Monthly Archives: March 2008

Mon 31st March 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
NameJet.com Sales - Here are some notable sales from NameJet.com for this past week: hedges.com                                 $11,900 smithers.com                               $11.600 prisa.com                                     $8,600 bionanotechnology.com             $5,600 travelcuba.com                            $4,211 leadgenie.com                             $3,875 directoffers.com    ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Dark Blue Sea: Domain Portfolio Worth $600 Million Retail - Company values retail value of portfolio at approximately $1,000 USD per domain. A Dark Blue Sea investor presentation (pdf) suggests that the retail value of its 570,000 domain portfolio is about $600 million. The presentation also provides a wealth of other statistics and details on its deal with domain registrar GoDaddy. Dark Blue Sea, an Australian company, is well known to domain name investors for its Fabulous domain registrar and domain parking services. As ... read more ...
Sun 30th March 2008
Written by The Domains in EN
ICA: WHO IS NOT ON THE LIST, It’s Shocking - First for the good news. This is our last ICA post for a while. We started several weeks ago appealing for funds. A week ago Friday we announced a fund matching program. A few days later we took a look to see who was on the ICA membership list, and then on Friday we posted the great results from our matching Fund program. Now to complete the cycle, we look at the companies and indivudals, that are not on the ICA membership list published several days ago. Let’s start with companies in the news ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Pizza.com Auction Eclipses $2.5 Million - Auction for pizza.com hits reserve, may be one of biggest domain name sales ever. An auction for Pizza.com is attracting attention at Sedo. The domain has 63 bids and a current price of $2,505,000 USD as of the time of writing. That’s a whole lotta pizza — about a quarter million medium pepperoni pizzas. Although bids are still subject to verification, this sale could enliven the entire domain name market. The auction ends on April 3. Other domains in the ... read more ...
Fri 28th March 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Our ICA Match Program Ends as “the many successful fundraising bid ever for ICA” - Last Friday after finding that only 10K in contribution were received by the ICA in the month since the Snow Bill was introduced, we challenged the domain industry to step up to the plate and join the ICA. We put our money where our mouth is and offered to match up to 10K in new member contributions. We are happy to report that as Michael Collins stated today “The matching program has been the most successful fundraising effort ever for ICA” There were 19 new members this week and the ICA collected ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
VeriSign to Raise .Com Domain Fees Again - VeriSign announced today that is raising .com registration fees to $6.86 for effective October 1, 2008. As you may remember in 2006, VeriSign was granted a new contract that allowed them to increase the registration fees in four of the next six years. In October 2007, VeriSign raised the .com registration fee from $6.00 to $6.42 . Now VeriSign has elected to raise the fee another 7% or $.44. Verisign can raise the fees another 7% twice more in the one of the following four years. At the next increase ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Chitika Launches Domain Parking Program - Company lets domain owners create stores for each of their domains. Online advertising company Chitika, which has long been an alternative to Google Adsense, has launched a program for domain parking. This is good news for domain owners who have seen parking revenues drop due to changes at ad providers. The Chitika program essentially lets you create an on-the-fly “store” at your domain using the company’s ShopLinc technology. You get paid based on clicks, ... read more ...
Thu 27th March 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
GreatDomains.com Auction Starts Today - A premium online auction is starting today at GreatDomains.com and the auction closes on April 3. Here is the list with reserve ranges: absense.net              no reserve aerobicfitness.com       1 – 4,999 $US applicant.com            5,000 – 19,999 $US assistants.com           20,000 – 49,999 EUR astounds.com             1 – 4,999 $US autos.net                50,000 – 199,999 $US babysittingjobs.com      20,000 – ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Google Paid Clicks Slows for Second Month in a Row - According to a report by the research firm comScore, Inc., Google had its second straight month of disappointing growth in paid clicks. Data from comScore indicate that Google’s paid clicks in February rose only 3% compared with the same month a year earlier. Paid clicks are the number of times Google search users click on a sponsored-search result, generating revenue from the company’s advertising customers. Google reported 25% growth in paid clicks in its fiscal fourth quarter ended in ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Breaking: VeriSign Hikes Domain Prices Again - Company to hike .com and .net prices for second year in a row. Domain Name Wire has obtained a copy of communications sent to registrars today regarding VeriSign’s (NASDAQ: VRSN) next rate hike for .com and .net domain names. It is copied below. ___________________ March 27, 2008 VIA Email and Express Delivery Re: Notice of Fee Change To All Registrars, VeriSign, Inc. and it’s wholly owned subsidiaries (“VNDS”) is hereby notifying all registrars of a fee ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Hey, Take a Chill Pill! - The domain industry isn’t perfect, but you need not run for the hills. I got a kick out of a message posted on Rick Schwartz’s blog after he announced he would stop blogging: I hope you all realize what is going on here. The message should be loud and clear. Rick has been warning everybody all year to help him mount a defense against what is coming. Very few are paying attention, and very few are helping him build the fort to protect against the coming invaders. ... read more ...
Wed 26th March 2008
Written by The Domains in EN
Skenzo gets Investment from Ashmore Group - We received this release from Skenzo.com today.   Skenzo Announces Private Equity Investment from Ashmore Group   Skenzo, a leading provider of technology, in the traffic monetization business, today announced the completion of a significant minority investment from the Ashmore Group. The Ashmore Group is one of the world’s leading Investment Firms managing funds over US$36.5 billion.   By revenue, Skenzo was the #1 fastest growing domain parking company worldwide for 2006 2007. By headcount, ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Travelcuba.com: How can NameJet.com sell this?? - The domain TravelCuba.com is currently at auction at NameJet.com. There are over 2 days left the high bid is at $750 and there are 86 people who backordered the name. Now here’s the problem. NameJet.com is owned in part by Enom.com. Actually NameJet.com platform is based on enom’s own auction platform. It was just earlier this month that we told you about a New York Times article about how the same enom, had taken away 80 domains owned by a non-US resident which were all ‘cuba” related ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Communicate.com changes name, creates acquistion - Communicate.com (CMNN.ob) changed its name to Live Current Media, Inc. The company also announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Auctomatic, an early stage start-up.  Auctomatic has developed commerce technology and tools that enable sellers to easily transact online through sites such as eBay. The acquisition is expected to close in May. The company had this to say about the acquisition of auctomatic: “”””The pending acquisition of Auctomatic is an opportunity for Live Current ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Communicate.com Changes Name, Announces Acquisition - Company built on generic domain names continues string of major announcements. Communicate.com (CMNN.ob) is changing its name to Live Current Media, Inc., the company announced today. A name change was hinted at during an interview with Kiplinger earlier this year. The company also announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Auctomatic, an early stage start-up funded by, among other investors, Y Combinator LLC. Auctomatic has developed commerce technology ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
TRAFFIC Down Under Preview - A preview of TRAFFIC’s upcoming Australia show. The popular TRAFFIC domain name conference heads to Australia this year for the first TRAFFIC Down Under November 18-20. The event is being promoted by Fabulous.com and TRAFFIC founders Rick Schwatz and Howard Neu. I recently caught up with Fabulous to understand how this show came about and what we can expect. Domain Name Wire: How did this event evolve? Fabulous: There has always been a lot of interest from the ... read more ...
Tue 25th March 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICA Membership List is Posted: Are we on a list? - Last week a number of readers commented on this blog wanting to know who were members of the ICA and their level of membership. Today the ICA published it’s list of members by membership levels. So are you on the list?? I also received a lot of posts regarding that the “big” domainers needed to give to the ICA, because they had more to lose than the smaller Domainers. However, although the “big” guys may have more to lose, they also have the funding to fight their fights. “Big” domainer’s ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Citigroup: Microsoft will lift bid for Yahoo - Accordingto reports, a Citigroup analyst, Mark Mahaney upgraded Yahoo to a buy and predicted that Microsoft Corp. will raise its bid to $34 a share, saying that, despite the uncertainty surrounding the proposed merger, Microsoft is determined to pursue the deal, even at a higher price. “We believe the likelihood of Microsoft of walking away from the deal is small,” he said in a research note. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Credit Suisse: Domain Name Parking to Slow - Analyst predicts decrease in parked domain names. Credit Suisse Internet technology analyst Philip Winslow predicts domain name parking will become less profitable, leading to a drop in domain registrations, reports financial publication Barron’s. According to the Barron’s article: To wit, some enterprising folks will sign up tons of temporary, or “parked” Web sites, to drive keyword search results to their pages and collect an ad fee they split with Google. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What’s Happening to a GoDaddy Brand? - Will the GoDaddy brand wither as it is institutionalized? GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons is one outspoken guy, and he has built a brand around this “edginess”. He recently took a stab at video blogging on his blog BobParsons.com. He discussed the idea of having former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s call girl Ashley Dupre be the next GoDaddy girl (he said he was open to discussion, which suggests this video was recorded before GoDaddy’s PR team dismissed the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Highlighterz: Helping to Kill Off Domain Parking One Click during a Time - Site encourages violation of pay-per-click rules. Ever wonder why advertisers want to opt out of domain name advertising? Fraud. Here’s just another example that went live yesterday: highlighterz.com. Highlighterz purports to help you generate paid parking income without violating parking service terms of service: HighLighterz, find what you need. We provide your PPC web page to all internet users, without violating the PPC rule of no web sites linking parked ... read more ...
Mon 24th March 2008
Written by The Domains in EN
Competition for Yahoo and Google??? - In an article published today by Thomson Financial, they point out that traditional media companies are trying to stem the flow of advertising dollars to Google and Yahoo by building ad networks of their own, anchored by their brands. Forbes Inc., will start selling ads this spring for about 400 financial blogs. The article also points out that Conde Nast, Viacom, CBS Corp, Gannett and Tribune Co., the nation’s two largest newspaper publishers, joined Hearst Corp. and The New York Times Co. (NYSE:NYT) ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Fortune Mag Asks: “Are these widgets value half a billion?” - In an article today Fortune  Magazine looked at the company Slide, in which the magazine noted, Fidelity and T. Rowe Price, paid $50 million for a 9.1% stake in January. Slide makes “widgets”, and the author say these widgets could be the answer to a problem that everybody in the business of selling ads on the Internet has been experiencing of late. “””””Widgets are small, self-contained programs that can be plugged into a web application like a blog or social network. And in the world ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How to Protect Your 3 Character Domain Names - Own a three character domain? You need to play defense. Three letter domain names are valuable. But owning them carries risk: since so many companies have three character acronyms, they often feel they are entitled to your domain. The number of pending and recently settled claims on three character domains is staggering. Here are just a handful I found today: Ace.com Ace.us Dsn.com Rcu.net (claim denied) Own.tv Ucp.com (transferred, domain may have been stolen) Pao.com Kpn.info Tcn.com Cbq.com Cbq.net Cbq.org All.com It’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Afternic Hits Long Drive with DrivingRanges.com - Afternic gets a big win with for its expired domains program. It’s been several months since Afternic announced it would begin auctioning expiring domains. I’ve played around with Afternic’s expired domain auctions, but until this weekend most of the auctions have ended for less than a few hundred dollars. This past Saturday that changed: an expired domain auction for DrivingRanges.com ended at $7,455. More importantly, it received 46 bids from about a dozen ... read more ...