Monthly Archives: August 2010

Fri 6th August 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Quick Poll: Which Domain Priced $1 Million + Will Sell At DomainFest? - I just ended the week long poll I was running on which domain you thought would sell at the live domain name auction at Domainfest, which will be held in New York on August 18th, of those domain names with a reserve price range of $500K-$1M . Rate.com lead the way with 37% of you picking that domain as the one that will sell at Domainfest with 28% picking “none will sell”,  with StockQuotes.com right behind with 24% of the vote. We’ll see how you did in a couple weeks. This weeks poll is ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
eNom Uses Domain Lookups to Decide What to Register for Itself - Looking up potential domains at eNom? The company uses that data in many ways. [UPDATED] Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt has referred to the data from eNom and its value to the company before, but its newly filed S-1 explains the value succinctly. It uses the data not only for its content business, but also to determine which domain names to acquire for its own portfolio: Proprietary Data. In providing registration services for over 10 million domain names, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Demand Media Files to Go Public – Demand By a Numbers - Demand Media files for IPO, with Goldman the lead banker. Demand Media, the parent company of eNom, has filed to go public and raise up to $125 million. I’m reading through the S-1 as we speak, so this article will expand. Here are some of the details: -The company generated $198 million in revenue last year, and $114 million through the first 6 months of 2010 -The company reported a net loss of $22 million last year and $6 million through the first 6 months of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Co Domain Tops 400,000 Registrations - Another milestone. What’s next? It has taken .co just two and a half weeks to hit a big milestone: today the .co domain name surpassed 400,000 domain name registrations according to the ticker on its web site. Although the rate of registrations will obviously slow over time, this is a fantastic launch. Including roughly 39,000 domains that were charged a premium in the sunrise period and landrush (but excluding auction fees), I calculate that consumers have paid ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Vertro Reports Earnings Including $285k from Sale of ScreenSavers.com - Successor to FindWhat unloads domain name. Vertro (VTRO) reported second quarter results yesterday, and that included a gain of about $285,000 from the sale of a domain name. Domainers probably know Vertro as the successor of FindWhat. After doing some checking with Vertro, I confirmed that the domain name was Screensavers.com. Moniker auctioned the domain name in a showcase auction earlier this year, selling the domain for $335,000. Vertro took home roughly $285,000 ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Zuccarini Responds in Domain Case, Says Assignee is Lying - Zuccarini responds to contempt charges, alleges contempt himself. The ongoing battle of John Zuccarini and the assignee in Office Depot’s cybersquatting case is getting even more interesting. To bring you up to speed: -Zuccarini was found to have cybersquatted on Office Depot -DS Holdings “bought” the judgment Office Depot won, so now it is owed the money (the IRS also has a tax lien) -Zuccarini’s other domain names were to be used to satisfy the judgment ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Jobs Expansion Approved, .Travel to Release 1 and 2 Character Domains - Registry operators for .jobs and .travel get their wishes. .Jobs and .Travel, two top level domains that probably would have done better if they were released as generic TLDs rather than sponsored, got positive results from ICANN’s board meeting yesterday. At least as far as the registries are concerned. First, the .jobs registry received permission to effectively open up .jobs. Until now it has been restricted to companies registering just their company name, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sri Lanka, Thailand Among Those Getting New IDN Domain Names - Sri Lanka and Thailand join ranks of countries getting their own ccTLD in their own language. ICANN has delegated five more internationalized domain names for top level country code domain names. Yesterday the ICANN board approved a resolution delegating two top level domains for Sri Lanka and one for Thailand: Delegation of IDN ccTLDs: 1. Sri Lanka Whereas, Sri Lanka is a country currently listed in the ISO 3166-1 standard. Whereas, .ලංකා (“Lanka”), ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Moves Forward on .XXX - .XXX gets the yellow light at board meeting. The ICANN Board adopted a resolution yesterday that will allow ICM Registry’s application for .xxx to move forward. But it may not be a quick process, and a new can of worms will be opened allowing for another comment period on the actual registry contract. Here’s the resolution that was adopted: Whereas, ICANN’s General Counsel has completed the expedited due diligence regarding ICM Registry, as directed by the ... read more ...
Thu 5th August 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Marchex Loss Widens In 2nd Quarter; Sells $700K in Domains - Marchex reported its earnings after the market closed today for the 2nd Quarter, ending June 30, 2010. Here are the highlights: Revenue was $21.4 million for the second quarter of 2010, compared to $21.1 million for the same period of 2009. Looks like the company lost over $4M in the 2Q 2010 compared to losing just $1.5M in 2Q 2009. GAAP net loss was $3.2 million for the second quarter of 2010 or $0.10 per diluted share, compared to GAAP net loss applicable to common stockholders of $1.2 million ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Google Extends US Trademark Policy On Keywords To Europe & Canada - According to a post on Google’s blog, Google is going to extend its US policy on advertising keywords which allows companies to advertise on other companies trademarks to Europe and Canada. Here is the official announcement: “”Last year, in an effort to provide better ads and a higher quality experience for our users, we adjusted our trademark policy in the U.S. to allow some advertisers to use third party trademarks in their ad text even if they don’t own that trademark or have explicit ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Will Online Gambling Become Legal In The US? The “Internet Gambling … Act” Passes A House Committee - The Internet Gambling Regulation and Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act, HR 2267,  which would legalize online gambling in the United States, passed the House Committee on Financial Services last week. The committee voted in favor of the bill,  41-22 advancing the legislation to the House floor. The bill sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, would effectively legalize online poker and online casino games such as blackjack, slots, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Live Current Sells More Shares, Now Can Avoid “Grey Market” for Perfume - More equity sales from troubled company. Fresh on the heels of raising $370,000 through equity sales at the end of last month, Live Current Media has raised another $225,000 through the same offering. That brings the total to $595,000. All told, the equity sale included 5.95 million shares and 5.95 million warrants to purchase shares at 15 cents each within the next two years. Live Current says it will use this money for general purposes and to purchase inventory ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
.Co, DNW Certified Stats, and ICANN on Domain Masters - Listen to last night’s show archive. Last night I was on Domain Masters on WebmasterRadio.fm. I’ve been on the show a couple different times, but this is the first time since Chef Patrick took over as host. He also had co-host Morgan Linton with him last night. You can listen to the show here. During the show I talked about a number of topics, including: -Domain name theft, and an important ICANN comment period that domainers need to pay attention to in an effort ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo Sells YYY.com for $45,444 - Sedo sells three letter .com for big money. Domain brokerage Sedo has sold the domain name YYY.com for $45,444, according to the site’s recent sales section. So the question for all you three and four character domain name fans: is this a ccc.com domain or a vvv.com domain? Is it a triple premium? Is it a million-zillion-triple-premium-triple-repeat dot com? The domain name’s whois record currently shows Sedo’s brokerage, and it was previously protected by ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Zuccarini Threatens Latona’s and TRAFFIC Over Planned Auction - Court documents reveal that John Zuccarini has warned auctioneer and promoter of legal action if they go forward with auction. On Monday I wrote about a proposed court order to sell John Zuccarini’s remaining domain names at October’s TRAFFIC conference to settle tax liens and a judgment in a cybersquatting case brought by Office Depot. Now an attorney for the judgment creditor says that Zuccarini has contacted both Rick Latona and TRAFFIC organizers Rick Schwartz ... read more ...
Wed 4th August 2010
Written by The Domains in EN
TechCrunch: Google Buys Slide.com For Just $182 Million - According to TechCrunch.com, Google will announce on Friday that it has bought the social gaming company Slide.com For $182 Million Dollars. A Businessweek article from 2007 quoted Slide investor David Weiden of Khosla Ventures as saying: “If Slide cashes out for $1.5 billion, Levchin “would regard it as abject failure.” Slide describes itself as: “As one of the pioneer app developers on popular social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, Slide has become the world’s leading community-driven ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Advertise.com Wins Appeal Against AOL.com, Court Finds Advertising.com IS Generic - “””Advertise.com, appealed the district court’s entry of a preliminary injunction barring it from using a designation or trade name that is confusingly similar to Appellees’ (“AOL”) ADVERTISING.COM mark. The district court enjoined Advertise.com from using “any design mark or logo that is confusingly similar to the stylized forms of AOL’s ADVERTISING.COM marks” and from using the designation and trade name ADVERTISE.COM or any other name confusingly similar to ADVERTISING.COM. ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Nielsen Research: “What Americans Do Online”: Time On Social Networking & Gaming Up; Email & Portals Down - According to a study released Monday by The Nielsen Co, entitled “What Americans Do Online”  lookek at the surfing habits of 22,000 Americans. So What Do Americans Do Online? 36% of their time is spent on social networks, blogs, personal email and instant messaging, which is 43% more time compared with the same month in the prior year. Online gaming is now right behind social networks, accounting for 10% of all U.S. Internet time. Email  dropped from 11.5% of time spent to 8.3%; time ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Google Now Enables International Targeting of .Co Domain Name - Owners of .co domains can now tell Google for what location their content is targeted. Today Google finally enabled targeting the .co domain name to locations other than Colombia. .Co is the country code domain name for Colombia, so Google generally considered web sites on .co as targeted only to Columbia. I confirmed with Google on July 22 that it would enable this re targeting, and again about a week later, but many have been impatiently waiting for the changeover. To ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Google Wave and Lessons on Simplicity - Goodbye Google Wave. I hardly understood you. So Google Wave is getting the ax (sort of). This may have been the most hyped Google release in ages, even though so few people knew what the heck it was they were clamoring for a coveted invite for. Why did it fail? It was confusing. People didn’t instantly get it. It’s a lesson web application developers need to learn. Over the years I’ve seen new applications come out that were simplistic versions of more ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
In AOL Advertising.com Case, Court Explains Perils of Generic Domain Names - Building a brand around a generic domain name may create trademark headaches. You usually find the real juicy stuff in a company’s annual report in the footnotes. That’s why I like to read every part of court cases, too. In the recent U.S. Court of Appeals case of Advertise.com vs. AOL Advertising (Advertising.com), the court noted the challenges of creating a brand around a descriptive and generic domain name in footnote 6: Somewhat incredibly, AOL attempts ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
CDRate.com Domain Sells for $42,500 - Rates are low, but domain prices are high. If you’ve shopped for a certificate of deposit rate recently, you were probably disappointed by the results. Bankrate reports the typical 6-month CD is returning just 0.85%. Perhaps you should invest in domain names instead? One of NameMedia’s (runs Afternic and BuyDomains) top reported sales this week was for CDRate.com at $42,500. The domain gets some traffic according to Compete.com. NameMedia releases only a small ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Fannie Mae Launches $50,000 KnowYourOptions.com Web Site - Mortgage backer launches web site at $50k domain name. Fannie Mae has launched a new web site at KnowYourOptions.com, a domain name the company purchased for $50,000 in June. The company, which was bailed out by U.S. taxpayers, bought the domain name through domain broker Sedo. Hopefully a U.S. citizen sold the domain name to them to make up for his higher taxes. As expected, the site (warning: annoying auto-play talking person on site) details homeowners’ options ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo Sells OY.com for $90k, German Cloud Computing Domain Goes for $38k - No six figure sales, but two letter domain comes close. Domain brokerage Sedo sold oy.com for $90,000 this past week, which was the company’s top completed sale. The company also had a big cloud computing domain sale, moving cloud-computing.de for 29,000 EUR, or about $38,000 USD. It’s not Cloud.com, but it’s still a good domain for the booming field of cloud computing. Here are other notable sales for the week at Sedo: .com p6.com 15000 USD befrank.com 15000 USD ... read more ...