could be many other applications as well. With so many people concerned about the disease, any advertisement referring people to Ebola.com should get an excellent response."
Schultz believes that the eye-opening $150,000 price tag is pretty decent for what he calls a "premium domain".
"The fact that this is a top news story makes it very reasonable, in our opinion, as many domains sell for seven figures," he said.
Schultz also owns birdflu.com with Hood, along with the domain names for other diseases such as H1N1 (swine flu), the mosquito-borne disease Chikungunya and the Ebola-like Marburg virus.
He believes that some viruses, like avian flu, are solid investments. "Our domain, birdflu.com, is worth way more than Ebola.com," Schultz told the Washington Post. "We’re definitely holding onto that one for the event. That one’s airborne and Ebola would never go airborne in the United States like bird flu can."
Ebola.com currently links to Doctors Without Borders, one of the charities battling the ebola outbreak in West Africa. While it's likely that there's something useful that the Ebola.com could be used for, there's something inherently creepy about a couple of guys stockpiling disease domain names and waiting for them to "get big".
