Monthly Archives: June 2009

Fri 19th June 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Smart Changes Coming to Bido - Bido is making a couple smart changes to its auction platform in an upcoming release. First, Bido will start offering multiple auctions per day. It’s unclear how these will take place, but it could be several at the same time or one per hour (or half hour) throughout the day. Second, expert users will now be able to vote on which domain names will be auctioned off. This is a great way to use crowd sourcing to figure out which domains have the most potential. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz Win Domain Names - Celebrities win domain names through arbitration. As a follow up to Domain Name Wire’s earlier stories, both Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz have won their respective domain names through arbitration proceedings. Actor and comedian Jim Carrey filed his case in April with World Intellectual Property Organization to get the domain name JimCarrey.com. According to Compete.com, JimCarrey.com gets a few hundred unique visitors per month. Actress Cameron Diaz filed a case ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Can Rick Latona Save TRAFFIC Conference? - Latona will add needed spark to domain conference franchise. TRAFFIC was the first big domain name industry conference. It was also the first to do many innovative things, such as offer a compelling live domain auction. But lately its star has faded. Attendance is down, and don’t just blame the economy. When I asked people before the last TRAFFIC if they were going, a common response was “It’s not relevant anymore”. They blamed lackluster programming ... read more ...
Thu 18th June 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Download “Free” Music? Guess Its Not Free If It Costs $80K Per Song - Outside the world of domains, but right up the alley of intellectual property, a federal court just  issued a judgment against a “free” music file sharer for $1.9 million dollars or $80,000 per song. Jammie Thomas-Rasset, was found guilty of willful copyright infringement today and was ordered to pay the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) $1.9 million dollars for illegally downloading “a representative sample of 24 songs”. “We appreciate the jury’s service and that they ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Just Announced: Microsoft To Invest 5%-10% Of Its Income Into Search For Up To 5 Years - The CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer just announced that Microsoft is willing to invest 5% to 10% of its operating income back into its search business for up to five years. “Our shareholders, I told them we were willing to spend 5 to 10 percent of operating income for up to five years in this business, and we feel like we can get an economic return”. Ballmer went on to say ” “We should have started earlier, but we’ve got our mojo working now.” You think? Microsoft reported an operating ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Bing.com Market Share Rises For 2nd Week - According to comScore, Microsoft’s Bing.com search engine share rose for the second straight week. Bing.com’s search share in the United States rose to 12.1% between June 8 and 12 — up from 11.3% between June 1 and 5, and up from 9.1% during the week prior to the engine’s launch. Microsoft’s average daily penetration among U.S. searchers also increased by three percentage points to 16.7% during the work week of June 8 to 12, comScore found. ComScore also released U.S. search engine rankings ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
A .TV Domain Becomes An Actual TV Show - 702.tv is not only launching as a website, but as an actual broadcast Television show by the same name. (702 is the area code for Las Vegas). The site and show is owned by the Greenspun Media Group, which owns the Las Vegas Sun and Las Vegas Weekly The show is launching on a twice-weekly schedule, airing at 10:30 p.m. (PST) Tuesdays and Thursdays on Vegas TV and on  Cox cable. The program will go to five days a week in the fall. The show is described by Rob Curley, president and editor of Greenspun ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
News Bytes: DNW on Bido, .Info Giveaway - A few domain news updates. Here are a few domain news updates for Thursday evening. Andrew Allemann on Bido – join me on Bido.com tomorrow at 1 PM EDT. I’ll be the guest in the chatroom as we auction off Basketballs.info. Free domains for Fathers’ Day – Webfusion is giving away free .info domain names all weekend. The company will give away as many as 3,000 domain names. If you miss the freebies don’t worry — the company is charging just $.88 for ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
No Double Jeopardy for Domain Name Case - Companies loses second attempt to acquire domain name GetMore.com through domain arbitration. I was wrong. In January of this year I wrote an article “Domain Arbitration Doesn’t ‘Get More’ Crazy Than This” about a UDRP case for the domain GetMore.com. The title of the article was wrong, because this case just became even more crazy. The complainant, which lost the case, refiled a case with World Intellectual Property Organization claiming that it has ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Amazon Plans to Break Up with North Carolina Affiliates - Company sends warning to members of Associates program. One funny thing about politicians is how they make short-sighted maneuvers that end up costing their constituents in the long run. One example is requiring online merchants to collect sales tax for shipments to their state if the company has any affiliates in the state. The sad thing is that North Carolina, the latest state set to ponder such a law, can just look at other states to realize this is a mistake. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Yahoo Domain Sale was Win-Win - Yahoo’s sale of Contests.com was a win for everyone involved. When Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) sold the domain name Contests.com on Tuesday, the mood was upbeat. It was a relatively big domain sale from a big company for a lot more money than the seller anticipated. I was surprised to see some people questioning the sale. Larry Fischer made some fair points. TechCrunch went a little overboard, suggesting this was more than just a simple decision to sell an unused domain. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Live Current Selling Importers.com? - Whois for Importers.com changes to whois privacy. It appears that Live Current Media (OTCbb: LIVC.ob) may be in the process of closing a sale for Importers.com. The whois record for the domain name showed Communicate.com (Live Current’s former name) on June 16 but now shows Go Daddy’s whois privacy. Live Current hasn’t made similar changes on its other domain names except when they were sold. In April I was able to determine that the company had sold Vietnam.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Fabulous Adds Physical Security and Whois Privacy - Domain name registrar adds new security features and advanced whois privacy. Domain name registrar Fabulous is adding two new features including a whois privacy service that sets the bar for customer service. The features will be available July 1. The first new feature is a physical security device that adds additional security to sensitive areas of your account, such as name pushes and nameserver changes. The USB device delivers a one time-use passcode with the ... read more ...
Wed 17th June 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Fall Out From TRAFFIC Announcement: Moniker.com is Out: Will There Be A Trade Show War? - Well after the announcements yesterday coming out of the TRAFFIC show organizers and Rick Latona, that Rick Latona will be a partner of the TRAFFIC conference in 2010 and beyond, that means 1 thing for sure. Moniker.com is out. TRAFFIC New York, which will be held in October, will be the last TRAFFIC show in which Moniker.com will run a Live Auction (they still will be the premier auction for the NY show). Moniker.com, one of the many companies owned by Oversee.net already hosts its own show, Domainfest.com, ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
HealthCenter.com Sells For $16K on NameJet.com - The domain HealthCenter.com sold yesterday on NameJet.com for $16,766. Its a nice name which has traffic of somewhere between 300-1,100 visitors a month, over the last year, according to compete.com Other notable sales over the last couple of days were: Burners.com                        $7,818 RealEstateMortgage.com $4,600 TheBigPicture.com            $2,431 Codereview.com                 $2,206 WreckLawyers.com           $2,110 digitaltheater.com             ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Yahoo Sells Contests.com for $380,000 - Yahoo sells domain name during Domain Roundtable auction. Search and media giant Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) has sold the domain name Contests.com for $380,000 during a live domain name auction in Washington, D.C. The domain started at a $150,000 price before receiving 15 bids from 3 different bidders. Two of the bidders were on site at the auction and one was online. The domain appears to have been picked up when Yahoo acquired Broadcast.com. Historical records show ... read more ...
Tue 16th June 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Microsoft Sues 3 For Click Fraud - According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft filed a lawsuit on Monday against three people they allege committed a form of “click fraud” by improperly manipulating Microsoft’s online advertising service for profit. Microsoft filed the suit in federal court in Seattle against Eric Lam, his mother Melanie Suen and his brother Gordon Lamand all of Vancouver and several corporations under their control. The suit seeks at least $750,000 in damages alleging that the three engaged in the  scheme ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Bido.com: 4 Months Later - It’s been about 4 months since Bido.com relaunched and I thought it was time to catch you up with the results. Bido.com, since its inception has had 139 domains sales, on its one domain per day auction format. Total sales for the 139 days, is $170K or about $1,215 per sale, pretty impressive, when you consider that almost all domains are sold with no reserve and start at $1. (this includes the first couple of weeks of Bido.com before the relaunch). I have bought and sold domains using the platform ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Roundtable Update - Domain Roundtable enters final day in Washington, D.C. The Domain Roundtable conference in Washington, D.C. concludes this evening with a party hosted by Thought Convergence and Parked.com. But there will be a lot of action between now and then. Let’s start by recapping yesterday. The day started with a panel about market and technology trends and how they will affect domain names in the short and long term. The panel included myself, Hal Bailey from Google, Nico ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Aftermarket.com Auction Today Includes ICA Domains - Today’s Aftermarket.com auction includes 10 domains to benefit ICA. Today’s Aftermarket.com domain name auction at Domain Roundtable includes ten domain names that will benefit Internet Commerce Association. Bidding on these domains is a great way to support the ICA and get something back immediately in return. These aren’t throw away domains: domains up for auction include Castaway.com and Deployed.com, among others. In addition to the Internet Commerce ... read more ...
Mon 15th June 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.XXX Extension Heading To Arbitration To Beat The New gTLD Clock - ICM Registry’s top-level domain .XXX proposal is going to arbitration in Washington in late September. ICM Registry is asking for a three-judge panel to rule in favor of its application to serve as .XXX registry operator” because it met criteria set forth in a December 2003 request for proposal”. ICM Registry claims in more than a 1,000 pages of documents that ICANN acted inconsistently with its own articles of incorporation and bylaws in rejecting its application. ICM has been chasing the ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
KGB.com, The Perfect Name For One Of The World’s Largest Information Companies - We often call out Madison Avenue for not understanding the importance of matching a great domain with a natural product, so when we see a perfect match, we have to give props. KGB.com a great domain due to it being the same 3 letters of the former Soviet Union’s spy agency, the equivalent to the CIA. So something known as an intelligence agency, matched up with its ““Ask Us Anything” service, is an example of matching up a perfect domain with the exact application you would expect. The results ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Terminates Five Domain Name Registrars - Five registrars terminated for financial reasons. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has sent termination notices to five domain name registrars for failure to pay fees. Of the five to be de-accredited, only one has registered domains under management: Maxim Internet Inc. ICANN is seeking a registrar to take over about 5,000 domains registered at Maxim Internet. It warns that contact data for the registrants is in an inconsistent format. ICANN sent ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Epik Provides New Monetization Option for Domainers - Epik could provide compelling domain monetization strategy — and may spur more direct navigation. When Rob Monster announced he was closing his venture capital shop, he wrote that he was working on a new company that could change domaining: We are building a Web 3.0 platform that will be among the first to drive a network effect across domain properties, in part enabled by single sign-on, portable identity, portable reputation, and user-aware content management. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
CollectiveX Rebrands as GroupSite.com - Company upgrades to intuitive domain name. At Mike Mann’s party yesterday I met serial entrepreneur Clarence Wooten, Jr., CEO of CollectiveX. When I first met him, my natural question was “what the heck is CollectiveX”. Wooten explained that it was a social platform for groups, which makes perfect sense. But the name didn’t make sense until Wooten explained it to me. Wooten had some exciting news to share, though: on Monday he was rebranding his company ... read more ...