Monthly Archives: January 2010

Tue 5th January 2010
Written by The Domains in EN
Google To Unveil Its Own Smart Phone Without Owning The Domain: Nexus One: Did The Owners Just Hit The Domain Lottery? - Tomorrow Google at an “Android press gathering” at its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. at 1 p.m. ET,  is expected announce the first smart phone completely designed by Google, and according to reports is to be named the Nexus One. Unlike Apple which has appearently locked up the domains associated with its widely anticipated Tablet computer, widely reported to be iSlate, Google does not seem to own Nexusone.com or even Nexus1.com. Nexusone.com is registered to an individual in Portland ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tucows Takes Over Domains from 1stDomain.net [Updated] - ICANN selects Tucows to receive bulk transfer. [Update: I have received clarification from Tucows that 1stDomain did not renew its accreditation with ICANN, rather than being terminated due to any sort of breach of contract. Further, it appears that registries did not cut off the registrar’s access, but instead 1stDomain did this to facilitate the transfer.] Following the de-accreditation of domain name registrar 1stDomain.net, Tucows has been selected by ICANN ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Ranking Domain Name Stocks in 2009 - Mixed results for domain name stocks in 2009. The U.S. stock markets returned about 35% in 2009. Domain name stocks were a mixed bag, however. Here’s how six publicly traded companies fared last year, based on the closing price December 31 of 2008 versus 2009. Tucows (AMEX: TCX) – Up 106% – Tucows aggressively bought back shares in 2009, reducing its shares outstanding and thus increasing their price. But the buybacks only tell part of the story; the company ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
MSNBC Buys BreakingNews.com to Complement Twitter Handle - With Twitter handle in hand, MSNBC buys matching BreakingNews.com domain name. File this under breaking news: the MSNBC Digital Network has purchased the domain name BreakingNews.com. What makes this interesting is that the purchase seems to have originated from MSNBC’s use of the @breakingnews twitter handle, which has over 1.5 million followers. The acquisition is a big win for PV Media Group, which launched the BreakingNews web site a little over a year ago. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Report: China Halts Overseas Registrars from Registering .CN Domains - Registrar reports that overseas registrars are restricted from registering .cn domains. According to a report at RRPproxy, .Cn registry CNNIC has temporarily halted overseas registrars from registering .cn domain names on behalf of registrants. The move comes after CNNIC cracked down on registrations last month to clean up the .cn namespace. The notice says overseas registrars won’t be able to register .CN domains “starting with January 6, 2010, 18:00 PM (Beijing ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
2010 Domain Name Wire Survey Opens - Now in its fifth year, the 2010 Domain Name Wire survey will collect the opinions of hundreds of domain name owners and service providers around the globe. The survey is open until February 4, 2010. Not much has changed about the structure of this year’s survey. You’ll be asked questions about: – Which online domain sales company is most innovative – The most important factors when selecting a domain name registrar – The most important news story of 2009 – ... read more ...
Mon 4th January 2010
Written by The Domains in EN
Are Apps The Biggest ThreatsTo Domains? - Apps. There everywhere. Apple has recorded over 2 Billion App downloads. Their are around 100K different Apps available on iTunes for download. There are Apps for Blackberry. There are Apps for the Android Google phone. There are Apps for Twitter. There are Apps for Facebook. So here is the natural question, are Apps a threat to domains? Before there were Apps, you needed a domain to have an internet presence. Now you don’t. You just need an App. Of course some of the most popular Apps, like Yelp ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Leisure.com Price Tag $150,000 - Leisure.com sold for the price of a luxury vacation. Last week I reported about a pending sale of Live Current Media’s Leisure.com domain name. Today we have confirmation from Sedo that it brokered the sale of the domain name for $150,000. Perhaps next week we’ll find out what Live Current sold Indonesia.com for. With a holiday week, Sedo’s weekly sales list wasn’t as robust as usual. But it still includes some other notable sales including Find.net at ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Simple Automatic WordPress Backup is Finally Here - The first truly simple backup tool is worth installing. Backing up your WordPress files is something we all know we need to do. But, much like backing up our computers, few of us do it as often as we should. I’ve tried a few backup plugins in the past, but they all had shortcomings. Some only backed up the files, others only the database. Over the holidays I installed a new plugin — Automatic WordPress Backup — and it seems to do exactly what I need: backup ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Australian Gripe Site Back Up After Domain Name Deleted - Deleted domain back in hands of gripe site. What happens when you register a .au domain name for a gripe site about a politician behind Australia’s push for net censorship? It gets censored. That’s what happened to the registrant of stephenconroy.com.au, who created the web site as a satirical stab at politician Stephen Conroy, who is currently Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy in Australia. Conroy is behind plans for creating a ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Poor IDNs. The Media Will Never Understand. - Recent coverage of internationalized domain names was erroneous. They sky is falling! The sky is falling! Or so the headlines read. Last week I mentioned an article in The London Times about the introduction of domain names with non-Roman characters. As I noted, the article was completely wrong. It said that non-Roman characters will be allowed for the first time “to the left of the dot”, i.e. the second level domain name. Tell that to the people who’ve ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Suddenly, Content Takes Center Stage during Domain Conferences - Good content sessions planned for January domain conferences. I rarely go to sessions and panels at trade shows. I prefer to spend my time networking. That’s especially true at domain name shows, because I usually find the programming banal. But that may change this month. The agendas for both T.R.A.F.F.I.C. and DOMAINfest have some interesting — if not exciting — sessions. TRAFFICFriday, January 22nd 1:45-3:00 – WIPO Reviews. Some of my favorite sessions ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Your Domain Registrar May Affect Your Web Site’s Reputation - Patent application describes system that validates web sites based on reputation of domain name registrar. A patent application (pdf) filed in 2008 and published on December 31, 2009 describes a system where a web site’s reputation is affected, in part, by the reputation of the domain name registrar where the domain is registered: Reputations of domain registrars are calculated based on the hosting of risky domains. The more undesirable domains a registrar hosts, ... read more ...
Sat 2nd January 2010
Written by The Domains in EN
Welcome to 2010. Now What? - Welcome to 2010. A new year and a new decade. What’s in store? Here are the greatest challenges I think we will face this year as an industry. Legal. The Kentucky domain seizure case is still ongoing and just a couple of weeks ago the Commonwealth said they are now going to add individuals and companies as additional defendants to the suit. Just this month, the state of Utah has proposed its own law which would attempt to regulate domain ownership. Look for additional states and local jurisdictions ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Live Current Media Sells Indonesia.com - Live Current continues sales with Indonesia.com. On Thursday I wrote about the possible sale of Leisure.com by Live Current Media. It now appears the company has sold Indonesia.com as well. On December 30, 2009, the whois record for Indonesia showed Communicate.com as the owner (Communicate.com is the prior name of Live Current Media). On January 1, 2010, the whois record changed to domain broker Sedo’s transfer account. The Indonesia sale would conclude a year ... read more ...
Fri 1st January 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Putting 2009 Into Perspective - A quick look back at 2009. 2010 is here. I’d like to put a few things into perspective from the past year. The stock market is up 35% this year. Did you invest any money at the end of 2008? Were you too scared? Perhaps you pulled out all of your money in fear? As has happened every time the stock market crashes, it has had a big bounce. We’re safe from terrorism. I really don’t understand what the big hubbub is about the attempted terrorist attack in Detroit. ... read more ...