Monthly Archives: February 2009

Tue 10th February 2009
Written by The Domains in EN
“The Incredible Value of an Exact Match Domain Name”: Some In The Non-Domain World Continue To Get It - In a post published today by a popular non-domaining blog, WinningTheWeb.com, discusses the value of a great domain to its Internet marketing strategies audience. In the post the author, Gyutae Park correctly  tells its readers: “””A domain name is literally the face of every website. It represents your brand and your address, and it could mean the difference between success and failure online.”” Hey this guy gets it. Why is a great domain valuable the author cites five reasons: 1. Free ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Peaches.com Successfully Defended - Domain owner wins arbitration case. Not so sweet. With the help of attorney John Berryhill, 24-7 Outdoors Inc. has successfully defended its domain name Peaches.com. Domain Name Wire first wrote about this case in December. The complainant, Peaches Uniforms, sells style-conscious scrubs and uniforms to medical practitioners. The panel decided to only look at the “registration in bad faith” clause because it was obvious the complainant couldn’t meet its burden ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
22.com Sells for $100,000 - Domain auction ends with over 50 bids. A dozen bidders placed over 50 bids in an auction at Sedo for 22.com. The end result was a sale for $100,000. Bidding rocketed up to $99,000 with two days to go, and then stalled until the final bid was place today. In order to bid over $100,000, buyers most obtain Premium Plus Certification. The seller is Virtual Network SA of Switzerland. Hopefully we’ll know the identity of the buyer in a couple weeks. There’s another ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tucows Signs Up To $1.8M Expired Domain Name Deal - Domain name registrar signs deal to sell expired domain names to third party. This is a follow-up to Domain Name Wire’s report this morning about Tucows (AMEX: TCX) selling a $1 million portfolio of domain names and entering into an agreement to sell up to $1.8 million in domains to the same entity over the next 18 months. As the previous article mentioned, the latter is some sort of expired domain deal. On the same day it announced the $1.8 million deal, Tucows ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Low Quality 3 Letter Domain Names Hit Hard Times - Recent sales at Sedo show scarcity is less important than potential use. Domain names aren’t like baseball cards. Just because something is scarce doesn’t mean it’s more valuable. This week’s completed sales of three letter domain names at Sedo show weakness in low quality three letter domain names: MWX.com $4,000 FGZ.com $4,000 VZJ.com $3,499 JQF.com $3,333 This parallels a fad in the domain market during 2008. Because all four character .com domain names ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tucows Sells $1M Domain Name Portfolio; Domain Parking Flat - Company sells big portfolio, enters into $1.8M expired domain name deal, and sees domain name parking revenue flatline. Domain name wholesaler Tucows Inc (AMEX: TCX) has sold a portfolio of 2,553 domain names for $1 million, the company announced in its quarterly earnings call yesterday. That’s an average of $392 per domain name. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company reported that the same buyer has rights to purchase up to ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Median Domain Name Sales Price Down 15% - Median price drop not as severe as average. Last week I wrote about Sedo’s 2008 Market Study, which showed a 21% drop in the average sales price of domain names to $2,098. I explained that the “average” number doesn’t matter, and that we should really pay attention to the median. The median is the midpoint. If you ordered all 36,884 domain names from lowest price to highest, the median would be right in the middle (technically, the average of the 18,442th ... read more ...
Mon 9th February 2009
Written by The Domains in EN
Domaining To Do Good: We Give & We Get: ThatsNotCool.com Launched - We were very proud to be part of a national public service advertising (PSA) campaign, designed to help teens recognize digital dating abuse and take steps to prevent it. As part of this national campaign, a site was launched today, using one of our domain names, thatsnotcool.com, by the Advertising Council, in partnership with the Family Violence Prevention Fund and the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence against Women. Our domain is just one of the pieces of the launch with an important ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Think TradeMark Domains Are Bad; Look What Google & Yahoo Are Doing With iTunes - I’ve been watching Google’s ad results for the term “itunes” for a couple of months and the results under the search term’s sponsored ads are generally for non-apple sites, advertising themselves as the “official” itunes site. A couple of months ago a friends teenager boy asked me to help him an itunes account.  I told him to download the software and then I would come over and set the account up for him. So I get their and he tells me he stuck. He does not know which of the membership ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tucows Inks Expired Domains Deal with NameJet - NameJet now has three of top four domain registrars on its platform. Starting today, NameJet is the exclusive sales channel for domain names expiring from domain name registrar Tucows (AMEX: TCX). NameJet is now the exclusive provider of inventory from three of the top four domain name registrars: eNom, Tucows, and Network Solutions. Tucows previously had a deal with Afternic.com for expired domains. But Afternic was never set up to process expired domain names ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
“Domain Names Have No Intrinsic Value” - Hear the author out; he has a valid point. The headline is inflammatory, but they aren’t my words. They’re those of Matthew Mayer. And before you call him an idot, you should understand the context. Mayer wrote an excellent piece about what ails Live Current Media (see previous article). In it he writes: [Live Current] owns a bunch of domain names. That’s it. They sell product through one of them, and have been trying to develop others. Unfortunately, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Live Current Pays Outgoing Executive $600,000 - Ehrlich picks up nice exit package from flailing company. Live Current Media (OTC: LIVC.ob) is giving outgoing President and Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Ehrlich a $600,000 package as he exits the company. The package includes: -$275,000 cash, to be paid out semi-monthly over the next twelve months -Other benefits of $23,000 paid out along with cash -Still more benefits in the total gross amount of $52,000 paid in semi-monthly installments -$250,000 in restricted ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Fabulous Follows a 80/20 Rule - Parking company moves to invite only model. Domain parking company and domain registrar Fabulous is no longer accepting web applications for its domain name parking services and wholesale registration accounts. It will only accept referrals going forward. In fact, the sign-up button at Fabulous.com has been removed. (Fabulous customers who wish to transfer domains to buyers can send them a link to open a retail account). You’re going to start seeing more of this ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
1 Day Left to Complete Domain Name Wire Survey - Time running out to participate in fourth annual survey. There’s just one more day to participate in the fourth annual Domain Name Wire survey. For four years, this survey has tracked the pulse of the domain name industry. Based on preliminary results, there will be some shakeup this year (which shouldn’t come as a big surprise). The survey takes 5 minutes to complete and is located here. Some of the question this year include: What’s the best domain name ... read more ...
Sun 8th February 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Think Twice Before Registering NetBook Domain Names - Popular technology gizmo is a trademarked term. Savvy domainers jump on trends and register (or buy) popular new terms before they go mainstream. One term that has jumped into tech talk in earnest over the past year is “netbook”. Netbooks are essentially small and cheap laptops that travel well. This category of laptops is all the rage, and major manufacturers are jumping on the bandwagon advertising their latest netbooks. Above: Google Trends for “netbook” ... read more ...
Sat 7th February 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
IREIT/NameJet Proves Domains Are Liquid Assets - The sell of of IREIT domains continues over at NameJet.com this week. What’s lost in the story is the fact that this strategy by IREIT to sell their domains in this fashion, all starting at a $69 reserve is that domain names are in fact a Liquid investment. The debate has raged for quite a while are domains liquid assets, that is can they be sold and turned into cash quickly if they need to be. After watching IREIT domains selling on NameJet for decent prices the answer is YES. A good domain will ... read more ...
Fri 6th February 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
VeriSign: Domain Registrations and Renewals Rates Down: Price Increase to Come? - According to VeriSign’s Earnings call report for the 4th quater of 2008, new domain registrations (.com’s .net’s) were down 15%  in the 4th quarter of 2008 compared to the 4th quarter of 2007. In 2008 there were 6.3 million new domain name registrations, compared with 7.5 million names during 4Q 07. There are a lot in interesting information in the report including these gems: “”””The decline..reflects the continuation of weakness in names registered for the he online advertising ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
DomainFest Silent Auction Nets $481,000 - The silent/extended auction from DomainFest, which was held by Moniker.com today through SnapNames.com closed today with almost $481,000 in sales. In all, 222 domains sold with blooms.com and resorthotels.com tied for the top spot at $58,830 each. Here is the full list of all the domains that sold through the auction: Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Google Knows EVERYTHING About You - Google has announced in the last couple of days a couple of new products that makes it clear that Google knows everything about you, or is about to, including your location and your health. Google Health is a new service that organizes and stores all your health information including your medical records from doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies. Of course Google promise that your information will be secure and kept private. “”We will never sell your data. You are in control. You choose what you ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Arena.com Owner Wins Domain Name Arbitration - Panel finds Arena Swimwear’s arguments unconvincing. Sometimes I see a domain name dispute and wonder what the heck the complainant was thinking. When I saw that the one word generic domain name Arena.com was in dispute, I scratched my head. First of all, I’d never heard of the complainant. Second, you better have some damning evidence against the respondent to go after a generic word such as Arena. When I see the domain name Arena.com, I think of sports arenas. As ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Goldberger on Toys.com Team, eToys.com Buyer Remains Mystery - Follow up to yesterday’s auction story. I spent several hours yesterday reading through bankruptcy documents before breaking the news about a major domain name auction in Delaware on February 4. Since then I’ve read more documents to try to piece together the major winners at the auction. The two high profile winners — Faculty Lounge Partners and Eagle, LLC probably won’t ring a bell with you. It appears they were set up to buy domains in the auction. There’s ... read more ...
Thu 5th February 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Malaysia.com Sells for $400,000, Live Current Cuts 38% - Live Current Media sells domain name and lays off 38% of staff. Live Current Media (OTCBB: LIVC.ob) today announced the sale of a domain name for gross proceeds of 500,000 CAD, or approximately $400,000 USD. Based on information including whois record changes, Domain Name Wire believes the domain name sold is Malaysia.com. Malaysia.com is the only domain the company has put on the sales block that has had a whois change since then. The company also announced it ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Toys.com, Birthdays.com, Hobbies.com Sold during Auction - Millions of dollars in domains sold at auction. The biggest domain name auction of the year took place yesterday, but you probably haven’t heard about it. And Oversee.net, parent company of Moniker, was a bidder, not a seller. Yesterday at 10 am substantial assets from The Parent Company were scheduled to be auctioned off at the law offices of Pachulski Stang Ziehl Jones LLP. The Parent Company owns a number of online retailers including eToys. Among the domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DNW Interview: Brandon Abbey of Escrow.com - Escrow.com President Brandon Abbey discusses Escrow.com and the challenges of starting an escrow company. Big ticket domainers — and even smaller ones who want safe domain transfers — often turn to Escrow.com for domain name escrow services. The company was founded in 1999 by Fidelity National Financial, but has been privately held since May 2004. I’ve met Escrow.com president and managing director Brandon Abbey at a handful of domain name shows, and have ... read more ...
Wed 4th February 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Current DomainFest Silent Auction List With Bids - This is the current list of all bids at the DomainFest Silent auction currently running at SnapNames.com as of 3pm EST today. The silent auction closes tomorrow at 3:15pm EST. Right now the total bidding is over $100,000 You can see our top picks by clicking here. I confirmed with Moniker.com, that the previous bid for introduction.com was pulled for now since they could not confirm the bid. Here is the list including number of bids: Domain                       Bids    Current ... read more ...