Monthly Archives: October 2008

Thu 16th October 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Kentucky Judge Upholds Domain Seizure Order - Thursday afternoon Judge Thomas Wingate issued a ruling that he would not dismiss the case brought against domain owners which included seizure of their names. A forfeiture hearing has been scheduled for November 17th. A copy of the decision can be seen here More on this soon… Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Microsoft CEO: Yahoo understanding between a dual companies would “still make clarity economically” - The CEO of Microsoft,  Steve Ballmer, told an audience at the Gartner ITxpo, that deal with Yahoo would “still make sense economically” and not just at Yahoo’s current low-low price. Ballmer, went on to say  he doesn’t know what share price Yahoo would have accepted for Microsoft to buy them, after the company turned down Microsoft’s $33 a share offer earlier this year. Ballmer said that even with the recent drop in Yahoo’s share price, the company “probably thinks its still worth ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Winner Of Last Night’s Debate: JoeThePlumber.com - An article this morning in the Silcone Valley Insider Talks about the domain name of plumber Joe Francis a plumber in Amarillo, TX. Joe said he’s been flooded by calls since John McCain and Barack Obama spent most of the debate talking abut Ohio’s “Joe the Plumber”,  whose taxes would go up under an Obama administration. Among those calling him: Radio stations and people looking to buy his domain name. Joe told the Insider he was offered in the “hundreds of thousands” of dollars for ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Anyone Else Notice That Gas Prices Are Going Down Much Slower Than They Went Up? - This is outside the area of domains but important to us all. Does it seem to anyone else that gas prices have been slow to come down while crude oil prices have tumbled? I went back to take a look at the average weekly retail gas prices for regular, for the east coast. Today for the week ending today October 14, 2008, the price of gas stands at $3.15 a gallon. On January 1, 2008 prices were at $3.14. Now lets look at Brent sea crude oil. Today October 15,  crude is sitting at $74 a barrel. On January ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Expens’d Forgot a Line Item for Domains - Expense tracking startup joins list of horribly named web companies. Expense tracking company Expens’d didn’t budget any money for a decent domain name, and ended up with Expensd.com (notice the missing ‘e’). I’ve seen plenty of poorly name companies in my day, such as Flickr.com. But Expens’d is entering an impossibly crowded field and can’t afford for people to have difficulty finding its web site. This how a pitch to a customer would sound: Company: ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Bret Fausett on Blogging, Kentucky, and UDRP - An interview with Bret Fausett. I often claim that Domain Name Wire was the first blog-style site covering the business of domain names. I add “business” as a qualifier because I know I can’t claim to be the first to blog about domain names. Lawyer Bret Fausett started blogging at Lextext.com back in 2000. His goal was to publicize information about ICANN that wasn’t getting much press. He told ICANN they should try to put his blog out of business, and ... read more ...
Wed 15th October 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
More than 100,000 Brazilian (.com.Br) Domains will be “Liberated” Saturday - This is a guest post by Juan Enrique Sánchez S., President of nameaction.com who is responsible for its content. This Saturday, October 18,  Nic Brazil will free more than 100.000 domains which were not renewed by their registrant and become available for registration by anyone. (It seems the registry releases domains only 2x a year). If you want to review the complete list of domains which will be available to be registered Click here According to the rules of NIC Brazil, if the same domain is ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
AIG Goes Hunting and Spends Another $86K - Two weeks we reported on the ridiculous spending of AIG while asking for more government money at a resort in California. As you will recall AIG spent $440,000 on a trip for its executives just a couple of weeks after receiving $85 Billion from the Fed. Now it appears, despite the outrage from the public about the California spending orgy, AIG executives went hunting, literally. Four top executives from AIG spent another $86K on the hunting trip, after asking the fed for a second rounds of loans ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
MediaWeek.com: Online Display Prices Hit Year Low - MediaWeek.com reported today that online display ad prices, which have been trending downward for the past year, hit their lowest point in the third quarter of 2008. The average display ad page generated a CPM of just 27 cents during the third quarter, down five cents from the second quarter of 2008 and down 23 cents (or 46%) from the fourth quarter of 2007. “It’s not surprising that it’s been trending down, but what is surprising is the size of the drop,” says Rajeev Goel, president and ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The Los Angeles Domain World, Day 1 - A summary of my first day in L.A. I arrived in Los Angeles yesterday morning around 9am. After getting my rental car and checking into the hotel, it was off to ICANN. I didn’t know what to expect of ICANN. For some reason I had a vision of this grand building under maximum security. But when you consider much of ICANN’s role is to develop and manage policies that vision quickly fades. Indeed, ICANN’s offices are in a non-descript building overlooking the ... read more ...
Tue 14th October 2008
Written by The Domains in EN
WSJ.Com: Google Working on Settlement With Justice on Yahoo Deal - According to the Wall Street Journal, Google and Yahoo are in talks with the Justice Department in an effort to head off an antitrust challenge to their proposed advertising agreement. Although the settlement negotiations are at an early stage  investigators are continuing to build a lawsuit to block the deal, worried it would give Google too much power in online advertising. In the settlement talks with the government, both companies have discussed concessions, including capping the volume of Google ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Kentucky Decision Due Tomorrow - A Franklin County Circuit Judge is still on schedule to render his decision in a controversial case whereby the Kentucky commonwealth is looking to seize some 141 Internet gambling domain names. Judge Thomas Wingate of the Franklin Circuit Courtroom ruled last Tuesday that until he finalizes his decision, the commonwealth must leave a number of online poker and casino sites “as is”, meaning they must remain accessible to the public. The Internet Commerce Association filed a brief in that case. Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Help The Industry: Submit A Domains For The ICA TRAFFIC DownUnder Auction - As part of the TRAFFIC DownUnder show next month, there will be a special domain auction with all proceeds being contributed to the ICA. These domains are to be auctioned with no reserve at the conference Gala Dinner on the 19th of November. The Internet Commerce Association (ICA), a grass roots organization formed to ensure domain services and owners are robustly represented in areas of great risk and importance to the global domain community. The ICA utilizes dues and contributions to enable ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Cold.com to be Auctioned off for a Cool Million? - Cold.com will be auctioned in late November with a minimum acceptable bid of US$1 million, announced Patent Kinetics, LLC, an intellectual property strategy, evaluation, and brokerage company. “We anticipate exceptionally strong interest in Cold.com,” said Bob Weber, Managing Director, Patent Kinetics, LLC. “Marketing, advertising, brand management, public relations professionals, and other executives should carefully evaluate how the unique Cold.com domain name and web presence could figure ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo Completes UD.com sale for $99,000 - After an off week, Sedo is back with some solid completed sales. Sedo completed the sale of UD.com for $99,000 over the past week, narrowly missing a six figure sale. But after a slow week for completed sales the prior week, Sedo is back in action with some solid sales. Here’s a drumroll of its notable sales: machineryzone.com 52,000 USD breaks.com 50,000 EUR GreatDomains imagebay.com 24,000 USD website vconversion.com 20,000 USD website igossip.com 18,000 USD equigroup.com 15,000 USD canadians.com 10,099 USD GreatDomains brews.com 9,100 USD GreatDomains fion.com 8,000 USD llll.com 7,900 USD GreatDomains zzl.com 5,550 EUR prai.com 5,500 USD domain.my 16,000 USD gays.nl 15,000 EUR basketball.fr 12,000 EUR iam.co.uk 8,000 USD airtrain.de 5,500 EUR barhocker.ch 5,000 EUR tiertv.de 3,900 EUR address.net 20,010 USD GreatDomains I ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
The Domain Name World in Los Angeles - Look for exclusive stories this week on Domain Name Wire. I’m off to Los Angeles this morning for several days of meetings with area domain name companies. Today I’m meeting with ICANN and Thought Convergence, and have several meetings set up over the next couple days. Los Angeles is one of the “domain name centers” in the United States, with several of the largest domain name related companies in the area. The other big domain name center is southern Florida, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New WhyPark Platform Looks Promising - Parking alternative set to launch completely overhauled system. Domain name parking alternative WhyPark is getting ready to release a complete overhaul of its platform. Based on a sneak peek I got from WhyPark founder Craig Rowe, the new WhyPark may be just what domainers need to counter falling parking revenues. The basics are still the same: pay a one time fee, point domains to WhyPark’s servers, and then “auto create” web sites based on keywords to attract ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Value Your Domain Names a Dark Blue Sea Way - A look at how Dark Blue Sea values domain names. Dark Blue Sea (ASX: DBS.AX) is one of the world’s largest holders of domain names, with over 550,000 domain names in its portfolio. It’s also a publicly traded company, which helps us peer in to see how the company works. Only a small percentage of DBS’ domain names are profitable, in that domain parking revenue covers the approximately $7 per domain it costs for annual registration. The company holds on to ... read more ...
Mon 13th October 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy Releases SmartSpace Based on Patent Filing - GoDaddy’s new product linked to recent patent filings. A few months ago I noticed that GoDaddy filed a few patents related to social networking portals. GoDaddy just released SmartSpace, which appears to be include features referenced by the patent applications. SmartSpace enables you to register a domain and instantly turn it into an active web site with a blog, photo album, etc. It also includes “SocialSpace”, which seems to be what the company’s patents ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DBS: Domain Name Sales Up - Domain name company sees robust domain names sales. I’ve written several times about how Dark Blue Sea (ASX: DBS.AX), parent company of Fabulous, has seen a massive drop in domain parking revenue. But what I haven’t highlighted is growth in the company’s domain sales. I’ve dismissed it somewhat because its latest financial year’s sales include a couple large portfolio sales. But the numbers are too much to ignore. In its most recent annual report for ... read more ...
Sun 12th October 2008
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Fabulous.Com Makes It’s Case To Investors And Puts Together The Best Explanation of a Industry I’ve Ever Read - Dark Blue Sea which operates Fabulous.com, made a presentation to investors today which you can download and view here. It’s a very interesting presentation of not only it’s own business, but in great detail outlines the case for the domain industry as a whole. It’s probably the best explanation I have ever read about the domain industry.  You can direct all those people who never understood what you did for a living to this report and they will understand what you do after they read it. Some ... read more ...
Sat 11th October 2008
Written by The Domains in EN
Will Microsoft Finally Buy Yahoo, Part 2 - In January we wrote a post asking “Will Microsoft Finally Buy Yahoo”. The following week Microsoft made a $31 a share offer for Yahoo while Yahoo shares were trading at $21. Of course as we all know this lead to several months of negotiation, after which Microsoft simply walked away from the deal. On Friday Yahoo closed at just over $12. So now Microsoft could buy Yahoo for say $21 a share. Why would Yahoo accept $21 when they didn’t accept $31. Well don’t forget Carl Icahn got 2 board seats ... read more ...
Fri 10th October 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Schilling and Berryhill Win Another UDRP - Frank Schilling, with help of John Berryhill, successfully defend domain name. Frank Schilling’s Name Administration has won an arbitration case brought by a trampoline company. Domain name attorney John Berryhill represented Schilling. NAOP, LLC, which apparently manufactures trampolines under the JUMPRO brand, filed for arbitration. I can find little information about the company, and jumpro.com is in use by a company unrelated to the trampoline manufacturer. The ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Let’s Go Fly a Kite - Relax. Take a deep breath. This too shall pass. This morning I dropped my daughter off at school just before the stock market opened. I got back into my car at 8:30 central and turned on NPR. The host said “The DOW is down 170 points at the open”. After the next short story, the host said “The DOW is down 270 points.” About a minute later: “The DOW is down 440 points.” I turned off the radio. Although some markets remain stronger than stocks — ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Strong Domain Registrars Will Win in Downturn - Cash-rich domain name registrars can take advantage of economic downturn. In any economic downturn, the strong companies come out ahead and the weak ones die. The same thing will happen in the domain registrar business over the next few years. Cash-rich domain registrars will be able to buy flailing registrars for pennies on the dollar. Even if domain registration rates remain strong, registrars that over leveraged themselves, created inefficient organizations, ... read more ...