Monthly Archives: July 2008

Mon 14th July 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
5 Live Traffic Auctions: Where are all these Good, Well Priced Domains Going to Come From?? - A comment posted by one of our readers, Koz to another post, got me thinking about today’s announcement of up to 5 live domain auctions at the TRAFFIC. The question is where are all these names going to come from? Buyers we got. As we saw this past weekend in Chicago there are buyers for good, well priced domains. But for fair or overpriced domains, there is no market. For a normal TRAFFIC auction Moniker, according to reports, gets somewhere around 100K-125K submissions. Many of these have been ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Wrap: 2008 GeoDomain Expo A Big Success - A look back at Associated Cities’ 2008 show. Sunday morning I woke up at the W Hotel in Chicago and wandered out to grab breakfast. It was a beautiful morning, about 70 degrees and sunny. As I walked the streets of Chicago it gave me time to reflect on the past couple days at the GeoDomain Conference. Overall, the show was a huge success. A tip of the hat to Patrick Carleton and Associated Cities for putting together a solid show in a short time frame. It was ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Moniker’s Money-Losing Auction - Nobody won during Saturday’s live auction. If you’re bummed about the results of Saturday’s live GeoDomain auction, which took in about $280,000, think about how Moniker feels. This live auction was a money loser for the company. Moniker’s gross cut from the live auction will be about $42,000. Then they have to pay a cut to Associated Cities (assumption), pay the auctioneer, pay for all of its staff’s travel to Chicago, the time it took organizing the ... read more ...
Sun 13th July 2008
Written by The Domains in EN
Brad and Angelina Have Their Baby’s Names Covered - We wrote a post a couple of months ago about a new trend where parents would only select names for their baby if the domain name was available. Brad and Angelina must have be listening because within hours of giving birth to twins, a boy named Knox Leon Jolie Pitt and a girl named Vivienne Marcheline Jolie Pitt, the following domains were reportedly registered by their attorneys, Lavely Singer: KnoxLeon.com VivienneMarcheline.com KnoxLeon.net VivienneMarcheline.net KnoxLeon.org VivienneMarcheline.org knoxleonjoliepitt.com knoxleonjoliepitt.net knoxleonjoliepitt.us knoxleonjoliepitt.org knoxleonjoliepitt.biz knoxleonjoliepitt.info knoxjoliepitt.com knoxjoliepitt.net knoxjoliepitt.us knoxjoliepitt.org knoxjoliepitt.biz knoxjoliepitt.info viviennemarchelinejoliepitt.com viviennemarchelinejoliepitt.net viviennemarchelinejoliepitt.us viviennemarchelinejoliepitt.org viviennemarchelinejoliepitt.biz viviennemarchelinejoliepitt.info viviennejoliepitt.com viviennejoliepitt.net viviennejoliepitt.us viviennejoliepitt.org viviennejoliepitt.biz viviennejoliepitt.info However ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Has a Economy Fundamentally Changed (Part 2) - A little over a month ago we asked in a post:  “Oil: Has the Economy Fundamentally Changed and If So What Does it Mean to Domainers?” At that time Oil was at $139 a barrel.  On Friday it closed at over $145. Gold was under $900, Friday it closed at $960. The euro was $1.55 to the dollar, on Friday it closed at over $1.59. This week saw Freddy Mae and Freddy Mac lose half of its market value. Freddy Mac (FNM) which started the week at $18, closed at $10.25 after falling as low as $6.68. Freddy ... read more ...
Sat 12th July 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Geo Auction Nets $284K - The moniker.com auction from the Geo show in Chicago just concluded with a total of $284K of domains sold. Here is a list of all the domains that sold: SantaClara.com                         $82,500 Afghan.com                             $30,000 Asia.org                                  $30,000 OysterBay.com                          $24,500 Guatemala.net                          ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
A lot of e-mails.me - I just got though going the 2 step process for creating separate accounts for each of the .me domains I backordered, which look like they are going into auction mode. Although I backordered all the domains through my godaddy account in one shot, I got about 60 e-mails, one for each .me domain (not identified in the e-mail) asking me to set up an account to apparently allow me to bid in the auction of a .me domain, sometime in the future. Of course it would have been nice to have all these domain ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Geo Auction Today - Moniker.com will hold a live domain auction from the Geo conference in Chicago today at 4:30pm CST, 5:30pm EST, 2:30 PST. Live bidding is available at SnapNames.com. Here are our top picks for today NewYorkCityLoft.com PalmHarborFlorida.com CaliforniaHomeAppraisal.com PalmSpringsOnline.com Secaucus.com Cuban.com Brazilians.com NorthernIsrael.com SaintKittsAndNevis.com TheTriStateArea.com Afghanistan.net Asia.org SanJuan.com LargoFlorida.com WestVirginiaInsurance.com NewYorkCityMedicalMalPractice.com NewYorkCityVisitorInformation.com Carlstadt.com SantaClara.com Murrieta.com Holland.net ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Overheard during GeoDomain Expo: TrafficZ, Moniker Auction - A summary of news coming out of the GeoDomain Expo in Chicago so far. I’ve been at the GeoDomain Expo in Chicago for about 24 hours now and it’s been a fast-paced event. Here’s a summary of what’s been going on: There are about 200 people at the conference, far surpassing previous GeoDomain Expos. As one person commented to me on the trolley ride to the TrafficZ party last night, “The mood here is far more upbeat than at regular domain conferences.” ... read more ...
Fri 11th July 2008
Written by The Domains in EN
DNHeadlines.com (beta) Launched - According to the press release for DNHeadlines.com, the new service  is the “only Domain Name Industry Single Page Content RSS Feed Aggregation Service”. DNHeadlines.com parses RSS Feeds from Domain News sites and Domain Blogs, aggregates them by each feed. At the moment, DNHeadlines.com is in Beta (launch date imminent). TheDomains.com is proud to be included in the RSS feeds provided by DNHeadlines.com DNheadlines.com now becomes the second site, along with Domaining.com, dedicated to ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Tucows Still Pulling Their Own Domains out of Auctions - According to a post in Dot Weekly Tucows is still pulling domains from the Afternic Platform. I will not relay our dealings with Tucows in their in-house auctions again (you can read all the posts herein) but basically they took back 260 domains they sold at auction, after they sold, saying that it was a mistake those domains we placed into the auction. When the Tucows expired domain auction moved to Afternic Dot Weekly reported that several domains again were pulled from the auction blaming it on ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
YouTube Goes Geo - YouTube adds local search functions. Video site YouTube is releasing a new feature to let people find videos tagged with a particular geographic location. Why is this relevant to domainers? Well, I’m sitting here in the Admirals Club in Austin getting ready to board my flight to the Associated Cities GeoDomain Expo in Chicago. At the conference I’ll see a hundred people who are big believers in “local search” and are betting big on the future of local search. Local ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domainer Gear: Mobile BroadBand - Broadband wireless access is essential for placing those last minute bids on NameJet. [Editor’s note: this is the first in a new series on Domain Name Wire that features non-domain gear — both hardware and software — that’s helpful to domainers. We’ve added a “Domainer Gear” category so you can see all of the articles in this series as they’re published.] I’m currently in a taxi in Chicago on my way to 2008 GeoDomain Expo. One of the biggest pains ... read more ...
Thu 10th July 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
More Live Auctions At Traffic: Does it Mean More $$$ - With the announcement by the TRAFFIC show organizers yesterday that there would be up to three live domain auction at TRAFFIC the question is will this result in an overall higher amount of sales? Here’s our take. This is pretty much a zero sum game. Lets say there are 500 people attending the conference in New York. Each person comes with a budget in mind for buying domains.  Of course budgets are sometime bent somewhat, but if someone has a budget of $5K or $50K, does that budget exponentially ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Yahoo Launches BOSS (Build Your Own Search) - Yahoo is reportly set to annouce today a new service called “Build Your Own Search,” or BOSS. With this system any Web site will be able to assemble a search engine using Yahoo’s system for indexing information and images on the Internet. Yahoo says it is going to provide access to a set of tools that would cost more than $300 million to build from scratch. All Yahoo wants in return is the right to display ads alongside the results of any search engine that piggybacks on its technology. Two ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
I’m Back - I have been out of the country for a little over a week, when on Sunday night, my computer for lack of a better term, took a crap. With software, no tech support and without being able to speak the local language it took several days, but I’m glad to report that my Dell is now back and operating. This is the third time that I have had to do a clean reinstall of Vista in the less than 7 months that I have owned the computer. As soon as I get back to the states i’m making a run for the Apple store. Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
EVOLanding Evolves: Drastic Improvements to Auto-Generated Pages - Alternative to domain parking forges ahead with upgrades. EVOLanding, one of a handful of companies to offer “automated site generation” for domain names, has launched a number of new features and upgrades. One of the most important is data center upgrades that allow it to pull data from multiple sources to generate web sites on the fly faster than before. The company has also signed deals with Careerbuilder, Priceline, Homegain, Foreclosure.com, CUnet, Superpages, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Moniker To Get Auction Competition during TRAFFIC Shows - Multiple live auction companies to host auctions at event. I’m sure there’s a backstory on this, but Rick Schwartz, who co-produces the TRAFFIC domain name conferences, just sent out an e-mail announcing that Moniker will no longer be the exclusive provider of domain auctions at his conferences. For the first time at any domain show we are going to have multiple live auctions presented by multiple auction houses. This is going to be a game changer! Howard and ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Is Bido.com an Early Success? You Betcha. - Plenty of Naysayers, but Bido is making an impact. If you read domain name message boards you probably think domain name auction site Bido is a failure. I beg to differ. People keep pointing to the “bargains” people are getting on the site. Bargains? What bargains? These same people are watching the auctions, so why aren’t they bidding if these are such great deals? With rare exception, it’s hard to get a bargain on mid-market domains in a domain auction ... read more ...
Wed 9th July 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Google Releases “Overture Score”-Like Tool - Enhancement to keyword tool provides domainers with more accurate tool to forecast domain traffic. “Three cheers for Google!” That’s not something you hear many domainers say these days. But Google has just released a new feature on its Keyword Tool that will bring a smile to domainers’ faces: search volumes. The tools is similar to the famed Overture inventory tool that showed you how many times someone searched for a particular keyword or domain. For example, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Free User Interface Advice for Domain Companies - Domain companies aren’t known for good user interfaces. Here are a few suggestions to help. A user interface designer charges a couple hundred bucks an hour to help companies improve user experience at their web sites. I’m not a UI designer, but I do have some free advice for a few domain companies. Disclaimer: advice is worth what you pay for it. Sedo – Sedo runs perhaps the most successful online auctions. But I get frustrated looking through the list ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Auction Watch: Pizzerias.com during $94,000 - A look at current domain auctions of interest. Moniker’s next live domain name auction is this weekend in Chicago at the GeoDomain Expo, but there’s plenty of auction action going on right now. The big auction is Pizzerias.com, which has a bidder at 60,000 EUR ($94,000 USD) at Sedo. Perhaps the domain is flying on the coattails of the Pizza.com sale? The auction ends in 4 days, and now that Sedo has implemented its buyer verification process, this deal is likely ... read more ...
Tue 8th July 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Tentative List for Moniker GeoDomain Expo Live Auction - Here is the list for the GeoDomain Expo live auction taking place this Saturday, July 12: Domain Reserve afghan.com $10,001 – $25,000 afghanistan.net $10,001 – $25,000 algiers.org $5,001 – $10,000 alleghenyriver.com $1 – $5,000 almadencalifornia.com $5,001 – $10,000 ameliaislandfl.com $1 – $5,000 americans.com $1MM – $5MM americans.org $10,001 – $25,000 annetteisland.com No Reserve asia.org $25,001 – $50,000 atlanticcityhotel.net $1 – $5,000 australiangoldmining.com $1 – $5,000 balboaisland.com $50,001 ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Microsoft Backs Icahn Bid For Yahoo - Microsoft announced today that it was backing investor Carl Icahn’s hostile takeover bid to replace the Yahoo’s board of directors. Microsoft also stated that in the event Icanh was successful, they would reconsider purchasing Yahoo’s search business or go back to making an offer for the entire company. This should be welcome news to domainers who have been dreading a Google – Yahoo deal. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Zimbabwe.com: An Opportunity to Do Good - Auction at GeoDomain Expo provides opportunity to shed light on atrocities. The 2008 GeoDomain Expo kicks off Thursday night in Chicago. Moniker will hold a live auction Saturday evening with geo gems such as SanMateo.com and Yemen.com. But one domain draws special attention and an opportunity for a wealthy domain investor: Zimbabwe.com. I’m not talking about an opportunity to make a lot of money. After all, the domain has a reserve of over $500,000 (after ... read more ...