Monthly Archives: June 2009

Wed 10th June 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domaining.com Launches ClosingAuctions.com - Popular domain news aggregator launches tool to find good domain name auctions. Domaining.com has launched an advanced tool for finding gems in closing domain name auctions. Called ClosingAuctions.com, the tool sorts domains according to closing time, bids, price, value and interest. The first three categories are self explanatory, but the latter two are the most interesting. The value tab sorts domains according to an automated appraisal using domain metrics and ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Publisher Who Sued Google Adsense Loses Appeal - Man who originally won small claim against Google loses appeal. Aaron Greenspan won a small claims court case against Google earlier this year. Google had canceled his Adsense account without providing a reason. The judge ruled that it can’t cancel accounts for any reason at all, and awarded Greenspan $761. Greenspan wrote an article for Huffington Post detailing the matter, which gained national attention. Google and appealed the case, which it won. Although ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Facebook URL Landrush This Friday Night - Friendly URLs become available this Friday night/Saturday morning. This Saturday morning at 12:00 am EDT (Friday night for most of the United States), Facebook will let users create “friendly URLs” for their profiles. So instead of the current facebook.com/blahblahnumbersnumberblah, you will be able to get Facebook.com/yourname or something similar. A lot of people have pointed to Twitter ‘usernames’ as the next type of domain squatting. Facebook is taking ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Check NameMedia Parking Stats on iPhone App - Apps let you check stats on all three NameMedia platforms. On Monday Cortnee Gunn, a NameMedia domain parking account manager based in Austin, stopped by my office to show me the company’s latest parking innovations. If it seemed that NameMedia and its parking companies — GoldKey, ActiveAudience, and Smartname — fell off the earth for a while, that’s because the company was dealing with its initial public offering quiet period. With the IPO called off, ... read more ...
Tue 9th June 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
The ICA “Urges The Commerce Department to Extend and Revise Their Agreement with ICANN” - The Internet Commerce Association (the “ICA) made public tonight the comments it filed with U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) which is considering their agreement with ICANN with expires on September 30, 2009. If anyone doesn’t understand the importance of having the ICA representing the interests of the average domainer, after taking into acccount this letter, the amicus brief that the ICA filed and which was cited by the Appeals Court in overturning the previous dismissal in favor of VeriSign ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Trust.Me Leads NameJet.com On 2nd Day of .Me Auctions during over $10K & A .Org Sells For Over $10K - The second day of the exclusve registry owned .me domains on NameJet.com ended with trust.me selling for $10,799. The other .me auctions ended with, share.me selling for $5K, and beer.me selling for $4,299. I don’t get beer.me at all. In another NameJet.com auction today, a great, two word .org sold for over $10K. Golfcourses.org sold for $10,005. To see’s yesterday’s NameJet.com results for their .me auction click here. Also on Snapnames.com today, BestRated.com sold for $5,250 and highlyrecommended.com ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ComScore: “Bing.com Off To A Good Start” - According to the research group ComScore, Microsoft’s revamped search engine, Bing, is off to a good start in its first week since launch. According to ComScore, Bing.com market share is up to 11.1% from 9.1% (for Microsoft Live Search). “So far it appears that the lifts in searcher penetration and engagement have held relatively steady throughout the five-day period,” said Mike Hurt, comScore senior vice president, on Tuesday. “It appears it is off to a good start.” A comScore spokesman ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Does Local Search Work On Google? - According to Borrell Associates and Clickable,  50% of businesses that buy local search ads directly from Google other online companies, don’t come back the following year. Many online advertising resellers and affiliates, who serve local businesses, churn half their customers within a year. Some lose as many as 90%. The report suggests that missed expectations and a lack of return on investment (ROI) for local-business customers contribute to the change. The churn rate for ReachLocal, LookSmart ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
VeriSign Shares Fall 14% On Appeals Court Ruling - Investors in VeriSign may not know much about domain names, but they sure didn’t like the appellate courts ruling on Friday, allowing the suit against VeriSign to continue. (We told you in the post its was a big deal). Share of VeriSign closed at $19.90 a share down over 14%, after hitting a intraday low of $19.46. Over 20 million shares traded hands on Monday, the first trading day after the Federal Court of Appeals ruling.   VeriSign averaged over the last 3 months, just over 4 Million shares ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How to Respond to a Domain Threat - What to do when you receive a domain threat. I rarely receive legal threats about my domain names. I’ve never received a UDRP, and can remember only a couple times someone took the time to e-mail me suggesting that they had rights to my domains. (None of those people followed up, by the way.) But this morning I got “one of those” calls. My cell phone rang at 7:40 this morning, and the person on the other end said, “I see that you own thisdomain.com. I’m ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
NameMedia Tops $600k in Weekly Domain Sales - BathSupplies.com tops list of over 350 domain names sold. NameMedia, parent company of BuyDomains and Afternic, sold more than 350 domain names over the past week for total reported sales of $600,000. The top domain sales were BathSupplies.com at $11,500 and Authenticated.com at $9,000. Here are other top .com domain sales: transpond.com $8,500.00 justbikes.com $7,500.00 megafashion.com $6,230.00 debtdestroyer.com $5,400.00 financialstore.com $5,000.00 daycarebusiness.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Study Questions if Consumers Want New Top Level Domains - Research report shows consumers not keen on new TLDs. A couple weeks ago I received an email from a researcher at The Future Laboratory, a UK-based research and trend forecasting company. The company was preparing a report, sponsored by domain registrar Gandi.net, about the introduction of new top level domain names. We later discussed the issues surrounding new TLDs via phone. I assumed that the report would be tainted by Gandi’s position on new top level domains, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Industry Blog Watch - A look at what domain bloggers and news sites are writing about this week. Various domain news sites and bloggers have written some great articles this week that are worth referring to. Demand for new gTLDs – Michael Berkens beat me to writing a story about ICANN CEO Paul Twomey’s comments about new gTLD demand. Twomey refers to demand as demand by people who want to launch new TLDs, not people who want to actually register them. Change your Passwords – Elliot ... read more ...
 
Written by The MediaWizard's Blog in EN
The Extension Agnostic - I’ll start with what a lot of people will consider a fairly radical statement, though those in the know should probably agree – “Extensions are less relevant than the keyword of the domain”. I’ll take Exhibitions.ws over ExcellentTopExhibitions.com any day of the year. With each new extension you have a subset of domainers who invest most of their money in that extension, then have to go around touting it as the next big thing since sliced bread else their investments will not get ... read more ...
Mon 8th June 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
1st Exclusive .ME Auctions End On NameJet.com: Publish.Me Goes For $11K - The first of several days of registry owned .me domains closed today at NameJet.com, with publish.me selling for $11,100. The other .me closing today were copy.me right under the wire transfer amount of $4,999 and catch.me which sold for $1,799. Tomorrow, the auctions for trust.me, share.me and beer.me will close, with trust.me already at over $5K. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Our SnapNames.com Picks Jun 8th Edition - Here are some of the best domains available for backorder at SnapNames.com To backorder just click on the link: gambia.com boondocks.com internetpublishing.com injustices.com baguettes.com backlash.com recreationcenters.com yci.com 30yr.com 2007.com collegeinterns.com easyfunds.com domainbrokering.com vintagevinylrecords.com preforeclosurelist.com privateid.com travelersnews.com swimmingclass.com debtcard.com cheapoutlet.com gymclass.com aftershower.com debtconsolidationrefinance.com custombuilthome.com securitycamera.com censurados.com snakeboarding.com weightlossplanner.com hydrogenhybrid.com rescue.net closeoutdeals.com package.net foreclosurerealestate.com lad.org lasvegasnevadahomes.com nextdayfinancing.com outbound.com naplesairport.com greencarwash.com londontea.com beneficiary.net onlinefinancing.com executivetoys.com villasearch.com roulettegames.com breadtrucks.com stupidshirts.com bedroomsuperstore.com camsluts.com bnff.com euse.com iouu.com rili.com ioiu.com hrri.com nakedbrazilians.com smmm.com askmedia.com tiir.com ponk.com nree.com Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
WSJ: Internet Ad Spending Fall 5% In First Quarter - According to the Wall Street Journal, U.S. online ad spending declined 5% in the first quarter, which is the first decline since 2002. “””The latest expenditure, $5.5 billion, compares with $5.8 billion during the first quarter of 2008, when online-ad spending surged 18% from a year earlier. It comes after U.S. online ad spending grew 11% in 2008, the slowest rate since 2002.”” The good news from the report is that search advertising held up relatively well in the first quarter and that ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Christian Dior Loses Domain Case to Adult Actress - Christian Dior plays rough with adult actress; gets kicked out of bed. Fragrance and fashion company Christian Dior has lost a challenge for the domain name KiannaDior.com to an adult actress. The company challenged Victoria Woo, who goes by the stage name Kianna Dior, to get rights to the domain name. That the domain name KiannaDior.com could be found confusingly similar to ChristianDior.com is somewhat surprising. In fact, it seemed that the arbitrator was going ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Monday’s Domain News Bytes - Domain musings to kick off the week. Here are some thoughts to get you started this week. Your Internet Commerce Association dollars at work. Don’t say ICA has never done anything for you. A “friend of the court” brief ICA filed in the VeriSign antitrust case was cited by justices as a major factor in the court’s finding that the lawsuit can go forward. I think that’s worth the $295 it costs to join the association. Is Paul Twomey still smarting from ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
eNom Ensnared in Cybersquatting Lawsuit - Lawsuit claims domain name registrar transferred domain name back to cybersquatter. It’s not unusual to find a domain name registrar named in a cybersquatting lawsuit because an infringing domain is registered with them. But a case filed June 2 in U.S. District Court against eNom involves an alleged inappropriate transfer back to a cybersquatter. Here’s what happened, according to the lawsuit. Financial services company First American won the domain name firstamerican.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Will VeriSign Hold Domain Name Prices Steady this Year? - With significant bad publicity, a negative court decision, and a watchful eye in Washington, will VeriSign not invoke its full 7% .com price increase this year? For the past two years, .com and .net registry VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) has increased prices on .com domain names 7% and .net 10%, the maximum allowed under its contract with ICANN. The .com contract allows VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) to increase .com fees 7% per year for four years of each six year term in its ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Comment Spam, Sploggers and Content Thieves, Oh My! - The daily frustrations of operating a news web site. What you see on Domain Name Wire is only half the story. In addition to churning out content, I spend much of my time battling sploggers who rip off content, trackback spammers, comment spammers, and other nefarious activities. Sploggers – this is one of my pet peeves. Splogs are blog sites that rip off other content, mostly from RSS feeds. Some splogs are “legal” in that they take a few lines from your ... read more ...
Sun 7th June 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Chocolatier.com Sells for $20K on NameJet.com: Sikh.com Sells For $40K - Hot on the heels of the sale of Candy.com for $3 Million this week, the domain Chocolatier.com sold for $20,200 on NameJet.com today. The domain sikh.com, sold for $40,100 to bidder by the id of “sanghera”.  For more info on the topic of sikh, you can read here. Other notable sales this week include: toontube.com                             $8,600     (Snapnames.com) netzone.com                               $7,802 forgotten.com ... read more ...
Sat 6th June 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.NYC Is A Hot Commodity - Most of our stories about the new gTLD’s are negative, as we think the releasing of hundreds or thousands of extensions are trouble for the net. However, there are definitely some of the new proposed extensions for which there is a lot of interest. For the proposed .nyc extension there appears to be lots of competition, with at least 6 groups going after the extension. The groups range from a real grass roots group called: connectingnyc.org run by Tom Lowenhaupt,  which he says he formed in 2006, ... read more ...
Fri 5th June 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Appeals Court Reverses & Allows Suit Against Verisign To Go To Trial: This Is A BIG Deal - A lawsuit was filed in 2005 over the no bid, VeriSign contract, with ICANN which gave VeriSign a monopoly to administer the .com and .net registries., by the Coalition for ICANN Transparency (“CFIT”). Today the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit,  reversed the lower court, and allowed the case to proceed against VeriSign, in the case of: CFIT v. VERISIGN, INC. The court lays out the case history very well in easy to read form. “”””CFIT’s complaint endeavored to state ... read more ...