A Glasgow businessman is set to pocket around £1 million - by putting the city up for sale online.
Tommy Butler, one of Scotland's first domain name experts, is selling his popular site Glasgow.com after 21 years of owning the domain.
Mr Butler began his working life gutting chickens at a poultry market, but a combination of foresight and luck saw him buy up a number of web addresses when the internet was just taking off.
He sold many of them off for a significant profit before buying the prized Glasgow.com site in 2001 for a reported £100,000.
Experts predict the site will be bought up quickly, with interest already coming in from media, travel and tourism companies.
Mr Butler claims the decision to sell reflects a change in his domain owning business strategy.
He said: "Business on the internet has changed drastically in 21 years. Back then, Amazon was a river and no one knew what a Google was. My business has gone through equally considerable changes and that's why I'm reluctantly letting Glasgow go.
"Some people might say that it's not hard to keep an eye on a domain but I look after 2000 domains and associated accounts. Equally, as I did last year when I sold one of my top domains, it's about having domains that suit my current plans for the business while also letting someone else use a domain like this.
"In the past I've had interest from media companies, travel firms, tourism companies and a few Far East businessmen so it will be interesting to see who gets in touch about it.
"As we get enquiries at least once or twice a week about selling it I don't think we'll struggle to raise interest in it."
The domain comes with the Twitter handle @Glasgow and also a Linkedin account under the title Glasgow. The buyer will also have the option to use more than 150 Glasgow domains and websites.
Mr Butler claims that, while the money involved will play a role in who he sells to, he also wants to make sure it goes to a good home.
"The city - and the domain - have been good to me, so I want to make sure the next owner has some good plans for it," he said.
The businessman is well respected within the digital industry after snapping up domain names in the 1990s when others were still thinking of buying fax machines.
He bought one of his first sites for £100 and sold it two weeks later for £1200. He also tapped into a government drug initiative Know The Score and bought the domain name knowthescore.com, which he sold for £18,000 within a week.
However, his biggest success has been in buying up geographic domains, known as geodomains, which can attract significant interest.
Gordon Stevenson, head of digital for Newsquest Scotland & Ireland, said: "Tommy is well known and respected in digital circles.
"He had the foresight to speculatively purchase web domain URL’s at a relatively low cost during the early days of the internet, some of which now command exceptional returns on investment in the open market.
"Glasgow.com represents a significant discovery opportunity in the tourism, flight search and publishing sector, and I would be surprised if the final sale delivers less than $1.2m.
"In my opinion, that figure could even be closer to $2m, depending on the number of engaged bidders."
The sale of the site will not end Mr Butler's involvement in the Scottish domain name scene, as he still owns many other geodomains including Largs.com, Greenock.com and Kirkintilloch.co.uk.
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