Technical Problems Postpone The .CM LandRush - The .cm domain name registry announced, today, that the landrush (first come, first served), domain registration for .cm domain names, originally due at 00:00 UTC tomorrow, has been postponed due to technical problems.
“”Unrelated to the widely reported cable fault affecting Internet access in West Africa at present, the .cm registry have cited technical difficulties with their root name servers. The .cm registry have currently postponed the launch until further notice, although it’s anticipated ... read more ...
Monthly Archives: July 2009
Fri 31st July 2009
Plenty Of Opinions On Yahoo-Microsoft - Seems like everyone has an opinion on the Yahoo-Microsoft deal.
Here are some stories you might want to check out:
New York Times.
The CEO Of Microsoft is surprised at the stock market’s reaction to the deal.
The CEO of Microsoft says the market undervalues the deal to Yahoo
Google VP: Deal May Hurt Competition
TheStreet.com: “Microsoft get’s the milk without having to buy the cow”
Cnet.com: For Yahoo With Search Gone, Content Becomes King Again
Fool.com: “A suckers deal for Yahoo”
Ad ... read more ...
SeekingAlpha.com Covers Tucows Calling It A “Cash Rich’ Company - Seekingalpha.com, a site that follow public companies, gave a very positive review of Tucows.com shares this morning, (a member of our Domain Parking Stock Index) calling it a “cash rich” company, saying in part:
“All told, Tucows strikes me as a relatively low margin business with low (and perhaps negative) capital costs that has deployed its retained earnings profitably for shareholders in recent years. Though GoDaddy is the dominant player in the sector, Tucows has added customers and ... read more ...
Fool.com: Yahoo-Microsoft Deal Is Good For Marchex - The Fool.com, had some good news for Marchex, in its analysis of the Yahoo-Microsoft Deal.
The Fool.com, which follows public companies, in analyzing the Yahoo/Microsoft deal said about Marchex:
“”Advertisers paying more for leads, as a result of Yahoo! shutting down its self-serve platform, will benefit the Web’s other lead generators.
“”Marchex is one of my favorites.
“”The local search specialist runs vertical advertising networks, the OpenList local search directory, and even a ... read more ...
Merging a Worlds of Domain Names and SEO -
Adam Stetzer of HubShout discusses domaining and SEO, and how they fit together.
By Adam Stetzer, Ph.D.
[Editor’s note: It always amazes me how far apart the SEO and domainer worlds are. The two combined could have tremendous power. All traffic – whether type-in or organic – is valuable. Adam Stetzer, president and co-founder of SEO firm HubShout, explains the basics of SEO and how it can be applied to the domain industry.]
Guest-writing for DomainNameWire ... read more ...
Thu 30th July 2009
Front Running On Proposed g’TLD’s: Companies Are Getting Trademarks On g’TLD’s - You need to check out a very interest article just published by Michael Palage, who is an adjunct Fellow with The Progress Freedom Foundation, entitled “New gTLDs: Let the Gaming Begin, Part I: TLD Front Running”
The article talks about how certain companies, which are prospective g’TLD applicants, have already filed trademark applications associated with generic TLD strings such as .MUSIC, .MOVIE, and .BLOG.
“This type of “front running” by prospective applicants trying to game ... read more ...
Google Launches “Create Your Own Profile” Service: Is This Death For .Tel? - Google has launched its own “create your own profile” service pretty much along the lines of what the .Tel extension is suppose to be for.
If your logged into your gmail account and Google yourself, you will be prompted to fill in your all your contact info, which others can then use to find or contact you.
A friend pointed this out to me yesterday in congratulating me on the DnJournal piece. (Thanks Ron)
If your inclined, you can give Google the following information, “to make it easy for ... read more ...
Wal-Mart and Union Fight Over Domain Names -
Two entities square off in Canada.
Wal-Mart Canada Corp. is squaring off against a union — in cyberspace. According to a story on Dow Jones Newswire, the retailer filed an injunction against United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW) to try to stop them from using the domain name walmartworkerscanada.ca.
UFCW Canada national president Wayne Hanley said the injunction request is an assault on freedom of speech and its ability to communicate with Wal-Mart workers.
Maybe ... read more ...
Wikipedia Says Domainers are Cybersquatters -
Domain Name Wire has been mentioned in the discussion at Wikipedia on the proposed new Domaining page. Consequently, I am going to post here my comments to the Wikipedia staff. They have reduced my original submission to about 10 or 20% of the original content I provided them … which was a rather thorough resource page on domaining.
My response to Wiki staff on this continuing issue …
I would like to respond with a few comments. I do understand that the number of links I submitted ... read more ...
Sears and Diners Club Lose Domain Disputes -
Two big companies fail to impress domain arbitrators.
To big companies — merchandiser Sears and credit provider Diners Club International — found themselves on the losing end of domain disputes yesterday.
Sears lost a challenge for the domain names my-gofer.biz/info/net/org and mygofer.info. Sears has been using the trademark in commerce for a delivery service. But the domain owner, Dann J. Flesher, has been using the my-gofer.org domain name for an actual business ... read more ...
Wed 29th July 2009
UPDATE: Wet.Net Now during Over $21K With Over a Day to Go - We wrote a post a few days ago about whether you would buy or sell some domain currently at auction at Godaddy.com.
One of those domains, Wet.net was at the time at $6,500.
Now the domain name, has a high bid of over $21K with almost 2 days to go.
I think that is an outrageous amount of money.
If you want to track or bid on the domain, the link is here.
Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
Done Deal: Yahoo Gives Microsoft Its Search Business - Well its finally a done deal.
After turning down $44 Billion from Microsoft last year for their company and after reportedly turning down Billions from Microsoft for just its search business, Yahoo finally made a deal with Microsoft for control of its search business.
The final price:
Zero.
Not a dime upfront, nor a dime guaranteed.
Certainly not the “boatloads of money” CEO Carol Bartz said back in May, it would take to do a deal with Microsoft.
The deal is pretty much the same as we reported ... read more ...
You Make a Call: JosephSchlessinger.com -
Yale professor wins domain name case. Was it the right decision?
I came across an interesting WIPO domain dispute today for JosephSchlessinger.com. The case was brought by Joseph Schlessinger, a professor at Yale.
The case initially caught my eye because, even before reading it, it was clearly brought by a person claiming common law rights to his name as a trademark, yet I had not heard of the person. It gets more interesting when you go to the web site, which ... read more ...
Dear DOJ: Don’t Slow Down Yahoo-Microsoft Deal -
Deal will create competition, not destroy it.
Dear Department of Justice:
After a long courtship, Yahoo and Microsoft have agreed to a long term search and advertising deal. The deal is going to end up in your lap early next year, and a number of lobbyists will be screaming that the deal is anti-competitive. Don’t buy it.
This deal creates a competitor. It takes two also-rans in the search business and turns them into a true (although still relatively weak) competitor ... read more ...
Fleos.com Is Open for Fleecing -
Domain name appraisal scam moves to a new domain name.
I’m getting tired of writing these articles. But every time I do, a number of people searching for this stumble upon it, so I figure it saves some people from falling for the scam.
The latest incarnation of the domain name appraisal has moved to a new domain name – Fleos.com.
A scammer sends and email to you offering to buy your domain name for a percentage of the appraisal price. He explains that they ... read more ...
Tue 28th July 2009
Hollywood.us For $5,700, A Bargain or Not? - There were a few interesting domain auctions closing today.
One very interesting one was Hollywood.us.
I don’t own very many .us domains, but this sure looked like a good one, especially in light of the success of Hollywood.com and Hollywood.tv.
After much debate between myself and myself, I passed, but still think it was a very good buy at $5,722, where it sold on SnapNames.com today.
Another interesting domain was candycompany.com which sold for $6,800 on NameJet.com.
With Rick’s sale of ... read more ...
New Study: Bing.com Ads More Likely To Clicked Than Google Ads - A study by the search advertising network Chitika , says that people who land on sites from organic search results are 55% more likely to click on an ad from Bing.com than on Google.
Analyzing click-through rates from 32 million ad impressions across a network of more than 50,000 sites during seven days in July, Chitika found that Bing users clicked on ads 1.5% on average, compared with 0.97 percent for Google, and 1.24% for Yahoo.
About 200 million unique Internet users come through the Chitika ... read more ...
Ad Age: Yahoo To Send Its Traffic To Bing.com - According to AdvertisingAge.com, Yahoo is on the verge of a deal that would make Microsoft’s Bing.com, its search provider.
Yes according to the story, Yahoo would send its traffic to Bing.com and the story goes on to say the deal is likely to be announced this week.
However, unlike the reports of last week, the deal is to be based on just a revenue share, not on an upfront or guaranteed payment.
Last week the talk was Yahoo’s was going to get an upfront payment in the of hundreds of millions ... read more ...
Roy Messer Defends Rent A Car Domain Name -
National Car Rental loses case over domain name.
Roy Messer, perhaps most famous for selling Vodka.com for $3M, has successfully defended the domain name NationalRentaCar.com through UDRP.
The majority of the panel found that the domain name was confusingly similar to Vanguard Trademark Holdings’ trademark “National Car Rental”, but that the domain name was not registered in bad faith for several reasons. Among them, Messer provided a sworn declaration under ... read more ...
NameMedia Sells $600k Domains, SkyHarbor.com for $35k -
NameMedia has a sky-high week thanks to SkyHarbor.com.
NameMedia, which operates BuyDomains.com and Afternic, sold over $600,000 in domain names over the past week. The standout sale was SkyHarbor.com at $35,000. SkyHarbor.com has yet to change hands, but a possible buyer is the Phoenix airport, called Sky Harbor.
Other notable .com domain sales include:
militarylawyers.com $7,500.00
trademarkets.com $6,400.00
adhelper.com $6,400.00
recipex.com $5,800.00
piketon.com ... read more ...
Sedo Makes a Push for a End User -
At the Domain Roundtable conference in Washington, D.C. last month, I noticed a lot of new faces with the Sedo team. As I started talking to them, I realized what was going on. Sedo had hired a number of people experienced selling to businesses. The company was making a focused effort selling to end users, and was hiring the right people to do it. These new employees are not domain industry veterans; they’re B-2-B salespeople.
As part of its push for end user ... read more ...
Despicable Me Movie Uses .Me Domain Name -
New Steve Carell movie uses .me domain name in promotions.
Domain Name Wire reader Chris Robbins took his kids to the movies over the weekend and saw a preview for the computer animated movie “Despicable Me”. The movie features the voice of Steve Carell and hits movie theaters next summer.
But what caught Robbins’ eye wasn’t the movie itself, it was the domain name Universal Studios is using to promote it: Despicable.me. This is certainly a boost for the ... read more ...
French Insurance Domain Names Sell for $87,000 -
Pair of insurance domains top Sedo’s weekly sales list.
Assurancevie.com and Assurance-vie.com, which means life insurance in French, have sold on Sedo for a combined price tag of $87,000. The domain broker also sold Texel.de this week for 39,500 EUR. But the big talk may be a smaller sale — BodyBuilding.info at $13,500. This is a very high price for a .info domain name.
Another interesting sale this week is one of the quickest flips I’ve ever seen on the ... read more ...
Mon 27th July 2009
Google’s Sells Its 5% Share Of AOL & Loses Over $700 Million In The Process - Time Warner bought the 5% of AOL that Google owned for $283 million dollars.
Its not a very good return for Google.
Back in 2002 its purchased their 5% interest for $1 Billion dollars.
Time Warner, plans to spin off AOL by the end of the year, into a separate public company, bought the stake from Google on July 8 according to filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The price that the company paid for Google’s stake puts the value of AOL at about $5.7 billion including the $850 ... read more ...
Smashingmagazine.com: Get Creative Go “Domain Hacking” - I guess its time for everyone to expand their vocabulary with the newest term for domainers: “Domain Hacking”
Apparently the folks at smashingmagazine.com have some previously unknown advice in their story “Get Creative With Your Domain Name”
Here is some of their advice.
“Go domain hacking”.
“”No it’s not actually hacking someone’s domain name and stealing it. It’s the process of using real words but part of the word sits in the domain extension. One famous example is DesignM.ag. ... read more ...