Madision Avenue Still Bullish on Digital Advertising - One of the world’s biggest advertising and media services organizations, Publicis, in reported relatively strong third quarter results this morning signaled concern over the weakening global economy and the effect that it will have on advertising. Publicis indicated that digital media will remain the sweet spot. “Our digital businesses and our investments in high growth economies are continuing to sustain our growth in an economic environment that has become harsher as the worsening financial ... read more ...

Will 2009 Mark a First Decline in New .Com Registrations? - As we all know, VeriSign has reported growth in each of the last many years for the number of .com registrations. My thoughts is that 2009 may mark the first year in a net loss of .com and .net domain registrations. In 2008 Verisign reported that at the end of the second quarter there were 87.3 million registration representing a 20% increase over the previous year.  However “new” registrations for .com and .net in the second quarter of 2008 actually decreased by 3% from the first quarter of ... read more ...

“B.BR” Alliance between Bank Security and Domains. - This is a guest post by Juan Enrique Sánchez S., President of nameaction.com, who is responsible for it’s content “””” Today in Brazil it is possible to talk of safe banks on internet. Since September 24 Brazil create a new domain “B.BR” only for financial institutions to allow safe transactions for almost 30 miilions people that use “Internet Banking” in Brazil. This is not a minor subject on an economy where 6,9 billions of online transaction occur every year, number that correspond ... read more ...

Lead, Don’t Follow Domain Trends - Rush for bank and money related blogs shows herd mentality. When bank blog Bankaholic.com sold for nearly $15 million a couple weeks ago, I knew what was coming. Within days, domainers everywhere were registering bank related blog names. Some internet marketers even started money related blogs. I got an email from someone who thought he could easily start a blog like Bankaholic and turn it into $2 or $3 million within a couple years. This reminds me of when Pizza.com ... read more ...

Ecommerce blog Tells Public Domains Are Important - On its blog today, Practicalecommerce.com, a site for well, ecommerce developers and sites, discusses how valuable a domain name is to site development. The blog correctly states that “”””Your domain name is the most powerful piece of branding your store has on the Web”””” “”””A strong, recognizable domain name for your business can bring even more organic traffic to your site. A poor domain name can prevent surfers from ever finding your site.””” Nice to see a non-domain ... read more ...

BoycottKentucky.com: Go Sign a Petition - As we reported about 10 days ago a online gambling group called for a boycott of all things Kentucky. A fellow domainer, Jeffrey Reynolds, Ph.D, started a website BoycottKentucky.com, where is now asking for people to sign the online petition. We just finished signing and suggest you take a minute out of your day and express your outrage with the Governor of Kentucky, Steve Beshear action, in seizing property without any due process to protect his own instate gambling operations including the online ... read more ...

Directi Takes Down 175,000 Domains; Turns Privacy Off For More Than 500,000 Domains - Directi.com an ICANN accredited registrar announced on its blog last week that is had suspended 175,000 domain names for “Registrar Abuse”. “””””Directi, has have recently taken to track down and stop abusive domain names and registrants from abusing Directi’s services.””” According to the post 9,000 were taken down for having false whois info, over 2,000 for spam 34,000 that were part of a network of fraudulent sites. Concerning this issue Directi stated: When suspending domain ... read more ...

WSJ: Don’t Use Three Letter Domains For Your Site - It’s always interesting to get a non-domainer perspective on domains. Certainly values of domains ultimately depend in large part to end users. The Wall Street Journal Blog had a discussion on selecting domain names for an end users site. They had several do’s and don’ts: “””””””- Include keywords in your business name, when possible. (Jon’s Bicycles, for instance, is better than Jon’s Equipment or even possibly Jon’s Cycling.) - Don’t choose a word or phrase that is highly ... read more ...

Will VeriSign Be Able to Charge Preimum Prices for .Com? - In a post by George Kirikos on his blog CircleID, looking at the draft of the rules for the new Generic Top-level domains (gTLD) a provision in the rules, Mr. Kirikos thinks may invite VeriSign to amend their contract to provide for eliminating price caps. Mr. Kirikos writes: “””””””””According to the draft of new Generic Top-level Domains (gTLD) contracts for Section 7.3: Price controls have been removed for 2008 in favor of the transparent pricing model outlined above. Section ... read more ...

4 Domains Top $5K Each Today during NameJet.com - Four domains sold at Namejet.com off our watch list for over $5K each. Nice to see in another terrible day in the stock market and in the face of continuing bad economic news. broiler.com $8,989 broilers.com $6,986 biggerboobs.com $6,200 yesterdays.com $6,101 Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...

Gaming Group Asks Appeals Court To Throw Out Kentucky Domain Seziure Order - The Interactive Media and Entertainment and Gaming Association (iMEGA), filed a Petition in the Kentucky Court of Appeals asking the appellate court to throw out the original seizure notice dated September 18th and its order of October 16th upholding the seizure. In its 55 page petition, iMEGA names as defendants, the Judge who issued the seziure notice Thomas Wingate, and the Commonwealth of Kentucky as well as the Attorney General of the State. The petition states that the seizure order was unconstitutional ... read more ...

Business Week Covers .Tel: How Telnic Will Revolutionize Dialing - An online article just published by Business Week gave glowing reviews to the idea of the new .Tel extension. Some of the more interesting comments from the article are: .Tel will allow you to store the full range of your contact details online and then give chosen people access to it.  Phone numbers, e-mail addresses, Facebook and Twitter accounts just to name a few. “It is a bit like an interactive business card that you can change and give to anyone, so they can reach you,” says Justin Hayward, ... read more ...

What Public Tech Comany Has The Most Cash: Google, Microsoft, Intel?, NO - So far one of the most interesting items to come out of earnings season on Wall Street so far, is the amount of free cash each tech company has, that is cash over debt. So which high tech company has the most cash on hand? It may surprise you to see its not Google or Microsoft. Its not Intel or Cisco. It’s Apple. According to its most recent financial report, Apple’s cash hoard ballooned to nearly $25 billion, leaving it with more cash than any other debt-free technology company. (That’s more ... read more ...

Baidu.com Profit Increases 91%: Stock Falls - Chinese Internet search leader Baidu,  one of the stocks in our Domain Parking Stock Index,  reported earnings early this morning, and posted a 91 percent rise in quarterly net profit The company said it expects continued strong revenue growth. Net income rose to $51.2 million in the third quarter from $24.2 million from a year earlier. Net profit per share was $1.47, beating the $1.27 per share forecast by Reuters Estimates. For the fourth quarter, the company said it expects total revenue ranging ... read more ...

Rob Grant’s Daughter, Lizzy, Hits iTunes - Rob Grant one of my dear friends and fellow domainer, who was the subject of the DnJournal Cover story back in April (If you haven’t read it, do it now). His daughter Lizzy Grant released her first album on itunes.com yesterday (You can watch her music video on her site). I downloaded the EP entitled “Kill Kill” from iTunes yesterday on 5pointsrecords.com You need to definitely check it out, she has a very cool sultry sound. Lizzy is also getting some great buzz from major music industry blogs, ... read more ...

AfterMarket.com to Hold a “Premier” Domain Auction for TRAFFIC Downunder - Thought Convergence announced that  Aftermarket.com has been designated as the premier auction house for the upcoming T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Down Under conference in Queensland, Australia. This simultaneous in-person and online auction will commence on November 20, 2008, beginning at 8:30 AM AEST UTC/GMT +10 hours (Nov 19, 2008, 2:30 PM PST). AfterMarket.com is planning on auctioning off  25 .AU domain names and at least 75 additional top-level domains. Thought Convergence Chief Strategy Officer Ammar ... read more ...