Monthly Archives: October 2009

Thu 22nd October 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.De Domain Name Auction Melts Sedo’s Servers - .De auction traffic halts auction. Massive traffic for Sedo’s .de “pre-auction” has taken the site down. A message on the site reads: Due to the extremely high participation in the .De Pre-Auction Sedo?s website was temporarily down. We have decided to extend the auction until 8:00 PM CET. If necessary we will extend the auction later than this time to accommodate additional bids. Presumably that means 8:00 PM ET. Actually they mean Central European Time, but ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Arkansas Company Spills Hot Coffee on Rival’s Domain Name Claims - Respondent in domain dispute successful against rival online coffee retailer. An Arkansas company has successfully defended a domain arbitration case brought against it by a rival online coffee retailer. Discount Coffee.com Inc. filed an arbitration case against WCM Investments of Arkansas, which operates Coffee.org. WCM had registered the domain names discount-coffee.net, discountcoffee.net, and discountedcoffee.com to drive traffic to Coffee.org, and DiscountCoffee.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WhyPark Hosting Charity Domain Name Auction - Domain company organizing online auction for charity. Domain parking alternative WhyPark is hosting a charity domain name auction with a twist — the single highest bidder gets to pick which charity receives the proceeds. The five day auction will run December 7th and end December 11th and contain about 50 domain names. When the auction is over, the one person who placed the highest winning bid across all auctions will get to choose the charity to receive the proceeds ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo 1 and 2 Character .De Domain Name Auction Ends Today - .De auction ends today. Sedo’s one and two character .de domain name “pre-auction” ends at noon Eastern today. .De is the country code for Germany, and is arguably the most successful country code domain name on the web. .De registry DENIC is releasing one and two character domains, as well as other domains that previously were not allowed to be registered (such as those containing only digits). It announced the change on October 15, leaving just a week for ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Putting 2009 Domaining into Perspective - 2009 has been rough for domainers, but put it in perspective. I got an iPod this week. Yes, it’s my first iPod. I bought it because I got back into running and needed to get my own tunes rather than borrowing my wife’s iPod. Since I plan to use it primarily for running, I initially considered getting the iPod Shuffle. But I liked the idea of the Touch as a portable video game player; kind of a throwback to my days growing up playing the GameBoy. Touch vs. ... read more ...
Wed 21st October 2009
Written by The Domains in EN
Real Time Tweets & FaceBook Updates Coming To Search & Its Not Google (yet) - Microsoft announced today that its search engine, Bing.com has signed deals with both Twitter and Facebook  to bring real-time status updates and tweets into search results. Although this has been rumored for a while to Google as well, Microsoft is the only one with a deal. The deal however it not exclusive and its expected that Google will join the party. According to allthingsd.com, “neither of the services is expected to be up and running for weeks, if not months.” In 2007, Microsoft invested ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Breaking News: British Court Refuses To Enforce Kentucky Domain Seizure Order - In a court ruling out of the UK, a British court has ruled against the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s attempt to seize gambling domains. As you will just over a year ago, before the TRAFFIC NY 2008 show, the the Commonwealth of Kentucky sent a seizure order to the registrars of 141 gambling domain names, demanding that those domains be forfeited to Kentucky.  The 141 domains ranged from parked domains, to some of the biggest gambling sites on the Internet. Pocket Kings Limited which owns the domain ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
The Worst Extension Of All Time Looks Like A Go: .Post - According to a couple of press releases today,  it looks like ICANN is going to approve, what I consider the worst and most unnecessary gTLD of all time; .POST The Universal Postal Union (UPU) is the sponsor of the .POST top-level domain.  The UPU, is responsible for setting the rules for the universal network of international postal mail exchanges. The CEO of ICANN  Rod Beckstrom is quoted as saying: “”This validates the ICANN model for fostering expansion of and innovation in the domain ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
One & Two Letter .Biz Domains Added To Live Moniker TRAFFIC Auction - Moniker.com announced today that it will be auction off one and two letter .biz at the Moniker.com Live TRAFFIC Auction next week. The live auction takes place on Wednesday, October 28, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. U.S. Eastern time  at the New York Marriott Brooklyn Bridge Hotel in Brooklyn, N.Y.   Remote online  bidding is available at snapnames.com The extended online auction will be held from Thursday, October 29 through Wednesday, November 4. .BIZ names in the Moniker live auction include: •   ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
AAA Auto Club Gets AAA.net Domain Name…and Porn Names - AAA gets hands on AAA.net. But it is overstepping its bounds. American Automobile Association (AAA) has been awarded the domain name AAA.net after filing a lawsuit against its owners. AAA had lost a UDRP arbitration at National Arbitration Forum for the domain name, and then sued the owners of the domain in U.S. District Court, Western District of Pennsylvania. The National Arbitration Forum got it right — but in this case the defendants’ behavior with other ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sony picks adult Walkman.net. But will it do anything with it? - Sony wins a Walkman domain name, but don’t count on a new web site any time soon. Sony Corporation has been awarded the domain name Walkman.net in a domain arbitration case at World Intellectual Property Organization. Sony invented the iconic Walkman in the late 70s. Walkman became somewhat of a generic term for portable music devices (similar to Scotch Tape for clear tape) until MP3 players went mainstream this decade. Sony still uses the brand for its portable ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Web Site Overhaul Moves Forward - ICANN.org redesign moves forward. For an organization that’s at the center of the internet, ICANN’s web site is outdated and difficult to use. Over the summer it asked for feedback on the current web site and is working through the process of redesigning its web site. An outside consultancy compiled survey results and interviewed users of the web site to put together a new web site structure. First images of what the web site might look like are promising, highlighting ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Moniker to Auction Off 1 and 2 Character .Biz Domain Names - More .biz domains heading to auction next week. Following on the Neustar’s successful auction of one and two character .biz domain names on Sedo, the company has inked a deal to sell a number of domains through Moniker. The domains will be auctioned at next week’s TRAFFIC conference in Brooklyn, as well as in Moniker’s extended online auction following the event. Sedo’s auction included only one character domains, as Neustar was still seeking proposals from ... read more ...
Tue 20th October 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Yahoo Earnings: Total Revenues Down, Search Revenue Down, Profits Up - Yahoo reported earnings after the market closed today saying its 3rd Quarter profit tripled to $187 million, or 13 cents a share, from $54.3 million, or 4 cents a share in the same period last year, topping expectations. Net revenues declined 12% from the 3Q last year to $1,575 million, but were slightly above the second quarter of 2009 Other details from the report were: Marketing services revenues from Owned and Operated sites were $851 million for the third quarter of 2009, a 15% decrease ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Domainers Here’s My Tip: Don’t Piss Your Money Away - My Good friend Elliot Silver on his blog last week a great 5 part Series last week entitled “Advice from The Most Successful Domain Owners of all time“. Although Elliot kindly asked me to give my tip, I passed for a several reasons, one of which was that I had no one great piece of advice for success. The truth is you can achieve success in this business from many different angles and ultimately your success is going to depend on finding your niche, feeling comfortable in your own skin, and doing ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Are You Going to T.R.A.F.F.I.C.? - Leave a comment about whether you’re going to TRAFFIC next week. One of my readers asked me to post this in advance of next week’s TRAFFIC show in New York City, with a goal of having those people attending the conference get a head start on networking. So if you’re going to the show, leave a comment with your real name and company association (if any). If you’re not going to the show, feel free to leave a comment as well about the next show you’ll be ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Eco Spat: Live Earth Charged with Reverse Domain Name Hijacking - Environmental awareness company busted for “glaring example” of reverse domain name hijacking. A for profit eco awareness and fundraising company that associates itself with Al Gore has lost a domain name dispute and been charged with reverse domain name hijacking. Live Earth, LLC, which organizes concerts, runs, and other events to raise money and awareness for environmental issues, filed an arbitration case with National Arbitration Forum to get the domain name ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Understanding Simultaneous Bidding Threads during Sedo - Multiple bidding threads may cause confusion. It sure seemed that there was a glitch in Sedo’s system. I started receiving offers for one of my domains listed at Sedo — TaxiScreen.com — last week. The offers were small, and I countered with a reasonable asking price. But something was weird. After the potential buyer offered a few hundred dollars, I received an email informing me that a bid had been received. I logged in to check it — and it only showed ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Registrars Often Blamed for Customers’ Mistakes - Critical customer mistakes often blamed on domain registrars. When online backup service CrashPlan.com went down earlier this month, the company was quick to blame its domain name registrar GoDaddy. Code 42 Software, which runs the CrashPlan.com service, tweeted about how GoDaddy “mistakenly removed our root nameserver entry”, “inappropriately took over our DNS”, and did a DNS “hijack”. What Code 42 Software never tweeted was that it had mistakenly ... read more ...
Mon 19th October 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Apple’s Best Quarter Ever: Profits Up 47%, Revenue Up 25% - Apple reported  its “most profitable quarter ever” after the market closed today. Check out these numbers: Profits up 47%. Revenue up 25% to $9.87 billion. 7.4 million iPhone’s sold,  up 7% from year-ago. 3.05 million computers sold, up 17% from a year earlier. 10.2 million iPods (down 8%). Shares of Apple were up over 6% in after market trading back over $200 a share. Microsoft is releasing Windows 7 in a few days on 10.22 Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Bankruptcy.Net Sells For $56K Putting SnapNames Oct Showcase Over $100K - Last week we reported on the Snapnames Monthly Showcase for October. At the time we noted that one of the domains, Bankruptcy.net failed to sell although it had a bid of $50K. Today, according to SnapNames.com the domain Bankruptcy.net sold for $56,250. Nice sale. Snapnames.com also reports, that another domain in that online auction, valuations.com, sold for $7K. So the total for the October Monthly Showcase auction is $107,399. Submission for the November Showcase featuring “generic/keyword” ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Advertise.com Scores First Victory in Lawsuit with AOL - Judge forces AOL to change venue. Advertise.com 1, AOL 0. Online advertising company Advertise.com has scored its first victory in its legal battles with AOL: a judge has ruled against AOL’s favored jurisdiction of the Eastern District Court of Virginia. AOL was forced to refile the case in California Central District Court, where Advertise.com is based. Both companies sued each other back in August, after AOL blamed Advertise.com of trademark infringement of AOL’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Resumes.com Domain Sells for $400,000 - Broker makes another blockbuster sale in Resumes.com. Sedo has brokered the sale of Resumes.com for $400,000. The domain is currently in Sedo’s brokerage account, so it is unclear who the buyer is. Potential buyers include resume services and online job boards. The domain was originally registered in 1993. We’ll keep you posted as we find out who the buyer is. Here are Sedo’s other notable domain name sales for the week, including the first handful of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
InternetX Reseller Problem Turned on Domain Registrants - Domain registrar asks domain registrants to pay up after reseller doesn’t pay the bill. A reseller of domain name registrar InternetX didn’t pay for its customers’ registrations, and now the registrar is asking domain registrants to foot the bill. The company sent an e-mail to customers of one of its resellers that demanded payment for domains the customers already paid for, or face deletion of the domains: Dear Sir, dear Madam! At the registry, which is in ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
AEIOU.com Calls it Quits - AEIOU getting out of the minisite business. Mini site production company AEIOU, owned by Rick Latona, is throwing in the towel. In a blog post at RickLatona.com, Latona says there’s no money in web design. “It’s hard. The customers are hard to please. The margins are slim and frankly, there are bigger fish to fry”, wrote Latona. What Latona doesn’t directly say but hints at: it’s hard to scale this type of business. Customers with open orders will still ... read more ...