Monthly Archives: July 2009

Mon 6th July 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo Employee Running for Nominet Board - Nora Nanayakkara gunning for Non Executive Director position at Nominet. Sedo Business Development Director Nora Nanayakkara is running for election to Nominet’s board as a non executive director. Nominet runs the registry for .uk domain names, the country code for United Kingdom. Elections close Thursday, July 8. Nominet members and Tag Holders can vote in the election. Members pay an initiation fee and annual fees. So-called Tag Holders are members who ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo’s Parent Company Sells Display Marketing Business - AdLINK to focus on domain name marketing and affiliate marketing. AdLINK, parent company of domain brokerage and parking company Sedo, has sold its online display marketing business to French company Hi-media S.A. AdLINK will get 10.7% of shares in Hi-media S.A. and about EUR 12.2 million in cash. The cash component will be in the form of a vendor loan by AdLINK, which must be paid off by June 30, 2011. With the sale, AdLINK now has two primary businesses: domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Feedback on Implementation Recommendation Team Final Report - Here’s the feedback I just submitted to ICANN regarding the IRT Final Report. The deadline to submit comments to ICANN for the Implementation Response Team’s recommendations, including introducing a new rapid suspension scheme for domain names, is today. To submit a comment, send an email to: irt-final-report@icann.org. You can see current feedback here. Below is an exact copy of what I submitted to ICANN… The Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT) has put ... read more ...
Sun 5th July 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Domainers We Got A Problem: WAKE UP - I saw a very troubling stat on the blog last night. A post I did a month ago about a joke going around around the Internet about domain names, got 5 times the readership as the post I wrote on Friday about the comment period closing on the URS proposal, which would give trademark holders a fast track to take down any domain that had a trademark and was parked. Only 64 of you had the interest to read about something that would, not could, cause you to have domains taken away from you. I will be posting ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Microsoft Knocks Google Off The Map - (This post was submitted by a frequent commentator to thedomains.com who goes by “Cartoonz” who described himself as follows: “an International Man of Mystery whose many projects include KHN.com,  providing some of the finest Nutritionals on the planet”.  I do know him well and he has been involved in the domain business for a long time) Bing has a map feature, maybe you’ve seen it, maybe not. Maybe you figured it was just a clone of Google maps, MapQuest, whatever. But Bing has features ... read more ...
Sat 4th July 2009
Written by The Domains in EN
Happy 4th Of July - Happy Birthday America Yes its the same picture from last year, but still the best I’ve seen of Uncle Sam. Have a great holiday with your family and friends Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
Fri 3rd July 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Next Big Money Domains: TajMahal.com, Filth.com - There are 2 domains still at backorder at Namejet.com that looks like they are going to sell into the five figures. TajMahal.com is currently at $8K with the backorder deadline closes at 11pm EST tonight. Filth.com is currently at $5K with the backorder deadline closing tomorrow at 11PM. You can see some of our other picks at NameJet.com here. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Google.com Sued Again But This Time Its Not Just Over PPC: Organic Search Removal - For the fifth time since May, Google has been sued for trademark infringement on AdWords. This lawsuit, brought by computer software company Ascentive, in the federal district court in the eastern district of Pennsylvania, alleges that Google wrongly allowed other companies to use Ascentive’s trademarks to trigger pay-per-click search ads. Nothing new there,  but the suit does on to allege that Google wrongly removed the company from the organic results listing of Google. Ascentive alleges that ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Comment Period For The Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) Closes On Monday: - We have talked about it since it came out, and now the time to put your comments on record at ICANN for the proposed Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS). The comment period closes on Monday July 6th. Although the URS on its face only applies to the new gTLD’s, comments made by representatives of ICANN clearly indicate that they will in fact apply to all existing extensions (.com. .net. .org) meaning all the domains you own sooner than later. If you didn’t read our initial post on the proposal set ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
TheJayLenoShow.com Goes To a Rightful Owner - It seems like a no-brainier to me, but I have seen at least 10 stories in the mainstream media about this today and no one reported it on domaining.com, so I’ll bite. TheJayLenoShow.com was ordered transferred to Mr. Leno in a WIPO action today. The domain was originally registered by Guadalupe Zambrano of Texas, back  in 2004, while Mr.Leno was firmly entrenched as the host of “The Tonight Show” and years before anyone knew (including Jay Leno)  that there would ever be a Jay Leno Show. Still,  ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Preview a Lakeway.com TV Commercial - Geo web site commercial will start airing next week. As I wrote about last month, I’m running cable TV commercials for my geo web site Lakeway.com. We’ve completed the first commercial, which you can watch below. The commercials will run over 200 times each month across CNN, FoxNews, News 8 Austin, and AE in the local area. The purpose of these ads is two fold. First, we want to drive more visitors to the web site. Second, we want to showcase some of our ... read more ...
Thu 2nd July 2009
Written by The Domains in EN
BuyMyPoop.com: Learn What Makes A Valuable Domain & What is Just a Bunch Of Crap - With PPC declining you will be seeing more and more domains dropping as small and large domain holder shed dead weight from their portfolios. Its a great time to pick up inventory, but there is a ton of stuff, which is just a waste of money. Not that there isn’t great advice our there to decide what makes a domain worth buying and holding The “Domain King”,  Rick Schwartz in a recent post gave away the keys to the “candy” store when he told you what domains you should be looking for. In ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Where Will It End: Now TradeMark Holders Are Suing Craigslist.Org For Free Posted Ads - Trademark holders in a seemingly unending quest to expand their online rights, have now filed suit against Craigslist for trademark infringement based on ads posted by users. The lawsuit was brought by Texas real estate company First Call Properties, (yes Texas again) which alleges that it began advertising on Craigslist’s in March and that a competing company,  AAA Apartment Locating (AAA),  began posting Craigslist ads that use the phrases “first call,” “call first,” and “call us ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
CNET Asks: Do Domains Matter Anymore? - CNET.com published an article tonight entitled “Do URL’s matter Anymore?” My favorite quote from the article is: “Perhaps there are those generic words that people absent-mindedly type, perhaps just out of boredom. I don’t know, URLs like kitchen.com. Or music.com. But could this still be a significant number? How many people really do bother to type URLs these days?”” The author ChrisMatyszczyk expresses his believe is domains are old news and search is where its at. Of course this ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
UPDATE: NameJet’s .CM Landrush System Is Live: URL & Pricing Info Here - Namejet.com is now taking orders for .CM domains on its site. To place your backorders here is the direct link to the NameJet site: click here Pricing has also been announced. To be clear Namejet.com is NOT charging to place a backorder, however any domain which is registered, you will be charged $350 upon successful registration, including 2 years of registration. As we discussed in our earlier post today, since Namejet.com is operating as the central clearing house for all .CM landrush domains ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
ICANN Asks for Feedback About Its Web Site - Survey asks how ICANN can improve its web site. ICANN’s web site is outdated, and the organization knows it. It has hired an outside firm to perform usability analysis and improve the web site. The organization is serious about the effort; I spent 30 minutes on the phone today with its outside consultants discussing the site. You can complete a short, online survey here to provide your feedback about the site. I don’t want to sway the survey results, so I ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domize Lets You Peek Into Current Domain Name Registrations - Find out what keywords people are using in domain registrations. What terms did people register domain names for yesterday? Domize let’s you take a peak. Domize’s domain registration statistics provide daily and monthly stats for domain registrations by TLD and term. For example, its June 30 report shows that .com picked up 27,145 net registrations while .mobi picked up 482. But perhaps the coolest feature is seeing what keywords people use in their registrations. On ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy Files Patent for Method of Selling Equity in Domain Names - Domain registrar files patents for system to sell equity in domain names. Go Daddy Group Inc. has filed a patent for a method of selling equity in domain names and protecting the domain names in which the equity is issued. The patent is for a system that will facilitate the sale of shares in a domain name. The patent application explains that a number of institutions are interested in investing in domain names, but there isn’t a simple mechanism to do so. Conversely, ... read more ...
Wed 1st July 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
NameJet.com To Be Exclusive Clearing House For All .CM Domains - NameJet has reached an agreement with the .cm registry to be the exclusive auction provider for the .CM  upcoming Landrush.  (their site should be updated shortly) NameJet will manage all the pre-order applications from the participating registrar partners through the registry. NameJet customers will be able to submit their applications directly through NameJet for FREE (no application fees!). With other registrars charging up to $300+ for each .cm domain in applications fees for the landrush (fees ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
No Record Setters, But We Close Over $100K In Sales In June - We all love to hear about all those six and seven figure domain sales of one word category killer domains. But there is a whole other market out there for end user buyers of two three and four word domains, and its a pretty busy marketplace. We just finished up out best month of the year, in June, selling 16 domains for a total of $110K in sales. We also turned down well over 100 offers on some of our best domains. With BuyDomains.com rocking along with $600K  in sales a week, there’s no doubt ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
$20K & A Category Killer Domains Creates An Empire - An short story appeared on the Deseret News, on how Ryan DeLuca started BodyBuilding.com and turned it into “the Internet most-visited body building and fitness site” My favorite quote from the article: “He took a huge risk by getting a $20,000 loan to buy the domain name BodyBuilding.com” Bodybuilding.com is ranked by Compete.com as having just under 1.5 Million visitors a month. Not bad for $20K. Fortunately for Mr. DeLuca he didn’t follow some of the suggestions contained in another ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Top Domain Name News Stories of Jun 2009 - A look back at the past month in domaining. Here are the top five news stories on Domain Name Wire in June, ranked by number of views. 1. VeriSign Gets Walloped in Court, .Com Domain Prices Could Fall – a court ruled that a case against VeriSign could go forward. If VeriSign ultimately loses, the cost of registering a .com domain name could drop. 2. Facebook URL Landrush This Friday Night – Facebook opened up vanity URLs. No more facebook.com/13343953212… 3. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Using Tweet in Your Domain Name Could Spell Trouble - Is ‘Tweet’ fair game? In May the domain name Tweet.me sold for $11,505 at Sedo. At the time, I wrote: I’m a bit concerned about all of the services popping up that use variants of Twitter and Tweet in their names: could Twitter ever come after them for trademark infringement? Some developers referred me to Twitter’s apparent company line on this issue: There are certainly many applications out there that include “Twitter” as part of their name, but we ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
A Creative Three-Way Domain Name Deal - Pair strikes a creative deal to get recruiting domain names. I’ve written before about Harry Joiner and Jason Davis. Davis, who has one of the world’s finest collections of jobs.com domain names, sold CEOJobs.com to Joiner a couple months ago. The two have struck another deal, and it shows how a little creativity in a deal can help get things done. The story goes like this: -Joiner recently bought DirectorJobs.com, and Davis thought it was a great domain -Joiner ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Park Your Domains during CVS Pharmacy? - Pharmacy uses variant of famous DomainSponsor slogan. I came across a funny tweet this morning by @superberg: “Oh no! Domain squatters have taken over CVS!” with a link to this picture: Apparently @superberg snapped this photo at a CVS pharmacy, and it reminded him of the slogan domain parking company DomainSponsor made famous. DomainSponsor’s slogan is actually a bit different, substituting “need” instead of “want”: But it’s good for a laugh, anyway. ... read more ...