Swifties gifting TS.com
to Taylor Swift

Remark: This website is targeting the future campaign promotors (referrers) and the media, and not the actual fan base, the backers, who will be directed to the Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign page directly once we go online.

‘TS.com for Taylor Swift’ Crowdfunding Campaign

Executive summary:

Fans aim to raise $6 million to buy the domain TS.com and gift it to Taylor Swift. This prevents "Truth Social" from acquiring it and increases Taylor's online presence. Perks for supporters include a potential meet-and-greet with Taylor or Eras Tour tickets. The campaign uses an escrow agent to ensure secure transactions.

What is this about?

Taylor Swift fans will be crowdfunding US$ 6 Million for the acquisition of the domain TS.com and giving it to her as a gift. Through that, her fans would prevent the domain from potentially benefiting “Truth Social”. And Taylor Swift would be the first Entertainer to have their very own two-letter .com domain name: www.TS.com

Why TS.com and what if we don’t secure it for Taylor?

The domain name TS.com is currently Chinese-owned. The owner has been approached regarding a potential sale of TS.com to the social network “Truth Social” (often referred to as “TS” by its members). As two-letter .com domains are mostly affiliated with highly reputable entities like VW, AA, or FB, the domain TS.com would increase Truth Social’s popularity, trust, and visibility.

How do we promote the crowdfunding campaign, what is “in” for promotors and fans (what are the perks)?

The crowdfunding campaign will be promoted by Taylor Swift fan pages and forums. The group admins will be provided with unique IndieGoGo campaign “referrer links” that they may post in their groups to guide their members to the campaign. Each campaign link has a referrer ID embedded in it to tie it to the specific admin (or group). All contributions made through a specific referral link will thus be attributed to the ID owner - the specific admin or group. This enables us to allocate the perks to those groups that contributed the most.

Currently, two perk scenarios are being evaluated:

1) A small delegation of fans handing over the domain to Taylor in person:

As a perk, the 5 most campaign-supportive fan page admins and 10 fans (crowdfunding campaign backers) will be chosen to build a small delegation that will be flown to Nashville, Tennessee, to “hand over” the domain name to Taylor Swift. All travel-related costs, 3 nights 5-Star hotel, and daily fan group lunches and dinners inclusive!
We will choose this scenario only if we can secure prior confirmation from Taylor’s management.

2) But we should be prepared for the worst: Sometimes schedules get crazy, especially Taylor’s. If we can't secure that in-person meeting before the campaign goes live we will offer this perk scenario:

The crowdfunding campaign would fund 30 Eras Tour tickets, travel (flights), and 2 days of accommodation inclusive. The more support a fan page or group has generated the higher the chance to get tickets allocated. The group admins will then be aided to do a draw among their members who supported the campaign: the higher the individual support the higher the chance to be drawn.

We are still in the conception phase of the campaign and are currently evaluating the details regarding both perk scenarios and are grateful for any feedback.

The “6 Million Dollar Page” - TS.com will be a fan page for 6 months before we hand it over to Taylor

Once we have acquired the domain name TS.com the contributors to the campaign will have a small space on the website ts.com - each Dollar that they contributed to the crowdfunding campaign will give them 1 pixel. So if you and friends give $900 together, you get a 30x30 spot for your logo and it will be linked to your website or social media account. A great way for indoviduals, fan group admins and businesses to present themselves for 6 months on ts.com! Say a fan group admin managed to collect US$ 90,000 on his TS facebook page then this group gets a quite sizeable 300x300 pixel banner. The banner can for example link back to the fan page. We envision a literal “battle of the fan groups” as to who secures the biggest banner on TS.com!


How is the campaign secured?

This is a “fixed goal” crowdfunding campaign, if the goal isn’t met (say we raise only US$ 3 Million) then the backers will get reimbursed by the platform.

There are two assets involved here:

  • The crowdfunding platform will have US$ 6 Million in the bank account once the campaign is successfully completed. That is the cash asset.

  • Then we acquire the domain name TS.com in exchange for (most) of these funds and that is the second asset: the very valuable ultra-premium domain name TS.com.

To prevent any potential loss or mishandling of the two assets we will employ the services of an escrow agent: a U.S. law firm specializing in domain name escrow transactions.

The crowdfunding platform is instructed to pay out the funds to the law firm only. The law firm organizes the acquisition of the domain name: we already have an agreement with the owner of ts.com. Once the law firm secured the domain they will hand it over to TAS Rights Management (or whatever intellectual property company Taylor will want it in).

Why US$ 6 Million, why is TS.com so expensive?

First of course not the entire raised amount goes into the acquisition of the domain TS.com. There are affiliated costs and fees, e.g. for the crowdfunding platform, lawyers, the fan trip, etc. But generally, two-letter .com domains are very, very expensive, especially if the two letters are considered to be “premium”. I have been working in the field of ultra-premium domain acquisition for over 20 years now. Here is some information about the value of two-letter .com domain names:

TS.com is one of only 676 two-letter .com domain names (“ll.com”). Who else has a ll.com domain name?

  • FB.com Facebook

  • VF.com Vanity Fair Magazine

  • GQ.com GQ Magazine

  • SI.com Sports Illustrated

  • CC.com Comedy Central

  • UA.com Under Armour

  • VW.com Volkswagen

  • AA.com American Airlines

  • WU.com Westen Union

  • PG.com Procter & Gamble

  • and many, many more, like LG.com, GE.com, HP.com, GO.com, HM.com, etc.

Rare .com domain names are sold at exorbitant prices:

  • Tesla.com sold in 2016 to TESLA for US$ 11 Million (US$ 14 million in today’s money value)

  • FB.com sold in 2010 to Facebook for US$ 8,5 million (US$ 11 Million today)

  • WE.com sold in 2015 to WeChat for US$ 8 Million (US$ 10 Million today)