Monthly Archives: June 2008

Thu 19th June 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Update: Google Organic Search Results Requirement - Follow up to March announcement by Sedo about new Google requirements for parked pages. Back in March Domain Name Wire reported that Sedo was testing the placement of organic search results on its domain parking pages. This is a requirement from Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). According to Sedo’s web site, this will be rolled out across domains in its network starting this week. The organic search results will only be displayed on Google’s search feed pages, not content ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Click Forensics, Publishers, Ad Networks Facing Traffic Quality Challenge - Meeting in Austin brings together constituents to discuss improving online advertising results — for everyone. The long term survival of domain name monetization — be it domain parking or otherwise — depends on giving advertisers bang for their buck. The past two days I attended a closed-door summit led by traffic quality experts Click Forensics that addressed delivering value to advertisers. The group discussed how everyone can work together to improve all ... read more ...
Wed 18th June 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Reminder: BIDO.com initial auction Starts during 1PM EST - Just as a reminder, Bido.com a new one per day auction platform, first auction starts in an hour at 1pm EST, with the auction of DiscountImages.com. Bidding is starting at a $1. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
FireFox 3.0 Released: Is it Bad News for a Domain Industry? - I just downloaded the new verision of FireFox 3.0 web browser which features the new “Awesome Bar” which Mozilla says is a new way of using the address bar on top of the browser to navigate the internet taking into account your bookmarks and viewing history.  Mozilla says that the “Awesome Bar” basically turns the address bar into a search engine. “No longer do you have to know the domain of the page you’re looking for the AwesomeBar will match what you’re typing (even multiple words) ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
2008 GeoDomain Expo Preview with Patrick Carleton - QA with Patrick Carleton, Executive Director of Associated Cities. The 2008 GeoDomain Expo hits Chicago July 10-12. Advanced ticket sales are hot, and Associated Cities’ Patrick Carleton expects attendance to be double last year. I recently caught up with Carleton to get a preview of this year’s conference. Afterward, Carleton did a lengthy interview that was published on the Associated Cities’ web site. You can read it here. Domain Name Wire: In the past, ... read more ...
Tue 17th June 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
SEXE.ORG: A Record Setting Sale for $151K - We are pleased to announce that we have completed the sale of Sexe.Org for $151,400. Sexe of course is the french word for sex. Although we typically do not report our domain sales, we believe this is an important sale, since it is the third highest “adult” non-.com domain ever sold, behind porn.net and sex.net as well as one of the highest prices ever reported for a .org domain. We congratulate the buyer on their acquisition. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Cognac.com: A Model for Good Domain Name Marketing - Seller uses online, offline marketing to sell domain name. Cognac.com sold for $88,000 in last month’s GreatDomains auction. But the story isn’t the sale price — it’s the way the seller marketed the domain name. First, he put up a sales page at Cognac.com that promoted the sale. In part it read “Cognac.com is going up for auction starting May 22nd 2008 at Greatdomains.com. This is a very important auction for the Cognac industry as Cognac sales are on ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Media Breakaway To Pay $6 Million to MySpace - Affiliate company ordered to pay for affiliates’ “spamming” of MySpace network. If you’ve ever been to a TRAFFIC domain name conference, you’ve probably run into Scott Richter, who heads Media Breakaway. He’s one of the guys bidding lots of money on domain names during the auction. His company just got hit with a $6 million dollar judgment by MySpace, which charged his company with spamming its members. Media Breakaway claims that its affiliates were ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New Domain Name Auction Platform Bido Launches - After long delay, Bido has launched. Newcomer Bido has entered the domain name auction scene. The platform, launched in part by Sahar Sarid, features only one domain name auction per day, bids start at $1, domain names have no reserve, and Bido guarantees a minimum sales price to sellers. It’s good for domainers to see more competition in this space, especially from a company that’s trying to throw a couple curve balls into the game. Bido includes social aspects ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
XsitePro 2 Web Site Creation Software Releases to New Customers - Long-awaited upgrade to software released today. Web site creation software XsitePro, which Domain Name Wire has reviewed before, released its upgrade V2 to new customers today. V2 has been available to previous customers for about a month, so I’ve had a chance to test drive it. I’ve even read most of the 1,000 page manual. But it’s not that complicated — it’s only when you dig deep into the features that you even need to open the manual. Assuming you’ve ... read more ...
Mon 16th June 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Nortel A Cybersquatter? - Here is something that raises an eyeborw…..Nortel (A large Public Company) put together a shortlived new ad campaign targeting Cisco with Domains using Cisco’s Trademark like; ciscoenergytax.com and yourciscoenergytax.com Here is an excerpt from the WSJ: “Nortel, which normally relies on conventional media campaigns, has taken more of an edge this time to leverage its marketing budget. It has linked to bloggers, launched a Web-based “energy efficiency calculator,” even posted grainy trade-show ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
VeriSign: Domain Registrations Continue to Rise - According to  a report today by VeriSign domain name registrations rose 6 percent in the first quarter of 2008, continuing a trend of steady growth, said VeriSign. At the end of the first quarter, there were 162 million domain name registrations across all of the top-level domains, or TLDs, VeriSign said Monday in its newest Domain Name Industry Brief. That marks a 26 percent increase over the same quarter of 2007, and the quarterly growth is about the same pace as in 2007, VeriSign said. Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Interesting How a Media Views Trademark Domain Disputes When Domainers Are Not Involved - This is an interesting story Interesting because it involves a trademark dispute by the trademark holder against someone who is not a domainer, just an end user, and interesting because the media seems to be unanimously siding with the owners, and against the trademark holder In a story which has been written about in over 45 publications today,  a father registered the domain narnia.mobi for his son  and gave it to him  for  his 10th birthday to use  as an e-mail address. Seems as the father ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
VeriSign: 162 Million Domain Names Registered - Registry sees sharp domain registration growth (again). .Com and .net registry VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) estimates there are 162 million domain names registered across all TLDs as of the end of Q1 2008. In the company’s latest Domain Name Industry Brief (pdf), the company says new registrations increased 17% compared to the previous quarter, although the overall base of domains grew only 6%. Other interesting news: -.Net is no longer the third most popular domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Bank of America Promotes .Mobi, One Million Users - Andrew… ummm, that was in gest? I am very big into geo in all extensions. But I understand Sahar does not like them, calls them “hype”. So for that “factual assertion, you would actually have to visit Sahar’s blob. http://www.conceptualist.com/2008/04/08/are-geo-domains-overrated/ Are Geo Domains Overrated? http://www.conceptualist.com/2008/05/29/the-other-side-of-geo/ The Other Side Of Geo “In my opinion, observing from the sidelines, majority of the people who promote ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
July Issue of Modern Domainer Ships Soon - Latest issue of Modern Domainer features domain blogs. The July issue of Modern Domainer magazine will be shipping soon, and Domain Name Wire got a sneak peek. The issue tips the scales at well over 100 pages and is Modern Domainer’s biggest issue yet. This issue’s main feature is the “Domainer’s Blog Bible”: As Modern Domainer chronicles the domaining and parked industries, the voices of a small handful of those on the avant-guard continue to be the ... read more ...
Sun 15th June 2008
Written by The Domains in EN
NameJet.com Sales Update - Here are some notable sales at NameJet.com for the week ending today: digitalsignage.com $20,200 totalcare.com $16,101 customgraphics.com $12,100 funtones.com $8,300 imcc.com $3,900 mccormack.com $3,755 pido.com $3,601 m-x.com $2,616 cybo.com $2,600 ementoring.com $2,350 physicianrecruiter.com $2,316 socialcomputing.com ... read more ...
 
 
Written by The Domains in EN
.COM.AU GOLD RUSH JUNE 2008 – Major corporates start shopping adult general aftermarket domains - This is a guest post by DomainNewsReports: The .com.au domain industry in Australia has started going crazy with many major corporates starting to buy up premium generic names for use in addition to their own brand websites. Here are some recently registered and traded names in the .com.au market. The gold rush is obviously here! Many have been bought for 5 figure sums some even six figures apparently. www.happybanking.com.au now owned by BANKWEST www.bankwest.com.au www.bestbank.com.au now ... read more ...
Sat 14th June 2008
Written by The Domains in EN
Google-Yahoo Deal would kill Domaining (and it’s not so good for advertisers either) - There have been many articles written about the Google-Yahoo deal since it was announced. All basically come to the same conclusion. The deal basically give Google a monopoly on the Pay Per Click industry. Bad for advertisers, Horrible for domainers. Not since “Ma Bell” the old ATT, was adjudicated to be a monopoly in the telephone business and ordered to be broken up into regional companies, has such an important industry fallen into the hands of one company. With the acquisition of Doubleclick ... read more ...
Fri 13th June 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Who Owns Hillary4McCain.com? DomainTools To a Rescue - A bit of research turns up a probable registrant of Hillary4McCain.com. I read a story on Wired.com today about the domain name Hillary4Mccain.com, which was registered with bogus whois information. The John McCain camp denies having anything to do with the domain. So who owns the domain? I did a little research on DomainTools, and it leads to one person: Charles Reyna. Here’s what I did: 1. Looked up Hillary4McCain.com 2. Did a reverse IP search to see the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Coming Soon: Google Ads On Yahoo Parked Domains? - Yahoo-Google partnership may deliver Google ads on Yahoo-parked domains. Before everyone in the domain industry starts freaking out about the Google (GOOG)- Yahoo (YHOO) partnership (and there are plenty of reasons to worry), there may be some good news. I just finished listening to Yahoo’s shareholder conference call, and it’s clear that Google ads will also be shown on Yahoo’s publisher network. Whether or not that includes parked domains is unknown, but ... read more ...
Thu 12th June 2008
Written by The Domains in EN
Yahoo Inks Deal With Google - In a move we have been dreading for months, Yahoo has hired Internet search leader Google to sell some online ads in hopes of boosting its profit. Yahoo also announced that its efforts to revive takeover talks with Microsoft is at a dead end. Microsoft “unequivocally” said it isn’t interested in buying Yahoo The partnership could last up to 10 years if it can win antitrust approval. This is going to be another hotbed issue for domainers and something we are going to have to rely on the ICA ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Bido.com Blasts off on Jun 18. - After months of anticipation, we are happy to report that on June 18, 1:00 PM, Bido.com is launching its one domain, per day auction format. With one daily domain auction, guaranteed minimum sale price to Sellers , a low 8% commission rate, and daily analysis from industry experts for each domain to be auctioned, Bido.com is truly taking a fresh approach to the exciting world of domain name auctions. Here is the world exclusive list of the first 8 domains to be auctioned off on Bido.com: DiscountImages.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tucows and Afternic Deal Q&A - Bill Sweetman of Tucows answers questions about its deal with Name Media’s Afternic. After today’s announcement that Tucows (AMEX: TCX) is sending expired domain names to Afternic, there were a couple lingering questions. I asked Bill Sweetman, General Manager – Domain Portfolio at Tucows to fill in the gaps. Domain Name Wire: With SnapNames and NameJet the dominant players in expired domains, pulling in higher bid prices than other platforms, what made you ... read more ...