Monthly Archives: January 2010

Mon 18th January 2010
Written by The Domains in EN
GMC May Stop All TV Ads In Favor Of Viral Marketing & Smart Phone Ads - According to Autonews.com, GMC says it could drop TV commercials altogether in favor of Viral marketing. The article quotes Steve Rosenblum, Buick-GMC’s director of advertising and promotions, as says GMC needs new types of advertising for young shoppers saying it would target a new audience,  people 35 or younger which may mean no TV commercials. “”Instead, Rosenblum’s team has developed a brochure with bar-code-type designs called quick response codes that smart phones can read. Phones ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
The Registry For .MX LOWERS The Price - NIC Mexico, the organization that manages the .MX ccTLD, announced a price reduction on domain names registrations and renewals for .MX domains to $40 a year. The company says that new rates go into effect on February 1st, 2010. Please note while rates have dropped at the registry level, retail prices are set by Accredited Registrars, who will hopefully pass the savings along. According to the statement of the registry there were  382,549 .MX domain registrations at the end 2009. Its interesting ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Did An American Idol Producer Use “Inside Info” To Register The Domain: Pantsontheground.com? - Whether you watch American Idol or not you have probably heard, what is turning out to be the hottest saying in the country; “pants on the ground” sometime this week. The catch phrase comes from an audition of Larry Platt on this weeks America Idol Audition show. (click here to watch the clip) It has become one of the hottest stories, videos and saying in the country in just a few days. Even the quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings Brett Favre got into the action today, after winning his playoff ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
China May Re-Open Individual Registration of .Cn Domain Names - CNNIC plans to re-open registration. Individuals may regain the ability to register .cn domain names sometime in the future, China Daily is reporting. CNNIC, which manages the .cn country code domain name for China, banned individuals from registering the domain names late last year as it cracked down on pornography and false registrations. .Cn became very popular thanks to cut rate pricing, but the low pricing made the domain a popular tool for criminal activity. Earlier ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Rick Latona Puts AEIOU.com Up for Sale - AEIOU.com among the domains for sale at this week’s live domain auction. Rick Latona Auctions released its final inventory for this week’s TRAFFIC conference auction in Las Vegas. Lot #1180 may look familiar: AEIOU.com. This is the domain name Rick Latona used for his minisite development service, which he closed down last year. It can be yours for a reserve range of $40,000-$50,000. Here are a few domain names in the auction that I like upon first glance: Motivating.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
An Easy Way to Comment on EOI for New Top Level Domain Names - Web based form makes commenting easy. Last week I wrote about how International Trademark Association (INTA) asked its members to comment on ICANN’s proposed “Expressions of Interest” (EOI) scheme for new top level domain names. As a result of INTA’s request to its members, the comments for EOI are filled with unhelpful one-liners such as “I do not support ICANN’s acceptance of pre-registrations for new gTLDs.” If you’d like to leave a more ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Last Chance for Domainer Mardi Gras Hotel Rooms - If you’re thinking about attending Domainer Mardi Gras ’10, the bell is tolling for hotel rooms. Usually when you miss out on a domain conference’s hotel block, it’s not the end of the world. There are plenty of other hotels in the vicinity where you can stay. But Domainer Mardi Gras is different — and that’s why you need to reserve your room by Thursday, January 21. If you don’t book by Thursday, here’s what’s going to happen: 1. Any rooms from ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DotComBuilder Launches 2010 Edition - DotComBuilder launches 2010 edition of popular web site builder. DotComBuilder has launched DCB2010, an update to its services that allows domain name owners to quickly build out their domain names. DotComBuilder offers turnkey web sites, web templates, and CMS themes for a monthly subscription. The service also offers hosting, making it possible to literally click a couple buttons to develop web sites on domains. For example, its turnkey web sites include classified ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The Biggest Loser: Taco Bell Loses Case for DriveThroughDiet.com Domain - Taco Bell fails to get key domain name, then spreads hot sauce over the facts. Taco Bell kicked off the new year with an unusual ad campaign for the Drive-Thru Diet. The campaign suggests that you can actually lose weight by selecting certain items off the Taco Bell menu. Taco Bell smartly acquired the domain name DriveThruDiet.com prior to launching the campaign. But it didn’t acquire the correctly spelled domain name DriveThroughDiet.com, which is owned by Nelson ... read more ...
Sun 17th January 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Touch.Net Sells For Just Over $5K on NameJet.com - A pretty nice .net sold on NameJet.com today when Touch.net sold for only $5,600. Over at Snapnames a couple of good gambling domains sold with slottournaments.com going for $5,300 and slottournament.com also selling in the 4 figures although for some reason this domain is not showing in my account so I don’t know the final price. Here are someother notiable domain name sales from the past few days on NameJet.com Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Bill Clinton Knows Something About Domain Names - The William J Clinton Foundation announced yesterday that two former presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush have rolled out a site for its Haiti relief efforts. The Official Site is ClintonBushHaitiFund.org. Fortunately the foundation was smart enough not only to register the reverse domain name,  BushClintonHaitiFund.org but they also registered ClintonBushHaitiFund.com and BushClintonHaitiFund.com just to keep some idiot from registering it. Speaking of idiots although the Foundation secured ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Bido Moves to Silicon Valley, But Domain HQs Remain Elsewhere - L.A., Seattle, and Florida lead list of major U.S. domain company hubs. My wife works for a company based in San Francisco, so I often tag along when she heads out there. A year ago I tried to set up meetings with Bay area domain name companies, but then I hit a roadblock: there really aren’t any. I met with the founder of NamePros, got stonewalled by Google (big surprise), and didn’t bother with VeriSign’s Mountain View office. We’re talking about the center ... read more ...
Sat 16th January 2010
Written by The Domains in EN
Godaddy.com New Super Bowl Ad Is a Best Yet & Promtes New Domains: SmokingHotDreamGirl.com & SmokingHotDance.com - Godaddy.com got to love their marketing strategy. If you don’t love it you at least have to admire it. In its newest Super Bowl ad (they bought 2), called “Movies” featuring Danica Patrick recreating some very famous sexy movie scenes. Patrick first re-creates actress Kelly LeBrock’s initial appearance in “Weird Science,” wearing a half-shirt and panties. Patrick tells two guys viewing her online, “So, you little maniacs want another domain name?” Then she’s on to one of the ... read more ...
Fri 15th January 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Kat.com Is Pulled Out Of SnapNames.com Monthly Auction WIth A High Bid Of Almost $20K - I got a notice yesterday from SnapNames.com that a domain I was bidding on Kat.com had been removed from the auction: “”Dear SnapNames customer, Due to circumstances beyond our control the auction for KAT.com has been cancelled.  Sorry for the inconvenience.”” Too bad for Snap. The bidding on this domain was already at almost $20K last time I looked and the auction wouldn’t have closed until next Tuesday. This domain was the highest priced domain in the auction at the time it was pulled. Personally ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Is The Tribune Company Doing Some CyberSquatting? - We couldn’t help but notice, especially when one of our readers pointed it out to us, that the Tribune Company, one of those giant “old media” companies and owner of the Chicago Tribune, just registered the domain ChicagoSlate.com. The Domain was registered on just a few days ago on January 10, 2010, well after all the speculation over Apple’s new iSlate product hit the news right after Christmas. Of course the Tribune Company could have just come up with this domain out of the blue all on ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Forbes Russia Wins Domain Name and $300,000 Award - Forbes Russia picks up domain name — and $300,000 — in dispute. Forbes Media and Axel Springer Russia, the group that publishes the Forbes magazine and Forbes Online in Russia under license from Forbes Media, have won a case against a cybersquatter for the domain Forbes.ru. Not only did the plaintiffs pick up the domain name, but the court also awarded it a $300,000 fine from the defendant, travel company Landmark VIP Service. According to an article on Forbes ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Two Common Questions to Answer Before Launching a Geo Web Site - Answers to two common questions about starting a geo domain web site. I’ve received numerous inquiries regarding my experience with Lakeway.com, a city directory site for Lakeway, Texas. I’ve answered a number of them personally, but would like to address a couple of them. I’m in no way an authority on city geo web sites. But I’m assuming most readers aren’t either, which makes this relevant. Here are two common questions I’ve been asked and the answers: 1. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Remember, No One Searches with Quotes - Phrase searches are an important metric, but have their limitations. When domainers try to determine the popularity of keywords in their domain names, they usually find the number of phrase match results at Google. To find this, you just search with “quotes around your keywords”. That tells Google to return results with the actual phrase inside your quotes, in the actual order. This matters for domains because order matters. Consider the domain name GameFootball.com. ... read more ...
Thu 14th January 2010
Written by The Domains in EN
Domainers Giving Back: DDC Puts Red Cross Text Contribution Links On Its Landers - Domain Development Corp (DDC) one of the sponsors of our blog and a company we use to park most of our adult domains, announced today that they placed a link on the bottom of all the domains they owned for the Red Cross Haitian relief fund. The Red Cross runs the program which makes it easy for anyone inside the US to donate $10 to help the Haiti victims by texting the word “haiti” to 90999. We have already instructed DDC to place this message on all the domains we have parked with DDC and we ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
How Google Ranks Tweets and Real Time Search Results - The Technologyreview.com, interviewed Amit Singhal, a Google Fellow, who led development of real-time search for Google. Back in December Google announced that is was going to being to index real time search results for Twitter and Facebook entries. This is the first time I have read an account of how Google is actually going to rank and index real time searches. According to Mr. Singhal, “In the case of tweets, the key is to identify “reputed followers” “You earn reputation, and then you ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Haiti Top Level Domain Mostly Functional - .HT domain name continues to function with some limitations. In the wake of earthquakes in Haiti, the country’s top level domain name remains functional with some limitations, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers reported on its blog today. The ability to access the country’s top level domain name .HT is important for communication during the crisis. ICANN reports: -Administrators of the .ht domain name are “alive and well”. -Some of the name ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Ardyss Guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking for Going After Distributor - Arbitrator says company tried to deceive panel. Wellness and undergarment company Ardyss International has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking by a National Arbitration Forum panel. Ardyss filed a complaint for the domain name ArdyssBodyMagicShop.com, claiming that the owner of the domain was not a contracted distributor for Ardyss and was selling counterfeit Ardyss goods on its web site. Ardyss included an affidavit from the company’s CFO stating ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
IDN .Tel Domain Names Coming Soon - Internationalized domain names on their way to .tel. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has approved Telnic’s request to offer internationalized domain names on .tel. .Tel registry Telnic made the request to offer IDNs on December 2, and ICANN Chief gTLD Registry Liaison Craig Schwartz notified Telnic of approval today via letter. By offering IDN domain names, users will be able to register .tel domain names in their native language and character ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Oversee.net Asks Court to Dismiss SnapNames Lawsuit - Defendants file motion to dismiss lawsuit over bidding scandal. Oversee.net and SnapNames have filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed against it in wake of the SnapNames insider bidding scandal. The lawsuit seeking class action status was filed by Stewart Resmer, who overpaid for a SnapNames auction by $20 in 2006 due to the insider bidding. In its motion to dismiss (pdf), Oversee.net and SnapNames argue: -Resmer doesn’t have any standing to name Oversee.net ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Goodwill Drops Lawsuit Over Goodwill.com Domain Name - Lawsuit dismissed, domain name no longer resolves. Goodwill has voluntarily dismissed its case against Cyber2Media over the domain name Goodwill.com. Goodwill Industries International, Inc., filed the case against Cyber2Media following the auction of the expired domain name on NameJet. Cyber2Media bought the domain name for $55,978 in the auction. It was then parked. In its suit, non-profit Goodwill claimed trademark infringement, unfair competition, violation ... read more ...