Monthly Archives: May 2010

Thu 6th May 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
WhyPark Charity Swag Bag Auction Ends Friday - Charity auction full of domain and tech goodies concludes Friday. The WhyPark Ultimate Swag Bag auction ends Friday at 1 PM CDT (2 PM EDT). This is a great opportunity to help out a charity and pick up some great swag valued at over $600. The swag bag includes: – Flip SlideHD customized by WhyPark – 1-Year Managed WhyPark Account ($300 value) – Two WhyPark T-Shirts – WhyPark Bottle Opener – 2 GB WhyPark USB stick Full bidding instructions are here. As ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
How a Euro Crisis Will Affect Domain Sales - I’ve written a number of times about how currency exchange rates play a role in domain name buying patterns. Thanks to a strong Euro over the past 5 years, a number of European domainers have been able to buy domains from weaker currency nations (e.g. U.S.) at what seemed like “discounted prices”. This is quickly changing. With troubles in Greece mounting and fear of its debt troubles spreading to other Euro nations, the Euro has fallen nearly 12% to the U.S. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Lessons from Bido - A look back at two years of Bido. Now that I’ve had a couple days to mentally process the closing of Bido, it has given me time to reflect on what went wrong. To be clear, I commend both Sahar and Jarred for creating Bido. They put their heart and money into it, and should be proud of the innovation they brought to the marketplace. I also think we’ll see the platform live on in some incarnation as they are currently liquidating the assets. So here are my main ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Nelson Brady Will Speak, But What Will He Say? - Expect to hear his side of the story within 30 days. By filing suit against former employee Nelson Brady this week, Oversee.net and Snapnames hope to accomplish a couple things. Yes, it wants to get some of its money back. But more importantly, it wants to clear its name. Ever since the scandal broke last year, conspiracy theorists have suggested that the company was complicit in what happened and that’s why it wasn’t going after Brady. In reality, it was ... read more ...
Wed 5th May 2010
Written by The Domains in EN
BIDO.com: R.I.P From The Guy That Was There From The Inception - It was during a TRAFFIC auction that Sahar came up to me with the idea of a one domain a day, domain auction. So when I say it the idea of Bido was born during a TRAFFIC auction that’s exactly what happened. As the TRAFFIC auction was going, Sahar sat next to me, in the auction room and drew out his vision for what became Bido.com Sahar wrote out his plan on the fly, and then asked me “are you in or are you out”? I was out. Not because I didn’t trust Sahar, or believe in his vision, or his ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Moniker.com Sells Photo.com For $1.25 Million - Another great generic domain and another seven figure sale, as Moniker.com tells me tonight the brokered the domain, Photo.com for $1.25 Million. These bang on category killers are hard to beat and always seem to sell. We congratulate the Seller and Buyer. And it doesn’t suck for Moniker.com either. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
An Historic Day: First IDN Top Level Domain Names Go Live - First IDN top level domains hit the web. Today was a historic day for domain names and internationalized domain names, as the first three non-Latin script top level domain names went live. All three are country code top level domains under the IDN ccTLD fast track program. ICANN has provided an example of an already functioning site using an IDN ccTLD: وزارة-الأتصالات.مصر If you’re like me, when going to that ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Bloomberg Features Directi’s Divyank Turakhia - Bloomberg dedicates a half hour to telling the Directi story. Bloomberg UTV has dedicated an entire 30 minute segment to profiling domain name company Directi and its founder Divyank Turakhia. The segment features Turakhia and how he started Directi in his teens. The company went on to build some recognizable brands in the domain space, from registrar accreditation consulting company Logic Boxes to domain parking business Skenzo, not to mention one of the ten biggest ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Rachael Ray Wants to Fry Some Typosquatters - Celebrity chef files claims to get two typo domain names. Celebrity chef Rachael Ray has filed two separate domain name disputes with National Arbitration Forum for typos of her domain name. Rachelray.com, which omits the second ‘a’ in her first name, and Rachealray.com, which transposes the ‘e’ and ‘a’, both redirect to freegifster.com. Visitors to the landing page at freegifster.com are offered a “free” 14 piece cookset. The landing page also shows ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Registrar Moniker’s Site Goes Down - Top ten domain name registrar web site goes down. Moniker.com is currently going through a prolonged outtage. A notice has been posted on Moniker.com: So far the company hasn’t sent any communication to its customers. I reached out to the company this morning for comment and will update this story as I learn more. An outtage like this can certainly affect customers, from the inability to change nameservers to transferring and renewing domain names. But this ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
VMOps Buys Cloud.com from Meetup Co-Founder - VMOps invests in great domain name; rebrands. Cloud computing company VMOps has purchased the domain name Cloud.com from Meetup co-founder Scott Heiferman and is rebranding its company as cloud.com. Heiferman put the domain name up for auction at various cloud computing conferences early last year. According to historical whois records, Heiferman transferred the domain name to VMOps around February 17, 2010, at which point the whois record changed to a private registration. ... read more ...
Tue 4th May 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Oversee Files Suit Against Nelson Brady (Halvarez) For $33 Million Dollars - In a statement just released buy Oversee.net, they have filed suit against after Nelson Brady, otherwise known as Hank Alvarez, seeking damages in excess of $33 million dollars. Here is the official statement from Oversee: “SnapNames, and its parent company, Oversee.net, have filed suit against Nelson Brady in federal court in Oregon.” “Brady is a former employee who, under the false name “Hank Alvarez,” improperly bid in certain SnapNames auctions.  In some cases, Brady also embezzled ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Slots.com Coming to SnapNames.com - The domain name Slots.com is reportedly going to be auctioned off on SnapNames.com in a dedicated auction that will start as early as tomorrow. The auction was according to press releases going to be auctioned off on April 28th but never took place. When the auction did not occur it left some in the gambling community to wonder what happened to the auction. It seems that Oversee.net snagged the domain Slots.com to be auctioned off on its SnapNames.com  platform. Although the exact reserve was not ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Our Picks From The SnapNames Geo Auction Ending Tomorrow May 4th - SnapNames.com Geo auction concludes tomorrow May 4th at 3:15pm EST in accordance with Snap’s normal closing rules. As of publication 10 domains have hit reserve, with the highest being businesstravelers.com at $5,590 We went through the entire list of domains up for auction and found these to be the most interesting: (As always with Snap, reserve prices are stated in ranges, we have no domains in this auction): Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Inside Oversee.net v. Howard Nelson Brady, Jr. - Lawsuit sheds more light on bidding scandal. Earlier today SnapNames and parent company Oversee.net filed a lawsuit against former employee Howard Nelson Brady, Jr. for his alleged scheme of shill bidding and embezzlement. Much has already been disclosed about Brady’s alleged conduct, but the lawsuit (pdf) provides more details of his alleged deceit. The suit cites a number of examples of how he tried to dupe other SnapNames employees into thinking that Hank Alvarez ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
SnapNames and Oversee.net Sue Nelson Brady aka Halvarez - Here are some of the ones he won – themexp $534.00 halvarez 7/25/2009 yotutube $2.000.00 halvarez 7/19/2009 yountube $279.00 halvarez 7/19/2009 footcomfort $801.00 halvarez 7/16/2009 huffingpost $425.00 halvarez 7/15/2009 torrentlocomotive $302.00 halvarez 7/14/2009 arcadevault $585.00 halvarez 7/12/2009 commonlawvenue $279.00 halvarez 6/12/2009 catchclub $425.00 halvarez 6/10/2009 proactivsolutions $2.000.00 halvarez 6/1/2009 everydadsnightmare $927.00 halvarez 5/26/2009 winantispyware ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Auction Site Bido Closing Down - Domain name auction site Bido is closing down. Domain name auction site Bido is closing. The company announced the move on twitter moments ago: Bido is ceasing operation as of May 5, 2010. All transactions and accounts will be gracefully finalized and closed. I confirmed the closure with the company. Although representatives would not speak specifically to why they are shutting down the platform, the company must have been losing substantial money. It had been ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
12 Domain Names to Bid on in Today’s Geo Domain Auction - A dozen picks for today’s auction. GeoDomain Expo’s online domain name auction held in conjunction with SnapNames ends today at 3:15 pm EDT. There are 805 domain names in the auction and so far 10 domains have met their reserves. The highest bid is $5,590 for BusinessTravelers.com. I have filtered the list and found 12 domain names that seem like values within their reserve ranges. On some of them they’re probably only values at the low end of the reserve ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo Sells Record Number of Domains in Q1 - Online domain marketplace sets new bar with Q1 sales. Domain name marketplace Sedo sold a record number of domain names in Q1. The company sold 11,942 domains in the quarter compared to 10,070 domains in the fourth quarter of last year, and growth of 29% compared to Q1 2009. The company also saw a shift in how its domain names are sold. 21% of domain names were sold at a fixed price, compared to just 12% last quarter. Company representatives have told me that ... read more ...
Mon 3rd May 2010
Written by The Domains in EN
Class Action Filed Against Godaddy For PPC Ads On Placeholder Pages - According to CourthouseNews.com, a class action lawsuit was filed in Phoenix and Arkansas federal courts, claiming that Go Daddy is “unlawfully generating and retaining revenue derived from these online advertisements each time an Internet user clicks an online advertisement appearing on plaintiff’s domain names.” The class action claims GoDaddy.com is advertising on registered domain names without consent of the domain owners. Of course Godaddy.com is just one of the registrars that ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
You Want To Buy Shares In Oversee.Net? Is It A $1 Billion Company? - According to Sharespost.com, there are currently one or more shareholders of Oversee.net, which are offering up block(s) of shares for sale. Several months ago we wrote about another site, SecondMarket.com where shares of privately held company’s can be traded. Sharespost.com describes itself as a site which: “Makes private equity liquid by connecting companies, buyers and sellers, either directly or with the help of a broker, and facilitating easy, automated transactions. ” So sharespost.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
First Sex.com, Now SanDiego.com. What Has Gone Wrong? - Two businesses based on great domains have faltered. Why? Ron Jackson of DN Journal is reporting that SanDiego.com and related assets are being foreclosed on. They will be auctioned off on Friday, May 7. Just a couple months ago word first got out that Sex.com, another big ticket domain, was being foreclosed on. How can two killer domain names like this end up in tatters? Just a year ago GeoDomain Expo took place in San Diego, and I recall sitting on the balcony ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Ultimate Swag Bag Auction: WhyPark Flip SlideHD Package - Bid now on this package including a Flip SlideHD video camera. Last Friday I posted about starting DNW’s “Ultimate Swag Bag” auctions. The first auction will run now through Friday at 1 p.m. CDT and feature some nice swag from WhyPark. The highlight of this package from WhyPark is a new Flip SlideHD video camera. This hot new gadget retails for $280. Here are the full contents of the package: – Flip SlideHD – 1-Year Managed WhyPark Account ($300 value) – ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
French Fashion House Loses Case for Guy’s Nickname Domain Name - Designer can’t have Sandro.com domain name. I’m so angry about losing this case! French apparel designer Sandro Andy has lost a domain name dispute to get the domain name Sandro.com. The company will have to stick with its current Sandro-Paris.com domain name. The company the complaint with World Intellectual Property Organization against Alessandro Balzarin of Frankentahl, Germany. Balzarin registered the domain name way back in 1997 because Sandro is a common ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy Class Action News is Actually Good for a Company - Case isn’t new, just moved closer to Go Daddy headquarters. CourthouseNews.com is reporting that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Go Daddy for showing pay-per-click ads on registrant’s “coming soon” pages. This actually isn’t a new case and the latest development actually represents a win for Go Daddy. The case was filed back in 2007 in Arkansas by Barry Crabb and Matthew McBride. The two Texas residents had used computers in Arkansas to ... read more ...