Monthly Archives: September 2010

Mon 6th September 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Priority Inbox? How About Secure Inbox? - Let’s increase the security on webmail. Last week Google launched its new Gmail Priority Inbox feature to great fanfare. It’s a fantastic feature for people suffering from email overload. I have another suggestion for Gmail. Usage of web-based email services has exploded to the point that many people and companies keep critical information in their hosted inboxes. This has led to some high profile security breaches. I propose “secure inbox”, an added ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy’s X.co URL Shortener Launches - X.co officially launches. A couple months ago I wrote about how GoDaddy had snagged x.co with plans to use it as a URL shortener. Late last week I noticed that @Godaddy was using x.co in its tweets; and now the service is officially open to all. x.co has a lot of the features you’ll find in most URL shorteners, such as robust analytics. You can easily create an x.co link by pasting a longer URL in at x.co. GoDaddy has been pushing .co domains and x.co will help ... read more ...
Sat 4th September 2010
Written by The Domains in EN
1,000 Busiest Site On The Net Shutting Down: Vox.com: How Much Will The Domain Sell For? - News today that VOX.com will be shutting its door. The site which mixes social networking in with a blog hosting site, like Typepad.com. The site ranked by Alexa as the 1,037 busiest site on the net, gets according to Compete.com over 1.2 Million visitors monthly. According to comScore the site generated 5.7 million unique visitors a month. Yet it appearently didn’t produce enough revenue for the site to continue. So here is a cautionary tale, a short domain name coupled with millions of users ... read more ...
Fri 3rd September 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Dolce & Gabbana Loses Bid For DandG.com In WIPO; Having A Facebook & Twitter Page Was Key - The domain name owner of DandG.com just fought off a complaint by Dolce Gabbana. However is a nice win for the domain holder who was represented by Mike Rodenbaugh of Rodenbaugh Law. Its a very interesting decision since Dolce Gabbana has a very well known trademark on DG since at least 1994 and the domain owner even offered to sell Dolce Gabbana the domain,  (among others) for an amount in excess of $100,000. The panel put a LOT of weight on the fact that the domain holder put up a Twitter and ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Quick Poll: How Much Will Slots.co Sell For? - The land rush auction for Slots.co started yesterday and the current high bid is as of time of publication is $15,500. So we are opening up a poll on what you think this domain will sell for. The auction closes in 6 days unless extended under the bidding rules of the .Co auctions. Slots.com sold earlier this year for around $5.5 Million I’m in the auction for Slots.co and will keep you updated on the bidding. As always place your vote on the right and your comments below. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Are .Co Domains Worth More Than .Org Domains? - I couldn’t help but notice (especially when one of the readers pointed it out to me) that DuiAttorney.co sold for $44,500 in the Land Rush Auctions, which is more than I sold duiattorney.org for earlier this year. Several months ago I sold DuiAttorney.org through Sedo.com for $35,000 which at the time most thought was a fair price. However in the latest .Co Land Rush Auction report I posted yesterday, DuiAttorney.co sold for $10K more than the .Org. So the question is are .Co domain now worth more ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo Revenue Down But Earnings Up - Revenue slides but bottom line improves in first half of year. Revenue at domain name brokerage and parking company Sedo for the first half of 2010 was down compared to the same period last year, but earnings were up. Sedo Holding reported (pdf) revenue of 21.9M EUR for its Sedo division in H1 2010, compared to 22.6M EUR for H1 2009. However, profit increased from 3.0M EUR to 3.3M EUR. The company’s employee base dropped from 172 to 157 between periods. At the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Bingo.com Ltd Buys Out Bingo.com Payments for $900,000 - Nearly a century of royalty payments bought out. Bingo.com, Ltd has bought out its remaining royalty payments on the domain name Bingo.com for $900,000 in equity. The company had a deal with the prevous owner of the domain (Bingo, Inc) to pay it 4% of gross revenue through 2098. An independent valuation pegged the present value of those payments at $1.4 million to $1.6 million. If you’re thinking that Bingo, Inc needed cash and that’s why it took a discount, ... read more ...
Thu 2nd September 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
WOW: New Record Of $53K For AutoGlass.co Highlights Another $500K In Land Rush .Co Auctions - The .Co registry has send me a 4th round of results for the ongoing .Co domain name Land Rush Application auctions. (you can see previous results here, here and here) The results are this time around is another record; $514,000 in sales on just 90 domains. WOW AutoGlass.co lead the way selling for $53,000. Closely behind are two great legal domains, DuiAttorney.co and DuiLawyer.co which went for $44, 500 and $43K respectively. As a holder of a large legal portfolio I couldn’t be happier with the ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
MySpace Spends $25K on MySpace.Co, A Domain They Could Have Bought For $300 - Corporate America. They still have a lot to learn when it comes to domain names. A reader informed me that they were in the auction for MySpace.co and that the domain sold for $25,000. The whois record now confirms that Twentieth Century Fox, which is owned by NewsCorp, which also owns MySpace.com, is the new owner of the domain. Of course as the trademark holder, Fox could have just applied for the domain in the Sunrise period for around $300 and gotten the domain. Moreover, one would think that ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Jason Davis Strikes Again with Recruiter.com - Jobs domain pro merges one of his companies with Recruiter.com. Jason Davis has struck another large domain name deal by merging his RecruitingBlogs.com with Recruiter.com. Although technically a merger, Recruiter.com’s domain name was its main contribution to the puzzle. Recruiter.com owner Ashley Saddul will join the merged entity as CTO and founder. I first talked to Davis after he sold CEOjobs.com to Harry Joiner last year. I ran a profile about him the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Juniper Networks Loses Case for Juniper.tv - $15B company loses UDRP case. Juniper Networks has lost a domain name arbitration case to get the domain juniper.tv. Despite having a market cap of nearly $15 billion, the arbitrator noted that it’s entirely plausible that the registrant of the domain name hadn’t heard of the company because it’s a business-to-business company. Also working against Juniper Networks is that juniper is a generic term. The registrant had registered other seemingly generic .tv ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The Truth About NameMedia, Afternic, and BuyDomains - Here’s why NameMedia sells more of its own domains than clients’ domains. Every once in a while I feel like going on a rant. So here goes. There’s been a lot of talk on both my blog and others about NameMedia, which operates BuyDomains and AfternicDLS. NameMedia owns its own portfolio of domains which it sells through its platform. It also allows other domain owners (i.e., you) to sell domains via its AfternicDLS system, which then syndicates through its ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Want to Bid on Sex.com? Deposit $1 Million. - If an auction occurs, expect to put your money where your mouth is. We might never see an auction for Sex.com. But if we do, expect to put up a significant deposit if you wish to bid. Court documents show that the bankruptcy sales procedure for Sex.com will include three phases. In the first phase domain broker Sedo will do a worldwide outreach and prequalification of interested parties. The second phase is a negotiation period with qualified parties. The third ... read more ...
Wed 1st September 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
You Think No One Will Develop .Co Sites? Wrong: Here’s A List Of Developed .Co Sites Already Up & Running - Over the weeks I have posted the results from the land rush auctions and other stories about .Co. Many of the comments I have received, are along the lines of no one will ever build out .co domains as stand alone sites. The reasoning goes that .Co will only be used for defensive registrations by .Com holders and by those looking to get traffic on typo’s on their .com equivalent. Wrong. Just a month or so after launch there are already stand alone sites using the .Co extension. The companies who ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
CO2.Com: Hits The Auction Block At Epik Domain Conference - The domain name CO2.com is going to hit the auction block at the Epik.com Domain Developers Conference. From a press release from Epik today: “CO2.com, is the chemical formula for Carbon Dioxide, a gas emitted by gas-combustion engines, refrigerants, welding, pharmaceutical and chemical processing, oil recovery and commercial agricultural and biological applications. CO2 emissions are at the center of the global controversy concerning the rise in greenhouse gases, expansion of atmospheric ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Can A Senate Candidate Be A Game Changer For The Whole .US Extension? JoeMiller.US - If you’re a .US domain investor you might want to pay close attention to the Campaign of Joe Miller who is running for Senator from Alaska. Miller is a Tea Party candidate who has a slight lead in the race for the Republican Primary for Senator pending the counting of absentee voters. Why should you care about Mr. Miller’s campaign if your a .US investor? Because Mr. Miller is using a .US domain for his campaign rather than a .Com. Not only is he using a .US for his campaign, but he is prominently ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
World Trademark Review Conducting Survey About New TLDs - Survey seeks opinions on new top level domain names. World Trademark Review is currently running a survey to understand attitudes and plans around the launch of new top level domain names. The survey is targeted to three groups: In-house trademark lawyers, private practice trademark lawyers, and marketing, web, and communications professionals. Each group receives slightly different questions on the survey. For example, in-house trademark lawyers are asked about ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DreamHost.co and AOLmail.co Among First .Co Domains Hit with UDRP - Trademark owners go after their names on .co. A dozen companies have filed 13 .co domain name arbitration disputes since the relaunch of .co as a a generic domain name. The most recent UDRP filing was for Dreamhost.co by the owner of the large web host DreamHost.com. This is a somewhat surprising case given that surely a web host was aware of the release of .co domains. Other companies have also filed cases. AOL wants aolmail.co and L.A. Fitness is going after lafitness.co. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Cost-Per-Action Search Engine Patent Headed to Auction Block - Patent could potentially target Google and Microsoft. A U.S. patent directed at cost-per-action advertising on search engines as well as cash-back search is headed to the auction block. Sunnyvale, California based AnchorFree Inc. has enlisted ICAP Ocean Tomo to auction off U.S. patent number 7,647,305 (pdf) at its November 11 intellectual property auction in Napa, California. The patent covers two main things. First, it covers charging search ad customers based on ... read more ...