Monthly Archives: November 2007

Fri 30th November 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Any Wonder Why Domainers Get a Bad Name? - Look no further than a Rocky Mountain News article to understand why. What happens when a cybersquatter claims he’s a domainer, and then tries to differentiate himself from a cybersquatter? It gives domainers (i.e., domain investors) a bad name. An article in The Rocky Mountain News covers Leon Lee, a man who has cybersquatted on several professional baseball players’ names. Leon Lee jumped online and grabbed the domain name ClintHurdle.com the day the Rockies ... read more ...
Thu 29th November 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
CNN.com Covers .Asia Landrush - Article talks about upcoming domain launch, also refers to domainers as cybersquatters. It certainly wasn’t mean to be malicious, but a CNN.com article shows that the domain industry needs to keep spreading the word about what it really does. The article “Latest ‘Net gold may rest in Asia’s domain” says cybersquatters and domainers are the same thing: “The .Asia rollout shows in many ways how the Wild West days are dwindling for cyber-squatters — known ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
When Should You Send a Sedo Offer to Auction? - When you receive an offer on Sedo, should you send the domain to auction? When Sedo launched its auction platform, domain sellers rejoiced. Prior to launching the auction format, sellers could only negotiate one-on-one with potential buyers. There was no way to trigger a reserve price and get added exposure similar to Afternic’s model. When you receive an offer on Sedo, should you negotiate or send the domain directly to auction? The answer: it depends on the ... read more ...
Wed 28th November 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Moniker Geo-Domain Auction Ends Today - Silent auction ends starting at 3PM EST today. The silent auction portion of Moniker’s first-ever geo domains auction ends today. Auctions will start concluding at approximately 3PM EST, but many will last into the evening. A quick review shows limited bidding thus far, which may mean great buying opportunities. Anyone who has ever bid or registered in a previous auction can participate at no charge at silentauction.moniker.com. Prices start at $240. Also mixed ... read more ...
Mon 26th November 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Affiliate.us gets EUR 120,000 Bid - An auction for Affiliate.us is underway after receiving a 120,000 EUR bid at Sedo. Affiliate.us is being auctioned at Sedo and the reserve is met. Bidding started after the owner received a EUR 120,000 bid (approximately $178,000 USD). The seller is well known, but it is unclear who the buyer is. Given the very high price, let’s hope Sedo verifies the bidder quickly to avoid any sort of embarrassment. “Affiliate” is a valuable term, but this auction would ... read more ...
Sun 25th November 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
A Domainer’s Christmas List - Looking for something for that domainer on your holiday list? Domainers can be hard people to shop for. Here are a few domain-related gifts for your friends. 1. Watch My Domains. Give the domainer in your life a bit more free time thanks to Watch My Domains Pro. This software program helps domainers keep track of their domains, including DNS data and expiration dates. No more missed renewals or messing with spreadsheets of domains. 2. Sex.com (The Book). Here’s ... read more ...
Sat 24th November 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
A Lot to be Thankful For - This Thanksgiving, Domain Name Wire has lots to be thankful for. Thursday was full of turkey at my household. It’s that time of year — the holiday season – that ends up being more hectic than a holiday. But I have lots to be thankful for… 1. My readers. I appreciate each and every person who finds the site valuable. And there are a lot of you. In fact, my webhost recently threatened to shut down the site due to traffic spikes. They offered a simple solution: ... read more ...
Tue 20th November 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo Releases List for Next .Mobi Auction - Next auction begins November 28 at Sedo.com. mTLD, the registry for .mobi domains, must be very happy with its relationship with domain aftermarket Sedo. Sedo is working with mTLD to auction off premium .mobi domains. By all accounts, Sedo is getting top dollar for the domains. At the last auction, Sedo sold Taxi.mobi for $75,000 and Dating.mobi for $73,000. The next .mobi auction will start November 28. A quick review shows that this auction has perhaps the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tucows Relaunches Parking Services for Resellers - Domain registrar and software download site Tucows is relaunching its reseller parking programs. Will this help its sagging stock price? November has been a dissapointing month for shareholders in Tucows (AMEX: TCX). After opening November 1 at $.97 a share, the stock has fallen to a low of $.69 a share. Shares closed yesterday at $.79. At the heart of the drop was a dissapointing earnings announcement. Tucows blames reduced registration fees it is charging resellers. ... read more ...
Mon 19th November 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GeoDomains Auction Sells $480,000 Domains - Auction sells 34 domains including Perth.com for $200,000. Moniker’s first ever GeoDomain live auction sold $479,550 worth of domains. But this is an auction where the silent portion may out perform the live one. The live auction was at the Associated Cities GeoDomain Conference in San Francisco on Saturday. The conference only attracted people specialized in local and geo domains, so many of Moniker’s typical big bidders were absent. But you can expect these ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
An Open Letter to Google - I’m frustrated with Google. Google, I’ve had enough. I’ve been a customer since the beginning, when you sold search ads on an impression basis. I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars with you. Sure, I don’t spend as much as some of the big companies, but you were kind enough to send an electronic picture frame to me last year to thank me for my business. But I’ve had enough with the “black box” algorithms in your advertising program. Advertising ... read more ...
Wed 14th November 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Vista.com Sells for $1.25M - Business card and printing company buys domain from software company. Vista.com has sold for $1.25M. So, did Microsoft buy it for its Vista operating system? No. The domain was purchased by VistaPrint Limited (Nasdaq: VPRT). VistaPrint is famous for its free business card offers. Software as a Service company Innuity sold the domain. Innuity was known as Vista until 2005. When it changed its name to Innuity it started sending Vista.com traffic to VistaPrint ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
SnapNames Opens Submissions for SnapNames Live Auction - Submission period for January 22-23 auction ends December 11. SnapNames has opened submissions for its first live auction to be held at DOMAINfest Global in Hollywood, California next January. Both SnapNames and DOMAINfest are operated by Oversee.net. Oversee.net continues to show it’s on the ball. Not only has it announced the complete calendar with deadlines for the auction, but there’s even a phone number to call with questions. Here are the dates: Submissions ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Domainer Profile: Stuart Wood - A profile of a virtual (and real world) real estate investor. In an industry of self-promoters, Stuart Wood maintains a low profile. “I prefer not to toot my own horn,” he claims. You may not have heard of him, nor his hometown of Racine, Wisconsin. But Wood is a big player in the domain name space. Wood’s Salient Properties specializes in investing in both virtual real estate and physical real estate. He is perhaps best known for purchasing Wifi.com for ... read more ...
Tue 13th November 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
A Run on a (Domain Name) Bank - Could a domain registrar face a “run on the bank”? Shockwaves hits the financial world yesterday when an analyst said financial institution Etrade (NASDAQ: ETFC) may go bankrupt. This creates a so-called run on the bank, in which people pull their money out of savings and brokerage accounts for fear of losing the money. Deposits and brokerage accounts are insured, but that doesn’t mean people will get their money immediately in case of failure. NetBank, one ... read more ...
Mon 12th November 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Qtags Pitch Shows How to Use .Mobi - An elevator pitch for qtags shows a good use of .mobi. I’ve already ranted about bad web 2.0 naming from the Rice Alliance Information Technology and Web 2.0 Venture Forum at Rice University last week. But I also saw a good use of the .mobi domain name during the conference. qtags is a service that lets you text a phrase to a text number and get information back. For example, you might see a sign at a store that’s hiring and text ‘jobs’ to a 5 digit number. ... read more ...
Fri 9th November 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Bad Web Site Naming, Part XVI - More examples of bad web company names. It seems like I write about horrible web company domain names all the time. I have no idea how many times I’ve written about this, but I have a new crop to share with you. Yesterday I attended the Rice Alliance Information Technology and Web 2.0 Venture Forum at Rice University in Houston. There were a few good businesses there, but some had truly horrible domain names that will cost them dearly in the long run. The grand ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
“Not Sold!” GoDaddy Signature Auctions Final Day Fizzles - GoDaddy can learn from mistakes in its first Signature Auction. When GoDaddy sent out a press release announcing the auction lineup for its first Signature Auctions, the headline boldly stated: ‘Sold!’ Go Daddy Offers Live Auction for Premium Domain Names Perhaps it should have headlined “Not Sold!”. By my count, only 2 domains sold during the auction. This is despite GoDaddy changing the rules after the first day. It lowered the reserves on some domains. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Google Slap hits Developed Domains - An updated from Leonard Holmes of ParkQuick. Search engine ranking gets more important as more domainers develop their domains. SEO experts may debate whether Google’s PageRank number is really important for search engine ranking; but it is important for bragging rights and for selling ads. While Google usually avoids listing parked domains, some parked domains do end up with pagerank. I’ve also seen some of my WhyPark domains beginning to rank. Google recently ... read more ...
Thu 8th November 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy Adjusts Signature Auctions, No Change in Results - After first day failure, GoDaddy lowers reserves. After the first day of its premier Signature Auctions, GoDaddy made changes. According to the company: Thanks to everyone who gave us feedback on the first day of the Signature Auctions. We have been able to negotiate lower reserves on some of the remaining domain names in the auction and as a result we will also be re-listing several domains that were available yesterday. We are also changing the format slightly ... read more ...
Wed 7th November 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Taxi.mobi Lights Up Domain Auction during $75,000 - Today’s Sedo .mobi auction drew a big crowd and big bucks. [Editors note: all prices were captured in real time and are tentative.] Think .mobi prices have hit the stratosphere? Look no further than the conclusion of Sedo’s latest .mobi auction, which ended this afternoon. Taxi.mobi stole the show, hailing a top bid of $75,111. The domain received a whopping 83 bids. Also attracting attention was Homes.mobi, which sold for $53,700 with 53 bids. Houses.mobi, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Parking Services Range in Complexity - Simple or complex? Which is better for customers? You have lots of options when it comes to parking your domain names. With over a dozen parking services on the market, all promising you the “highest payouts”, how do you decide which one is best? Ultimately, you want to go where the money is. But another consideration is which service is easiest to use. There are two sides of the spectrum on complexity. On one hand is Parked.com, which takes about three minutes ... read more ...
Tue 6th November 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy Signature Auction Fails to Attract Bidders - Only 1 sale in first day of auction. The first of three days in GoDaddy’s first Signature Auctions failed to attract more than 1 bid, with only 1 of the domains selling. VirtualServer.com, the only good domain with a reasonable reserve, sold for $20,000. My perspective is that the reserve prices were way to high. They seem much higher than experienced auctioneers such as Moniker have achieved. Here were the reserve prices for today’s domains: BestPhone.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DomainSponsor Improves Statistics, Account Management - Domain parking company to release upgrades this weekend. Domain name parking service DomainSponsor is bolstering its statistics and account management functions. The release will be activated between 11PM PST November 9 and 11AM PST November 10. DomainSponsor account access will be limited during the upgrade window. The new statistics features include: Traffic by Country – View a geographical breakdown of visitors Traffic by Language – View an effective visitor ... read more ...
Mon 5th November 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
The Web Has Just Begun… - It hasn’t been that long since the web started to take off. I turn 30 today. Like many people, I tend to look back on my birthdays to see where life is taking me. It reminds me back 10 years ago, when I was a student at The University of Texas. It was about 10 years ago that I registered my first domain name. I paid $70 of beer money to Network Solutions to register the domain. In retrospect, those were the early days of the web. Consider my freshmen dorm. ... read more ...