Monthly Archives: February 2008

Wed 6th February 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How to Buy Expired Domains during Afternic - Afternic’s new expired domain service provides opportunity to get expired domains without much competition. Expired domain catchers that are tired of bidding wars at SnapNames and NameJet may want to check out Afternic’s expired domain auctions. I first wrote about the new service in December, but domains finally started going to auction in late January. Much like other services, Afternic expired auctions require you to preorder domain names. I preordered a ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Name Wire Survey Update - Leader update, prize reminder for 3rd annual survey. The first two years of the Domain Name Wire survey were closed, meaning that no one could see the results until the survey was closed. I’ve decided to change that this year by providing an update of leaders thus far for a few of the questions. My hope is that this will get more people to take the survey and vote for their favorite service providers. If you haven’t taken the survey yet, just click here. ... read more ...
Tue 5th February 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Communicate.com Gets a Strong Buy Recommendation - In an article published on Feburary 1, 2008, Andrew Feinberg on behalf of Kiplingers, gave a big buy recommendation on Communicate.com one of the stocks in our Domain Parking Stock Index. In the article M. Feinberg states that the company is worth 50 more than it was at the time of publication ($1.97 at the time of publication and now already over 50% more at $3.15).  Mr Feinberg cited the company value in that it has over  seven million dollars in cash, the value of it’s domains name, and the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
CashView Buys Bill.com, Changes Name - Startup harnesses the value of a high quality domain name. I first met René Lacerte at the DEMOfall conference last September. He was officially launching his new company, CashView. The company streamlines the process of accounts payable. “CashView” is a good, descriptive domain name for what the company does. But Lacerte decided he could do better, and recently acquired the domain Bill.com. But the story of how Lacerte got his hands on this premium domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Zero to One Million Book Releases Today - Ryan Allis’ book should resonate with domain investors. I had the good fortune to meet entrepreneur Ryan Allis at a retreat in Mexico last month. Ryan is a successful entrepreneur who has built several companies to $1 million in revenue. He’s not a one trick pony who got lucky; he has applied his formula for success many times over. Oh, and by the way, he’s only 23. Ryan is the CEO of the popular e-mail marketing company iContact, which does close to $1 million ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Name Blogs - Here’s a list of blogs, mostly covering domains, that I read on a daily basis. A lot of people ask me what blogs I read. I have a rule of thumb before I invest the time to start reading a blog: it must be in existence for at least 6 months. Many blogs pop up only to be abandoned after a couple months after their owners realize that blogging is a lot of work. I’ve seen many a domain blog follow this path, too. So here’s a rundown of everything in my Google ... read more ...
Mon 4th February 2008
Written by The Domains in EN
News Corp Says “NO” to Yahoo.com; MSFT Profits to tumble if Deal Moves Ahead - Yesterday we listed somethings that could stand in the way of Microsoft buying Yahoo.com.  One of those was the possiblity of a higher bidder from another company.  One possiblity we gave was News Corp, the owner of Fox and Myspace.com among many other media properties. Today according to reports, during a  conference call with analysts, Mr. Murdock said News Corp was definately NOT going to make a bid for Yahoo. In other news on the deal today, Microsoft annouced today that its bottom line would ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Montana.com Get’s a bid of $310K, though haven is Higher - Just as a follow up to the post of last week, the domain name, Montana.com which was up for auction at ebay.com, closed today without reaching the reserve price. The high bid was $310,000. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Microsoft-Yahoo: It’s Not a Done Deal - It’s still very early in the Microsoft-Yahoo.com deal. There are several factors that could prevent the deal from happening. A higher bidder.         Microsoft offered 44.6 billion dollars for Yahoo. Another bidder may come to the table with more. There are numerous other possible bidders including, News Corp, (NWS) the owner of Fox and Myspace.com. There is Baidu (BIDU) china’s leading search engine. The second most used search engine in China is the Alibaba Group (OOTC:ALBCF). The ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Rejected: $6M Offer for Cricket.com - Communicate.com rejects $6M for premium domain name. Domain name company Communicate.com (OTCBB: CMNN.ob) rejected a $6M offer for the domain name Cricket.com, according to an article in Kiplinger magazine. The article by columnist Andrew Feinberg picks Communicate.com as a “smart speculation” but also uncovers more details about the growing company. The article is likely the reason Communicate.com’s stock price soared 38% last week to close at $2.70 per share. ... read more ...
Sun 3rd February 2008
Written by The Domains in EN
Google: “Microsoft’s antagonistic bid for Yahoo raises discouraging questions” - Google has fired the first shot in what will certainly become a major debate as the proposed purchase of Yahoo.com by Microsoft goes foward. In a post on its offical blog, a post by David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer of Google wrote: “”””Microsoft’s hostile bid for Yahoo! raises troubling questions. This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It’s about preserving the underlying principles of ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
NameJet Auction Updates - Some updates from auctions closing in the past few days over at NameJet.com: rockcity.com $12,000 getcertified.com $7,700 bingcherries.com $5,300 Highenergy.com $5,200 smsshortcodes.com $5,100 Gina.org $1,709 xratedpics.com $1,300 gastricbypass.org $1,010 Interesting  to note that rockcity.com has already been subject to at least one URDP Proceeding http://www.arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/94906.htm Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Mac Operating System Usage Grows - According to the latest market share data from Net Applications, Mac OS X’s slice of the computer operating system market grew 3.56% in January while Microsoft Windows’ dropped .36%. Mac’s market share stands at a record 7.57%, up 21.7% from Jan. 2007. “Apple’s market share gains in December for the Mac and iPhone are impressive,” the report concludes. “However, for the last days of December, the numbers are nothing short of spectacular.” The really good news for Apple, according ... read more ...
Sat 2nd February 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
idate Live Auction nets $160,000 - Moniker.com held its live auction at idate show yesterday, and it looks like from the live audio feed, Here are the domains that sold: eromance.com  $100,000 FreeDatingService.com $20,000 FreeSingles.com $21,000 FemaleDormitory.com $9,500 DateMyWife.com $5,000 FreeSocialNetworkingSoftware.com $300 SocialNetworkingBlogs.com $400 SoftKiss.com $3,500 SocialNetworkingCanada.com $250 LatinSocialNetworking.com $200 FreeSocialNetworkingSites.com $200 SeniorDate.net $650 ChristianSocialNetworkingSites.com ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Own a state: Montana.com on sale during Ebay - We have written to the owner and can confirm that the domain montana.com is currently on sale on ebay. The current price is $140,000 with over a day to go and the reserve price has NOT been met. If you have interest in bidding on, or following the auction here is the link: Montana.com  http://cgi.ebay.com/Montana-com-Domain-One-Word-State-Name-Domain_W0QQitemZ120216301687QQihZ002QQcategoryZ11153QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
Fri 1st February 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Idate Live Auction today - Moniker.com is holding the Idate convention auction today at 5:30PM EST Here is the list of domains to be aucitoned, with reserve price ranges: lovestories.com $100,001 – $250,000 freesocialnetworkingsoftware.com No Reserve socialnetworkingblogs.com No Reserve orlandosingles.com $10,001 – $25,000 celebrityshow.com $1 – $5,000 softkiss.com $1 – $5,000 militarydates.com $5,001 – $10,000 socialnetworkingcanada.com No Reserve latinsocialnetworking.com ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
New York Times Covers a Industry - The New York Times published an article today  covering the domain industry and the DomainFest show and auction last week. Overall a very positive article, highlighting the maturing of the industry, the influx of venture capital money and investment potential of domains. The only negative brought up in the story was basically domain tasting a practice that has already, as we have written about, is about to be eliminated by the imposition of the ICANN fee on all domain registrations. Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
SnapNames Silent Auction Does $940,000 -   SnapNames Silent Auction of DomainFest closed on Thursday and the final total from the silent auction was $940,000.   The top name, AR.Com sold for the minimum bid of $225,000.   This domain which used to belong to Alice’s Registry is of course also the state code for Arkansas.   Combined with the domains that sold at the live event, the total was just over four million dollars.   This is very encouraging in light of all the bad economic news effecting the stock market.   A total ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
What’s Up with Communicate.com?? - While Yahoo and Google have suffered double digit percentage losses this week, one of the companies in our Domain Parking Stock Index has rocked up over 30% in three days. On Monday Communicate.com sat at Just under $2 a share. On Thursday it closed at $2.70. On Tuesday the company announced that they hired Alliance Advisors, LLC to develop, implement, and maintain an ongoing stock market support system for Communicate.com,  with the general objective of expanding awareness in  the company among ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What Would Microsoft-Yahoo Mean for Domainers? - The acquisition could mean a lot. Or maybe not. I had a conversation with myself this morning about Microsoft’s (MSFT) proposed buyout of Yahoo (YHOO). It went something like this: Me: So, Andrew, what do you think this deal will mean for domainers? Myself: Tough call. From a search perspective, this is #3 taking over #2. It will be interesting to see how they merge the two company’s pay-per-click platforms. Me: Yeah, both platforms lag Google Adwords. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Microsoft Makes Offer for Yahoo! - Microsoft offers to buy search giant. Microsoft Corporation (NADSAQ: MSFT) has made an offer to by search company Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) for $31 per share, a premium of about 60% over yesterday’s closing price. If this $44B offer is accepted and approved by regulators, it could have a big impact on the domain name industry. Yahoo provides advertising feeds to a number of domain parking companies, including Parked.com and ParkingDots. Frank Schilling parks his ... read more ...