Monthly Archives: April 2009

Mon 27th April 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WhyPark Domain Parking Alternative Now Free - Domain name service drops upfront fees. [Update: What I couldn’t write about yesterday but can now is that Parked.com has purchased WhyPark.] Domain name parking alternative WhyPark has dropped its upfront fees and is now free. Previously, WhyPark charged $99 for the first 100 web sites. Add-on services, such as article writing and search engine submissions, are still available for a fee. WhyPark enables domain name owners to create dynamically updated web sites ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Versa Capital Hits Domain Name Jackpot - Company wins great domain name at UDRP just two weeks after being found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking. Just two week ago, financial firm Versa Capital Management was found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking (RDNH) by an arbitration panel when it tried to get the domain name VersaCapital.com. But Versa Capital and its lawyers are high-fiving now that they picked up an even better domain, Versa.com, at arbitration. This answers one of the questions of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
That’s a Wrap on GeoDomain Expo 2009 - A look back at the 2009 GeoDomain Expo. Some domain name conferences are special. Different. Unique. On Sunday morning, I opened up the sliding door to my first floor room at Catamaran Resort in San Diego and saw this: The vista made me think about how “different” the GeoDomain Expo was to other industry conferences. It was held away from the city and away from a high rise hotel. Lunch and drinks were served on the beach. Panels and sessions were packed ... read more ...
Sun 26th April 2009
Written by The Domains in EN
Pro AdBuyers Look At PPC & You Should Listen - An interesting post in Media Post’s Search Insider a publication written for those professionals that help their clients by PPC advertising. It’s important to see what companies that get paid to place PPC for advertisers are thinking because they direct a lot of the major PPC ad buys. First the post notes that many of their clients have reduced their PPC ad buys back to 2003-2004 levels. This is why in part your parking revenues are down. Second, the post says that the economy is  “forcing ... read more ...
Sat 25th April 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Latham.com Sells For $30K At NameJet.com - Latham.com sold for $30,300 at Namejet.com Latham is a popular last name which pulls over 7 million results on Google If you do a Google search for “Latham” the first result is for Latham Watkins, which seems to be a very large international law firm, second is a link to Congressman Tom Latham of Iowa and then to the Latham Hotel, a small hotel in NY. Seems like a lot of money for a domain with limited development potential. Other notable sales at NameJet.com from the last few days include: Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
A Ton Of 3 Letter .Org’s Dropping Today - Its not often that you see a three letter domain drop naturally, and today by my count there are at least 35 of them. These are actual drop domains, so they can be caught by any drop service or even with you own script (if you have one). If you want to go after any of these,  you need to backorder them, with your favorite, or all your favorite drop services, like Snapnames.com, NameJet.com, and/or Pool.com by their respective deadlines today: bqx.org kax.org mxy.org qur.org qvf.org qwy.org qxf.org qxn.org qxw.org qyj.org qzm.org qzu.org uqv.org uxh.org uxl.org uzs.org xez.org xsr.org xhh.org xne.org xoa.org xsj.org xty.org xyu.org xsz.org yuq.org yxi.org zdv.org zhv.org zxb.org zsj.org zvx.org zwz.org zxp.org zzh.org Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GeoDomain Expo Day Two Wrap and an Auction First - A look back at Friday’s GeoDomain activities and a unique twist on today’s auction. Friday kicked off the first official full day of activities at the 2009 GeoDomain Expo in San Diego. The day opened with a brief address from San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders. Associated Cities president Dan Pulcrano then provided a State of the Industry speech. Next, a panel of GeoDomain owners discussed how they’ve developed their sites. They provided some good tips on getting ... read more ...
Fri 24th April 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Trumpet.com: Back Up On Auction Block At NameJet.com - Trumpet.com appears to be back up on the auction block at NameJet.com The domain which sold for $35,000 at TRAFFIC New York, last September, started with a reserve price of zero. Already 134 people have backordered the domain, although it does not appear to be a “expired” or dropped domain” as it currently has an expiration date of July 2015. So it appears to be a private sale through NameJet.com, and it will be interesting to see if the domain brings in more or less than its previous sale ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
9 Months, 1 Billion Downloads - Its official, in just nine months after launching the revolutionary Apple App Store, the 1 billion downloads mark has been met. Connor Mulcahey, a thirteen year old from Weston, CT, downloaded the one billionth app, Bump, a free contact swapping app created by Bump Technologies. The teenager became the grand prize winner of Apple’s one billion app countdown contest and will receive a $10,000 iTunes gift card, an iPod touch, a Time Capsule, and a MacBook Pro. As we spoke about last week when facebook  ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Search Engine Accussed of Blocking Natural Search Results Of An Advertiser Who Cut Their PPC Spending - What if a search engine blocked a company who cut back its PPC spending, from appearing in non-paid search results? That is exactly what Renren Information Services is accusing Baidu.com, China’s leading search engine, of. Renren says that Baidu.com basically blackballed the site,  after the company dramatically lowered its PPC spending with Baidu Renren is suing Baidu for the equivalent of $161,000 in damages, and the case in currently at trial in a court in Beijing. For a public company with ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo Launches SedoMLS - Sedo launches white label solution for registrars to sell aftermarket domain names. Domain name aftermarket Sedo released its new SedoMLS system today. The system allows domain registrars and other partners to plug in a domain sales aftermarket engine that offers domain names at fixed prices. For example, a domain registrar may offer aftermarket domains for sale in response to a customer’s domain query. Domain sellers will get additional exposure on registrar ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
PetMed Express Loses Domain Dispute - Online pet medicine company loses dispute over domain names including term “Pet Med”. Online pet medicine store PetMed Express (NASDAQ: PETS), which operates 1800PetMeds.com, lost a domain dispute at WIPO for a handful of domain names, including PetMedOutlet.com. Respondent Joseph Brinton was represented by Traverse Legal. Brinton registered the domain name in 2006 and set up a web site that included affiliate links to companies selling pet medicine online. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Wikipedia in Domain Name Spat - Online encyclopedia makes an ironic legal claim. Wikipedia and its parent organization Wikimedia Foundation are trying to get their hands on the domain name WikipediaArt.org. The catch is Wikipedia Art is a non-commercial web site critical of Wikipedia. A number of influential organizations are coming to the aid of WikipediaArt.org, including Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Ironically, EFF has come to the defense of Wikipedia in the past. In a commentary on ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GeoDomain Expo Kicks Off in San Diego - Conference started yesterday with members only sessions and welcome luau. The GeoDomain Expo kicked off in San Diego yesterday morning with a day of sessions limited to Associated Cities members. Sessions yesterday covered advanced topics that appealed to members, many of whom already have successful geo web sites. I flew in Thursday and was on the same flight as the Parked.com team, which was flying in from Tampa with a layover in Austin. Associated Cities Executive ... read more ...
Thu 23rd April 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Yahoo Shutting Down GeoCities: Another $4.6 Billion Down The Drain - Yahoo announced today that it is shutting down GeoCities, a free service that hosts personal home pages for consumers. Yahoo acquired GeoCities in 1999, in a stock deal valued at roughly $4.6 billion. A posting on a Yahoo Help page for GeoCities Thursday said the service was no longer accepting new customers and that it will be closing later this year, with more details about how individuals can save their data coming this summer. In a statement Yahoo said: “We have decided to discontinue the process ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Microsoft Profit Down 32%: Revenues Down More Than Expected - Microsoft reported earnings today and the news was not good. Microsoft’s net income fell 32% to $2.98 billion, or 33 cents per share, for the quarter ended March 31. Revenue fell 6% to $13.7 billion, below most analysts’ expectations of $14.1 billion. Microsoft said weakness in the global PC and server markets negatively impacted its results. “While market conditions remained weak during the quarter, I was pleased with the organization’s ability to offset revenue pressures with the swift ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Our Pick’s & Pan’s At The AfterMarket Geo Auction - Aftermarket is holding a live auction of Domains as part of the GeoDomain Expo 2009. The auction starts on Saturday at 6:00 PST, however bidding has already started online on DomainTools. At the time of this post almost 30% of the domain already have met the reserve price. As we often do, we are looking at the auction using Esitbot, not to put a value on the domains as much as just pointing out domains of value.  So like you I don’t think bocaratonflorida.com is worth $140K or anywhere close to ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Mac Users: Now There Is A Virus Just For You - Symantec, which makes Norton antivirus software, has identified the  first harmful computer program to strike specifically at Mac’s. This Trojan horse program, dubbed the “iBotnet,” has infected only a few thousand Mac machines, but it represents a step in the evolution of malicious computer software attack Apple’s which have to date been thought to be immune from viruses. The iBotnet is a sign that harmful programs are moving toward Mac, said Paul Henry, a forensics and security analyst ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Didit.com: Google Widens Its Lead Over Yahoo For Ad Dollars - According to Search Engine Marketing Firm Didit.com, Google share of search dollars spent by all clients of Didit.com keep rising and dollars spent on Yahoo keeps falling. Didit.com which reports 95% of its clients are US based, is reporting that over 70% of its clients ad dollars now go to Google while less than 20% now go to Yahoo. This difference has grown in the past 4+  years where Yahoo was getting about 35% of Didit.com client’s ad dollars and Google was getting  just 60%. To see the complete ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WorldWide Media Sues to Retain SmoothMove.com - Company sues to keep domain after surprise UDRP decision. Michael Berken’s company, WorldWide Media, Inc., has sued Traditional Medicinals Inc., in order to retain the domain name SmoothMove.com. Earlier this month, a National Arbitration Forum panel found that Worldwide Media must transfer its ownership of SmoothMove.com to Traditional Medicinals. Traditional Medicinals offers a laxative tea called Smooth Move. WorldWide Media, represented by attorney Ari Goldberger, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICA Asks ICANN Ombudsman for Investigation - Internet Commerce Associations requests investigation of Implementation Recommendation Team. Internet Commerce Association Counsel Philip Corwin has sent a letter to ICANN’s ombudsman requesting an investigation of Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT). IRT was set up at ICANN’s Mexico meeting to suggest implementation procedures for new top level domain names. It primarily represents trademark interests. According to the letter, IRT is acting merely as ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Austin Allergists Understand Good Domain Names - From memorable names to search terms, Austin allergists have good domain names. A few years ago I wrote about an oral surgeon in Austin with a great domain name – Jawpain.com. Last week I used Google to find an allergist in Austin, and was impressed with the domain names these local doctors were using. The second result was for Allergy and Asthma Center of Austin, which uses the catchy domain name NoSneezes.com. Allergy and Asthma Consultants uses the keyword ... read more ...
Wed 22nd April 2009
Written by The Domains in EN
WSJ: As Many People Make A Living Blogging, As Practicing Law - Wall Street Journal yesterday reported that “there are almost as many people making their living as bloggers, as there are lawyers.” More Americans are making their primary income from blogging than computer programmers or firefighters. According to the WSJ there are over 20 million bloggers with almost 1.7 million of them making money and 452,000 people earn their primary source of income from blogging. Interesting in a time where newspapers are losing money and going out of business, so many ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Verizon Voices Concerns about New Top Level Domain Names - Verizon has several recommendations for ICANN — including listening to the recommendations it has already received. I’ve read dozens of comments submitted to ICANN about its new top level domain name applicant guidebook. Perhaps the most thoughtful comments in the latest round were from Verizon (NYSE: VZ), which is known in the domain community for aggressively pursuing cybersquatters. You can read Verizon’s comments here (pdf). I talked to Verizon Vice ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
In Domain World, It’s “What Have You Done for Me Lately” - Don’t fall into the trap of resting on previous success. For a few years after I graduated from college, I would always joke with my wife about how I got a 4.0 in college and she didn’t. I would proudly wear the badge of my GPA, thinking it mattered. It mattered for the first job I got out of college, but after that no one cared. My wife was sure to remind me of that. “No one cares anymore that you got a 4.0 in college,” she would say. And she was right. In ... read more ...