Monthly Archives: November 2010

Mon 15th November 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
I.co Headed to a Auction Block - Another one letter .co domain name to be auctioned. Moments ago John Battelle, on the main stage of the opening of Web 2.0 Summit, announced that .co will be auctioning off the i.co domain name. The auction will be handled by Oversee.net through its Moniker/SnapNames division. Indeed, it appears details are now up at i.co, although some of the links on the site aren’t yet operating (including registering for the auction) at the time I’m writing this. It will ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Pro to Auction of Handful of Premium Three Letter Domain Names - A dozen good three letter .pro domain names will be auctioned. Deadline to backorder is today. The dotPro registry is auctioning off a dozen premium three letter .pro domain names. The list is solid: eco.pro, dog.pro, dui.pro, ale.pro, eye.pro, tea.pro, ask.pro, run.pro, sax.pro, ear.pro, hip.pro, ssl.pro In order to participate you need to backorder the domain names by 8 pm PST today. I’ll be interested to see how much these domain names go for. .Pro is one ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Jobs and .XXX Opponents Should Just Give it Up - Opponents of two top level domain names are fighting a losing battle. As the introduction of new top level domain names looms, two groups are still fighting over TLDs that have been in the funnel for quite some time. First, there’s .jobs. It has been an actual sTLD for some time, but the registry recently decided to liberalize registration rules for the domains. This has the online job board community in a tizzy as many of them worry about new competition as well ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Pictures and Highlights from Austin Domainer Weekend - Snapshots from the first ever Austin Domainer Weekend. This past Friday and Saturday we had our first ever Austin Domainer Weekend. My original idea was to have a domainer dinner in Austin. But I got lots of requests to host it on a football weekend, so I obliged. We had about 30 people for Friday night’s activities and a somewhat smaller crowd for Saturday. Most people attended from Austin, with a few other Texans and even some visitors from California and Michigan. The ... read more ...
Sun 14th November 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Why Shouldn’t Godaddy Be Barred From Applying For A New gTLD Under The Guidebook Based On Standard Tactics - As we discussed in a post today, according to the ICANN Guidebook v5 published yesterday, any person with 3 UDRP loses will be  disqualified from owing a new gTLD registry or being an officer or director of any such entity. George Kirikos just published a comment to ICANN on the new Guidebook v5 on this issue and points out that Godaddy’s “Standard Tactics”  has lost plenty of UDRP’s and therefore why shouldn’t Godaddy’s officers, directors and shareholders be barred from ever owning ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICANN New Guidebook: Terrorists Now Ok: Domainers 3 Strikes & You’re Out - In the new Guidebook issued by ICANN yesterday, (pdf)  if you’re a domain holder that loses 3 or more UDRP (yes they are so fair and well grounded), you will be in the same class as Convicted Murderers, Rapists and child molesters. Yes it would be a bad joke but its true. Under the new ICANN guidebook (pages 1-17/1-19) if you lose 3 UDRP’s you’re disqualified from being a “major shareholder” of a new gTLD registry, or being a partner, officer, director, of a new gTLD registry. It doesn’t ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy Switches Back to .Com as Default Search Option - .Co now second search option. About 24 hours after promoting .co to the top of its search box, domain name registrar GoDaddy has switched back to .com. But .co remains the second option for people searching for domains at the world’s largest domain name registrar. GoDaddy frequently runs tests, such as changing the prices of domain registration a couple bucks up or down to measure the effects. Moving .co to the top of the list was just such as test, yet it was ... read more ...
Sat 13th November 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Free Speech Coalition: .XXX Threatens The Stability & Security Of The Internet - According to AVN.com, The Free Speech Coalition (FSC) submitted a letter to ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) yesterday over the proposed approval of  .XXX  saying that: “The proposed .XXX extension poses a threat not only to the adult entertainment community, but also to the stability and security of the internet as a whole,” The letter went on to raise these points (pdf): • ICANN’s lack of authority to oversee content-based regulation, and its inability to approve any ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Next Big Thing? RockMelt.com The Clickable Social Networking, App Browser That Might Kill TypeIn Traffic - A new browser have been getting a lot of buzz in the last couple of weeks and it hasn’t even launched yet. RockMelt.com, is a browser which incorporates a lot of social networking capability and including your Facebook friends, their tweets and such sites like Yelp.com. If you watch the 2 minute video posted on their site you will see the browser acts more like a portal and may lead to less traditional searches. Because of the design of the browser and the incorporation of all sorts of social networking ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy Replaces .Com with .Co, Now Default Choice - A big lift for .co this weekend as world’s largest registrar promotes .co to top of search box. [Update: .com is now back as the default option. This was a test by GoDaddy.] You might be in for a bit of a surprise if you visit GoDaddy today. This is what the search box looks like: That’s right. The default search option is now .co at GoDaddy. This is a huge win for .co since GoDaddy registers about half of all new domain names registered. It seems like ... read more ...
Fri 12th November 2010
Written by The Domains in EN
Blekko Calls Out Google & Bing For Indexing “Spam”: Demand, Parked Domains & Mini Sites “Spam” - In a post appearing in Technologyreview.com, the CEO of Blekko.com a new search engine that just launched this week,  Rich Skrenta, called out Google and Bing for indexing: “Spam results from the likes of Demand Media and other “content farms, and made-for-adsense landing pages.” I assume Skrenta would classify all “mini-sites” as spam as well. Skrenta is quoted as saying that: “”Blekko distinguishes itself from Google and Bing by excluding from its search listings spam results from ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Is Apple Going To Go With A Hack? Report Says Yes: iTun.es - According to MacRumors“, Apple might use a domain hack for its new iTunes Ping program. The story says that Apple which has has owned the domain name hack of the hack of iTun.es,  since December 2006, when it was registered by Mark Monitor, could windup using its as a link shortener for its new Ping product links for Twitter. iTun.es currently forwards to Apple.com If true this would mark the second top 5 tech companies that would go with a hack as a shortener. In October Google announced it was ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Oversee.net Launches Its Own Tech Blog; RegularlyExpressed.com - Oversee.net launched its own Tech blog a couple of weeks ago on October 25. The blog called RegularlyExpressed.com, calls describes itself as “Matching Great Ideas and Technology to Solve The Right Problem” As of time of publication, the blog has six posts published. The one thing that strikes me off hand is that considering that Oversee probably owns 600,000+ domains I would have thought they could have come up with a better domain for their own in house blog, but that’s just me. We welcome ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Our Take On The ICANN Registry/Registrar Decision: The Big Guys Win/The Small Guys Lose - Yesterday ICANN shocked the domain world when it announced it would not prohibit registrars from owning registries and registries from owning registrars. Up to yesterday all the guidebooks on the new gTLD’s and the general consensus was that ICANN would limit cross ownership of registrars and registries by to a certain minority position of somewhere between 2%-15%. (You can read about some the reaction in the domain world here). So having a day to reflect on this move, I see it as only meaning ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Confirmed: Facebook Acquires FB.com Domain Name - Facebook acquires FB.com domain name. Ending months of speculation, it’s now confirmed that Facebook has acquired the FB.com domain name. The whois record for the domain name just updated to show Facebook’s name and nameservers for the domain name. George Kirikos first noted back in September that the domain name had sold and speculated Facebook was the buyer. After doing a little digging he also found that Facebook was in a trademark dispute with American ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Let’s Kill a “Killer” Term - I’m tired of hearing about the next [insert a company or product name] killer. It seems that every week another “something killer” product is launched. There have been dozens of supposed “iPhone killers”. And a nice handful of “Google killer” search engines. And today comes word of what’s being referred to internally at Facebook as the “Gmail Killer”. I’m actually amazed that Facebook could release a Google Gmail killer, since I thought that ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Is Apple Entitled to Appl.com? - Company files complaint over four letter domain name. It’s not the first time. Apple Inc. filed complaints with World Intellectual Property Forum this week over two domain names it feels are typos of Apple.com. One case is against Appl.com and the other is against apple.com aplle.com. On the surface it would appear that Appl.com is a generic four character domain name. Yet the pay-per-click ads on the site mention the electronics maker. Earlier this year Apple ... read more ...
Thu 11th November 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Porno.Co.Uk With Its 23K Monthly Visitors Hits Reserve At Sedo during $24,500 - The domain name Porno.co.uk is at auction at Sedo.com where it has just hit the reserve price of $24,500. According to the auction listing the domain receives 23,575 Unique Visitors per month over the last 32 days. The auction is set to close tomorrow November 12th at 5:23 Am EST. Its a interesting one and we will let you know how it turns out. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Name.com Becomes Newest Registrar To Join Afternic’s Domain Listing Service - Afternic.com announced today that Name.com, a top ICANN- accredited registrar, will join Afternic’s Domain Listing Service (DLS), its premium reseller network. Name.com becomes is the 5th DLS Premium partner. NetworkSolutions.com and Register.Com are already live and two others to be launched sometime year; Enom.com and Moniker.com. I’m told Name.com Domain Listing Service should be launched within a week. DLS listed domains are available for sale using the DLS’ unique “Instant Transfer” ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
$345 Million Dollar Business.com Shutting Down - PaidContent.org is reporting that just “three years after purchasing Business.com for $345 million, the owner, Dex One is shutting down the site”. “In a statement, Dex One says the “Business.com operations are no longer viable and are not a part of our long-term plans” and it will instead focus on its other online operations, which include DexKnows.com.” According to the post the site of Business.com will be phased out,  “but the company is holding on—at least for now—to the ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Ask.com Gives Up On Search - Ask.com , announced on its blog Tuesday  that it is getting out of the search business. The company announced that it will be closing its offices in Edison, N.J. and Hangzhou, China eliminating about 1/3 of its work force. The company is switching gears and will focus on building out its online question-and-answer service and outsourcing all other search to “multiple third party structured and unstructured data feeds that, when integrated, can provide a web search experience on par with ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Paris Hilton: “Don’t You Dare Hyphenate My Name!” - Heiress wants the hyphenated version of her (domain) name. Paris Hilton isn’t pleased that someone owns Paris-Hilton.com, and now she’s doing something about it. The heiress filed a complaint this week with World Intellectual Property Forum, asking for an arbitrator to hand the domain name over to her. The current whois record for the domain name shows someone in Indonesia. You get a server error if you try to access the web site right now, but it used to have ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tucows Thanks .Co for Strong Quarter of Domain Registrations - Company says .co launch was major contributor to growth on OpenSRS platform. Yesterday Tucows reported record quarterly revenue for the third quarter. It saw strong growth on its OpenSRS domain reseller platform, and credits .co in part for that growth. Here’s Tucows CEO Elliot Noss on the investor conference call last night: Again this quarter, OpenSRS domain service saw strong year-over-year growth in transaction volumes. Total transactions grew 16% compared ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Afternic Adds Name.com to List of Premium Registrars - Afternic gets another win, and it’s more good news for domainers. Afternic has inked a deal with Name.com that will integrate the domain name registrar into Afternic for domains listed at “premium” distribution. Much like last month’s news of deals with eNom and Moniker, this will be a win for both Name.com customers as well as Afternic sellers listing at the premium level. Existing Name.com customers will now be able to sell their domains in the registration ... read more ...
Wed 10th November 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Tucows Reports Earnings: Revenue Up 3.5%; Yummy Names Down - Tucows reported earnings for quarter ending September 30, 2010, after the market closed today. Net revenue for the third quarter of 2010 increased 3.5% to $21.2 million from $20.5 million for the third quarter of 2009. Net income for the third quarter of 2010 was $1.1 million, or $0.02 per share, compared with net income of $5.2 million, or $0.08 per share, for the third quarter of 2009. However “Net income for the third quarter of 2009 included the final payment related to the sale of ... read more ...