Monthly Archives: August 2010

Fri 20th August 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
No Grand Theft Domain: Take-Two Interactive Loses Battle over BioShock.com - Video game publisher loses arbitration for BioShock.com domain name. Take-Two Interactive Software, publishers of the Grand Theft Auto series and BioShock, have lost a domain name arbitration case to get the domain name BioShock.com. Take-Two filed for a trademark on BioShock back in 2005 on an intent-to-use basis, and first used the mark in commerce in 2007 according to USPTO filings. But the company claimed there was online chatter about the release of a new game ... read more ...
Thu 19th August 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Quick Poll: What Was The Best Buy From DomainFest New York - Now that the DomainFest auction has concluded its time to make your pick as to which domain names was the best buy from the auction. You can place your votes to the right (one vote per person only) and place your comments below. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
WSJ: Jobs Sites Are Worried About .JOBS - According to an article in the Wall Street Journal many job-site .com operators say they are worried how the .Jobs extension “will affect their already crowded and distressed sector of the economy”. The Journal quotes Eric Shannon, who operates DiversityJobs.com and other niche job sites as saying  “he’s worried about competitors.” “I feel threatened,” Mr. Shannon points out that if someone were to buy the rights to diversity.jobs, they could essentially create a duplicate ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Corrected: Official Tally From DomainFest Today: $537K - Moniker’s live auction at DomainFest New York concluded today with an official tally of $537K in Domain names sold. There was a lot of confusion concerning the number and amount of domain names sold at the auction,  due to multiple domain sales being reported on the Live SnapNames.com feed which they erroneous showed as sold. Apparently many of those domain did not sell. I have confirmed with Moniker and the official tally of the domains sold today are below. However, including the sale of TShirts.com ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Pay.Tel Sells For $5K on Sedo, A Record For a .Tel? - Pay.Tel Sold today on Sedo.com for $5K which is the most I ever seen a .Tel domain name sell for. The link to the auction is here. Is anyone aware of a .Tel sale for a higher amount? Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
MLB Has Another Chance to Get Angels.com - Angels.com is up for sale at a reasonable price. Yesterday Major League Baseball passed on buying Athletics.com, one of seven team names it does not own the domain for , at the DOMAINfest auction. But next week it’s getting another chance at Angels.com, which is up for auction at GreatDomains with a reserve price of $100,000-$250,000. The owner of the domain name had previously offered to sell it to an unidentified agent working for MLB for $300,000. The league ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
For Domain Auctions, Online Component Still a Challenge - Domain auctions have a history of technical glitches. Shortly after Moniker’s domain name auction at DOMAINfest in NYC concluded yesterday, I saw a couple blog posts heralding it as a great success. I was a bit confused, because I didn’t see the same thing in the actual auction room. You don’t need to point fingers at the people who blogged about the auction, as apparently it did look like a huge success online thanks to problems with the online bidding interface. ... read more ...
 
Written by The MediaWizard's Blog in EN
The Million Dollar Prediction - I called the sale of the TShirts.com lot correctly a month before it actually sold. Hope this doesn’t sound like I’m blowing my own trumpet but I’m very pleased I predicted this would sell easily with a 500k reserve. Patrick Ruddell of ChefPatrick.com had mentioned this lot last month on Facebook and my comment was “I see this set selling quite easily – tshirts.com, t-shirts.com, t-shirt.com, tees.com, tee-shirts.com – pretty much sews up the niche. Nice one.” ... read more ...
Wed 18th August 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
PCWorld Covers DomainFest Live Domain Auction: “The New Way To Make Fast Money Is To Invest In Domain Names” - A new article from PCWorld.com talks about domain names in general and the Live DomainFest domain Auction today in particular. “Forget real estate, the stock market or Internet startups, the new way to make fast money is to invest in domain names, argues a domain name brokerage that will auction off a passel of domain names on Wednesday in New York.” “Domains, really, are almost like commercial real estate. They’re investments on their own,” Kupietzky said. He called them “Internet ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
MediaPost: Powered By Bing Hitting Yahoo Search Results As Soon As This Week - According to MediaPost, by as early as this week, Yahoo searchers will begin to see “Powered by Bing” at the bottom of results pages. “The organic search transition should take several weeks, estimates Betty Stooksberry, senior director of the search alliance at Yahoo.” “Yahoo also will begin testing with a small set of advertiser accounts moving in and serving up paid search ads through adCenter. ” Should be interesting to see how this shakes up the PPC market if any. Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
comScore: Yahoo Gains On Google In July - According to comScore, Yahoo picked up search share in July all at the expense of Google. While one month isn’t going to tell the story,  tts the 1st time I can remember Yahoo actually gaining a share of the market vs Google. According to the ranking service Yahoo gained .4% share in July while Google lost that exact percentage Here is the chart from comScore: comScore Explicit Core Search Share Report*July 2010 vs. June 2010 Total U.S. Jun-10 Jul-10 Point Change Google ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
UDRP Takes Away Another Domain Based On A “Common Law” Trademark - In a WIPO decision, today a domain was take based off a comon law trademark Although the domain was parked none of the results on the landing page went to the complainant or any competitors of the complaint, rather the links on the landking page were completely unrelated to the business of the complaintant. The domain in question was DimFusion.com The facts are as follows: The Complainant is a French company in business in the manufacture and supply of articles of clothing, including underwear.’ “The ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Moniker.com Sells T-Shirts.com, T-Shirt.com, TShirts.com, Tees.com, Tee-Shirts.com for $1.265 million - Well it looks like one of my picks from the DomainFest auction for tomorrow, was sold tonight. Moniker.com tonight announced that  it successfully brokered T-Shirts.com, T-Shirt.com, Tshirts.com, Tees.com, Tee-Shirts.com for $1.265 million. The buyer is Costumes Galore, Inc. Nice sale. Congrats to the Buyer and Seller Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DOMAINfest NYC Wrap Up - DOMAINfest draws a large crowd. DOMAINfest’s Power Networking day in New York City attracted more than 200 people for the all-day event. The morning started with Oversee.net CEO Jeff Kupietzky delivering a strong talk on five myths of the domain name industry, which you can read here. Next, Naresh Rekhi of comScore gave an overview of trends in internet usage that are applicable to domainers, especially as they choose which domains to build out. Rekhi was followed ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Jeff Kupietzky’s 5 Myths of a Domain Name Industry - Oversee.net CEO dispels five myths in the domain name industry. Today at DOMAINfest in New York, Oversee.net CEO Jeff Kupietzky tried to dispel 5 myths about the domain name industry. 1. The PPC Market is Dead -Oversee.net now has 1 million domain names. -28% rise in visitors year-to-date on their portfolio -15% increase in revenue per click Kupietzky says the market is “maturing”, but not dead. Opportunty: Buy traffic names and lower prices, partner with those ... read more ...
Tue 17th August 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Our Picks From The Live New York DomainFest Auction - Clearly Moniker.com is relying on at least one big dollar sale at the Live  domain name auction at Domainfest, tomorrow , as out of the 122 domains up for auction only 16 have a reserve of under $10K, while 53 have a reserve of $100K or more. Wow. What a great catalog of domain names. The auction will start at 4pm EST and remote bidding will be available on SnapNames.com. By the way we are going to close out the poll on the right tomorrow morning so its last call to cast your vote(s) (you can vote ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.Org Grows By 7.6% in 1st 6 Months of 2010 To 8.5 Million Domain Names - The .Org registry released its bi-annual domain name report, “The Dashboard,” today and reported a higher growth rate for .Org domain names for the first six months of 2010, than .com or .net. The .ORG domain grew by 7.6%, more than doubling last year’s first half gain of 3.2%. This increase in registrations has brought .ORG’s total domains under management to 8.5 million. The “Dashboard”  other key findings: .ORG surpassed the growth of the two largest gTLDs — .COM and .NET — ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
“1st Fund” To Invest Only In Domains Launches Aug 1st Promises To Make Domains Accepted As An Asset Class - Here is what maybe a huge step for Domains to become a real world asset in the wider investment community. In a press release today, a company called the The Domain Developers Fund says they will  officially launch on August 1. “The DDF offers institutional and private investors equity investments in Internet Domain Names.” “Its the first fund to invest in domain names only.” The release from Grand Cayman “Recent million-dollar domain deals and stories such as the ones ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Moniker Sells Tshirts.com For $1.265 Million - Ahead of Wednesday’s auction, Moniker brokers blockbuster domain name sale. Moniker has sold Tshirts.com and four other related domains prior to Wednesday’s auction for $1.265 million. The domains include tee-shirts.com, t-shirt.com, t-shirts.com, and tees.com. The buyer is Costumes Galore Inc., which is apparently making a push into the t-shirt business. Separately, I’m aware of another Moniker sale for $736,000, but the domain name will not be disclosed. This ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Intriguing: An Escort With Your Domain Registration? - A new business model or just a mistaken trademark application? A Chinese company has filed a trademark application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for: Which the applicant says is equivalent to Sai Bo Na, which has no meaning. But its the classes of service for the registration that has me scratching my head: G S: Copyright management; Domain name registration services; Escort services; Intellectual property consultation; Intellectual property watch services; ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Company Wants Trademark for .Secure - I am assuming that you are referring to the .MUSIC trademarks and brand equity that we have created and will be expanding upon in the next few months. I think you were comparing apples with oranges here (.secure vs .MUSIC). We have just launched the second installation of our outreach campaign for communicating to the music industry and artists about .MUSIC and how we will help the music industry with our platform and innovations. We will be sponsoring, participating and be actively ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Live Current Media Revenues and Losses Shrink - Perfume.com owner announces revenue and earnings for first half of 2010. Live Current Media, who’s primary business is now running Perfume.com, announced shrinking revenue numbers for the second quarter 2010. But its losses also shrunk. For Q2 the company grossed $696,376 in revenue, down 59% from last year. For the first half of the year, the company lost $311,945 compared to $2,331,839 for the same period last year. But note that this past quarter’s earnings ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy Marches Toward $1 Billion - Domain name registrar will get close to $1 billion in cash flow this year. The juggernaut continues its onward march. The world’s largest domain name registrar, which manages four times as many domains as the second largest registrar, is quickly narrowing in on a billion dollars in annual cash flow. This year Go Daddy’s forecast is a whopping $950 million in gross cash receipts, Domain Name Wire has confirmed with the company. This differs from revenue, as much ... read more ...
Mon 16th August 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
IS God Squad Too Close To Geek Squad? Best Buy Thinks So & Is Suing A Priest Over It - According to the Milwaukee Journal, Best Buy has no love for the God Squad and is suing them for infringing on their trademark for the Geek Squad, even though the user of God Squad is a priest. Father Luke Strand received a cease-and-desist letter about his car, a Volkswagen Beetle has oval door stickers that read “God Squad” . “Paula Baldwin, senior manager for public relations at Best Buy, said the company aggressively defends its trademarks and notified Strand “because of the unfortunate ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Lycos.com Which Once Sold For $12.5 Billion Sells For $35 Million - According to cnet.com, Lycos,com, one of the 1st internet search engines just sold for $35 Million to Ybrant Digital, an India-based digital marketing company. Cnet.com points out that the site once sold for $12.5 Billion dollars in May 2000, then most recently sold in 2004 for just $95 Million. You might be surprised as I was to find out that the site still draws some 16 million visitors a month. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...