Richard Branson Is Calling All Entrepreneurs To Pitch TV - Today, Richard Branson announced on his blog that he was holding a contest, where entrepreneurs can submit a 2 minute video pitching their idea, and every month he will select 5 winners who will have their video presented on Virgin Atlantic flights where it can be seen not by Richard, but by all those who fly on the airlines, including many successful businessmen.
Cool idea, only problem is from the domaining side, pitch.tv is a domain reserved by the .TV registry (although its going to a parked ... read more ...
Monthly Archives: March 2009
Tue 31st March 2009
Google Starts $100 Million Dollar Venture Captial Fund - Google announced today on it’s company blog that is was launching a $100 Million venture capital fund, “to support innovation and encourage promising new technology companies.”
The fund will be run by managing partners William Maris, a former entrepreneur, and Rich Miner, a former executive in its mobile unit.
The partners said there would be very few companies within the fund’s core sectors that would be off limits for consideration. Miner said the partners have been given a green light ... read more ...
New Jersey Attorney General Wants To Regulate FaceBook.com, MySpace.com - New Jersey lawmakers are considering new legislation, entitled the “Social Networking Site Safety Act”, that would require Facebook, MySpace and others social networking sites to police every post to determine if it is “offensive”.
Under the proposed law social networking sites would face potential consumer fraud lawsuits if they failed to take down an offensive post.
The bill’s definition of social networking sites extends far beyond Facebook.com and MySpace.com to encompass any Web ... read more ...
Vertical Axis Wins WIPO On ParkRoyal.com, Despite Trademark: A Great Win For Domainers - In a 3 person panel decision, a WIPO panel denied the complaint of Parkroyal Hospitality Management Pte Ltd. of Singapore, over the domain ParkRoyal.com.
What makes this case noteworthy is that the Complainant, owed the trademark “PARKROYAL” since 2002 and has “47 trademark registrations for PARKROYAL in 15 different countries around the world.”
The Complaint operates hotels by under this trademark.
“”””The Complainant has evidenced that the disputed domain name contained links to ... read more ...
Online Advertising Growth Slows, But PPC Is Getting A Bigger Chunk - According to a report released yesterday, by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers, online advertising last year reached $23.4 billion, with the 4th quarter total of $6.1 billion up 2.6% from the 4th quarter of 2007.
The 2.6% increase in 4th quarter ad revenue, was the smallest since 2002. The 51% of total online ad dollars spent during the second half of 2008 was also the lowest percentage for the last six months of any year since 2002.
In all online advertising growth ... read more ...
TechCrunch See’s Huge Value In Very Short Domains - A blog post yesterday in Tech Crunch, asks the question of how valuable short URL’s are, based on a Twitter society where shorter is not only better, but necessary.
The post pointed out the fact that bit.ly just got $2 million dollars in for 20% of the company, placing a value on the company of $8 million.
“”””In a world where everything is being jammed into 140 characters or less, shorter is better. That goes double (or is it half?) for lengthy URLs. So-called URL shortening services are ... read more ...
Bit.ly and a Dangers of ccTLDs -
Is it wise to run a web service using a questionable country code domain?
I’ve warned about the dangers of country code top level domains. Rogers Cadenhead made some interesting observations about Bit.ly, a URL shortening service that just scored $2M in funding.
You see, .ly is the country code for Libya, which has a not-so-great history with the United States. He also points out some of the rules attached to country code domains. I’ve written before about ... read more ...
Behind a Scenes during Domain Madness 2009 -
A look behind the scenes at the Domain Madness auction.
It’s Domain Madness time! Domain Consultant’s Domain Madness auction kicks off today at 2:15 CDT (12:15 PDT) with 48 domain names going under the hammer. To make things more interesting, someone will walk home with $1,000 for correctly picking the domain names that sell. Follow me on twitter @domainnamewire
Although most bidding action will come online, a number of domainers are gathering at the live auction ... read more ...
Scalar Decisions Inc.’s Shameful Domain Strategy -
A classic abuse of UDRP.
Every once in a while you come across a classic example of abuse of UDRP domain name arbitration. That’s the case with a recent decision for Scalar.com.
The perpetrator was Scalar Decisions Inc, a fast growing technology company in Canada, represented by Peter M. Dillon of Siskinds LLP. The victim was Scalar Consulting Group.
Here’s what happened in a nutshell:
-Scalar Consulting Group registers Scalar.com in 1996
-Scalar Decisions, ... read more ...
Mon 30th March 2009
Is Catholic.org Really Worth “Considerably More Than $200,000″ - According to a blog post on the catholic spirit blog Catholic Online, agreed to settle a lawsuit for $200,000 and pledged the domain catholic.org which according to the story “””is estimated to be worth considerably more than $200,000, as collateral to ensure restitution is made.”””
It appears that the District Attorney for Kern County (Bakersfield, Calif) must have agreed that the domain’s value covered the $200K owed in restitution and fees for the deal to have been accepted.
At ... read more ...
Supreme Court Let’s Virgina Anti-Spam Law Die - Today the Supreme Court, without comment, rejected the state of Virginia’s appeal to keep its anti-spam law, regarded to be the toughest such state law, in place. The law known as the Computer Crimes Act banned commercial and noncommercial spam e-mail sent to consumers in that state.
Mr. Jaynes was convicted in 2004 for sending bulk unsolicited electronic messages in violation of the Virgina law.
In September 2008, the Virgina Supreme Court reversed the conviction. (You can read about our post ... read more ...
Ford Gets Sued For Using Domain As A “Catch Phrase”: WeSpeakCar.com - In an unusual case, a Pittsburgh auto parts dealer filed a lawsuit on Friday in the U.S. District Court against Ford Motor Co., claiming they used the company’s “catch phrase”, which is also its domain name.
Frank’s Auto Supply Inc., claims they have used the phrase, “We Speak Car,” in advertising since June 8, 2003. Moreover Frank’s owns the domain name, www.wespeakcar.com.
Frank’s alleges that Ford launched a “dynamic and multi-faceted,” advertising campaign for the Ford ... read more ...
Our Take Of The AfterMarket.com Auction - Using our friends over at Esitbot.com valuation tool, we ran the domains in the AfterMarket.com auction, which closes on Tuesday, but it already opened for prebidding, to find the “Best Buys”.
According to Estibot.com here are the domains with the lowest Starting price to Estibot appraisal (any domain in bold already has a bid as of time of publication):
Also please note that the prices stated in the auction are not reserve prices but starting prices so even though you are the high bidder for ... read more ...
Government Fires CEO of GM - Outside the world of domains, but certainly food for thought for all of us located in the US, is today’s news that the Federal Government has basically asked for and gotten the resignation of the CEO of GM, Rick Wagoner.
This is the first time in history that the US government has demanded that a private company fire the head of a company.
The demand of the US government comes on GM’s request for government loans to keep its business running.
Today President Obama said that the US government ... read more ...
Sedo Gets Results, Sells Results.com for $500,000 -
Sedo sells Results.com domain name for $500k.
I won’t have official numbers until tomorrow, but it looks like Sedo has had another great sales week. Sedo just tweeted that it sold Results.com for $500,000 and BabyShop.com for $85,000.
Results.com shows a business coaching company, but that web site has been on the site since December. Only the e-mail address for the domain has changed in whois, which indicates payment has been received but the domain hasn’t ... read more ...
Threatdown: GAC Wants Second Level Place Names Protected -
Another reason you need to pay attention to the new top level domain process at ICANN.
I think it’s time to start a “Threatdown” for domain owners, a la Stephen Colbert. The threats to domain name owners in the new top level domain process at ICANN are far scarier than Colbert’s perennial threat: bears.
Today’s threat is the protection of city and other place names at the second level. We’re not talking about top level domains such as .nyc. We’re ... read more ...
Minisites.com Delivers: KansasCity.us -
@ Domain Name Media — sheesh bro, it took me some time to figure out which of your leaders at “Domain Name Media” I was talking to in order to address you directly like a man. However, even http://www.domainnamemedia.com is a danged ol’ landing page, and apparently not owned by you… so no help with your handle here in allowing me to know who I’m talking to.
Should you use the full phrase of your acronym company name (“Domain Name Media” standing in for “DNmedia.com”) ... read more ...
5 Reasons To Not Buy a Mac -
Get off your high horse, Apple fan boys.
Two high profile domainers recently made the switch from PC to Mac. I’m not joining the club. My wife’s employer forces her to use a mac, and actually using one of these things shows you they aren’t perfect and not worth the fuss.
Before I get started with 5 reasons to not buy a Mac, here’s a little situational humor…
I was sitting with a group of entrepreneurs the other day. One said he was having problems with ... read more ...
Sun 29th March 2009
Vegas Baby, Vegas! -
I’m off to Las Vegas for Domain Madness.
Keeping up with all domain news it tough work. Here’s a case in point on how I’m taking one for the team. You know, sacrificing.
So on Friday Adam Strong of Domain Consultant sends me an e-mail to tell me about the live version of Tuesday’s Domain Madness auction. Man, so you mean I have to go to Vegas for the event to cover it? And stay at the rinky-dink Palms hotel? What a sacrifice. I guess I need to do it ... read more ...
Sat 28th March 2009
“The Perils Of Selling Out Too Cheap” - A very interesting blog post over at Tech Crunch talks about human nature and the tenancy of selling out too cheap when faced with a buyout offer, or as the author puts it:
“””Entrepreneurs selling companies too early.
“””Several entrepreneurs here have described themselves as having a huge appetite for taking risk on the front end; but being risk-adverse when it comes to turning down a huge chunk of money for their dream.
“””Most people in the world would take the certainty of ... read more ...
Next BIG New Site On The Net: Hunch.com - The Co-founder of Flickr, Caterina Fake, talked about her new venture appropriately named Hunch.com
A very interesting concept, paired with a great, easy to remember domain, should make this site one of the next BIG Web 2.0 sites. We had the myspace.com period, then facebook.com, now twitter.com is all the rage.
Looking for the next HOT thing, we may have found it
On Ms. Fake’s blog, she announced that invitations have gone out to her friends and people who registered on Hunch.
“””We’re ... read more ...
Monster Venture Partners Closing Doors -
Venture Capital firm was big backer of generic domain-based companies.
Rob Monster’s Monster Venture Partners is closing its doors, reports TechFlash.
Monster Venture Partners backed a number of companies that were formed with high value generic domain names, such as Alerts.com and Healthcare.com. Other companies Monster Venture Capital invested in were SharedReviews, EvoMedia Group (formerly EvoLanding), and Complaints.com. Because Monster founded the venture ... read more ...
Fri 27th March 2009
Google Fires 200 In Sales & Marketing - Google announced Thursday it is cutting about 200 jobs in sales and marketing, citing an overlap in responsibilities across the organization that could complicate the “decision-making” process and make teams less effective and efficient.
The cuts will take place globally and employees will have an opportunity to apply for other posts throughout the company, Google said in a blog post. “We over invested in some areas in preparation for the growth trends we were experiencing at the time,” the ... read more ...
Badgirl.com At Auction At Snapnames.com - The auction for Badgirl.com ends today at snapnames.com at 3:15 EST.
The high bid is currently over $8,000 and you can still join the auction by clicking here.
UsNotary.com closes today at well, a pretty good domain still under $100, to join the auction for UsNotary.com click here.
Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
Amazon Sued For For Using Trademark Product In PPC Ads - A company that sells instructional videos and CDs sued Amazon for trademark infringement stemming from PPC ads on Google.
The complaint, filed this week by Video Professor, alleges that Amazon uses the phrase “video professor” to trigger pay-per-click ads that direct people to a site that sells instructional CD-ROMS made by the company Professor Teaches.
The complaint also alleges that the “first six products” listed on the landing page are Professor Teaches CD-ROMs, while an exhibit attached ... read more ...