Monthly Archives: January 2011

Mon 10th January 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Conference Heads for a Rockies - Conference brings together domain names and snow. Mike Law, who writes the NameTalent.com blog, is organizing the first ever Rocky Mountain Domain Conference (RMDC) February 26 in Denver, Colorado. I’m a big fan of smaller, regional domain name conferences and meetups. They attract a lot of locals that don’t make it to large domain conferences and also bring in some larger domainers and companies from around the country. RMDC will be a one day event on February ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Popular .Music Initiative Files US Trademark Application - .Music backer files application for U.S. trademark. Constantinos Roussos has been aggressive in marketing his initiative for a .music top level domain name. He’s also voice displeasure that latecomers could derail his hopes by also applying for the .music top level domain. At the June 2010 ICANN meeting Roussos voiced his displeasure about latecomers to new TLDs “gaming” the system and asked ICANN for an extra point on community application weightings for ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Survey: What’s The Most Important Selling Point of a Domain Name Registrar? - Give your opinion in this year’s survey. There are hundreds of domain name registrars. So how do you choose one? Good question. And I ask it every year on the Domain Name Wire Survey. Last year survey respondents said security and price were the most important factors. Has that changed? When you complete the Sixth Annual Domain Name Wire Survey you’ll be asked to rank these factors: Price Customer service Security Ease of transferring domains within accounts Account ... read more ...
Sun 9th January 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
AVN’s Legal Seminar: National A-1′s Escorts.com: “Justice Department Has No Interest In The Case” - As part of the AVN show in Las Vegas, there was a Legal Seminar held yesterday on issues of import to the adult community. According to AVN.com, One of the speakers  Paul Cambria, who is one of the leading 1st amendment attorneys in the country, who has represented such diverse clients as Larry Flynt, DMX. and Marilyn Manson, spoke about the Escorts.com case and sites that carry ads for adult services. “”Cambria spoke specifically of the recent bust of Escorts.com, whose offices were raided ... read more ...
Sat 8th January 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Who Will Buy i.Co? Will Apple Really Allow Someone Else To Own It? - Yesterday the .Co registry sent out its first press release of the year, reminding everyone that The time to pre-qualify for the i.Co is coming to a close in just a couple of  weeks (the press release is on the bottom of this post). The domain name itself, i.Co already is getting close to 10,000 visitors a month, according to Compete, which tends to under report traffic.  The domain also has an Alexa Ranking under 500,000. So thought it might be fun to figure out who the most likely buyers of this ... read more ...
Fri 7th January 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Another WTF: HotBoat.com Sells For $14K On NameJet.com - The domain name HotBoat.com sold yesterday on NameJet.com for $14,443. Wow. Yes I know the domain had some traffic according to Compete and Alexa but it was a site with pics of boats and girls, but I have no idea of how this domain is worth $15k in the wholesale market. The winning bidder ID was Santababy which is quite apropo as this  price was a gift to the NameJet gods. A few other sales from Namejet.com over the last few days: HardWire.com sold for $8,700 GeneTesting.com sold for  $6,877 KitchenRenovations.com  ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Local.com Blames Yahoo-Bing Transition for Lower Earnings - First echos felt of rough transition from Yahoo to Microsoft for pay-per-click listings. Local.com has warned that its fourth quarter revenue will come in below expectations thanks to the transition of Yahoo pay-per-click to Microsoft. People who park domain names with Yahoo partners are reporting some fluctuations in revenue since the transition a couple months ago, which is part of a partnership. In an email to clients yesterday, WhyPark noted that its parent company ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Roundtable Bahamas Q & A - What you need to know about this year’s Domain Roundtable Conference. After taking a year off in 2010, Domain Roundtable is back this March. And it’s back in style, traveling to The Atlantis in the Bahamas. I checked in with the Domain Roundtable (DRT) to get the scoop. DNW: Your last Domain Roundtable was in Washington, DC in 2009. Why did Domain Roundtable take a year off in 2010? DRT: We don’t feel compelled to have a show every year; we prefer to host a ... read more ...
Thu 6th January 2011
Written by The Domains in EN
WSJ: Facebook IPO By Apr 2012? - According to the WSJ Facebook will begin disclosing financial information or stage an initial public offering by April 2012, according to a new 100-page private-placement memo now being distributed to potential investors in the company. The social-networking company said in the document that it intends to breach a critical 500-shareholder limit this year. Under SEC rules once a company has more than 500 shareholder’s the company must file financial information, even if their shares don’t trade ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
The Next Hot Domain Trend: Dot……. Domains For New Extensions - As you know the new gTLD’s are coming and the domain of choice of those seeking new extension has quickly adopted the Dot…….Com/Org as their domain of choice to market their proposed extension. A couple of months ago we reported that ICM registry acquired dotxxx.com for $25,000 to use as their site (although .XXX is not a new gTLD) Also the .Co registry owns and uses DotCo.com. There are a lot of potential applicants that have already secured their dot……. domain to market the new gTLD extension ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Online Impersonation Is Now Illegal In California Punishable By 1 Year In Jail - Beginning on January 1, 2011 it became illegal in California for anyone to impersonate someone else online. According to  Senate Bill 1411, it is now illegal to “knowingly and without consent credibly impersonate another actual person through or on an Internet Web site… for purposes of harming, intimidating, threatening, or defrauding another person.” Here is the law: (a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any person who knowingly and without consent credibly impersonates another ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DomainTools Turns on “Recent Whois” For Go Daddy Domain Names - Site begins showing older whois records. DomainTools has come up with a (perhaps interim) solution after Go Daddy started blocking some whois services from accessing its full records. Searches at DomainTools for domain names registered at Go Daddy now include a “recent whois record” with the note “We provide this record when data provided by the registrar is missing key information.” Here’s an example: It’s not clear how recent the whois records are and ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Pepsi Goes After Arabic Bebsi.com Web Site - Company filed domain name dispute. [Update: Pepsi won the case.] PepsiCo, Inc. has filed a complaint with World Intellectual Property Organization to get the domain name Bebsi.com. This isn’t just a typo of Pepsi as it may appear. In fact, ‘b’ is far away from ‘p’ on the keyboard. Bebsi is actually an Arabic way of saying Pepsi. Bebsi.com hosts a large forum, and one quick look at the forum will help you understand why Pepsi is going after the domain name: Google’s ... read more ...
Wed 5th January 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Global Baking Companies Swing For The Fences & Strike Out in UDRP Seeking 25 Parked Domains - This is a pretty interesting UDRP as the  complainants are some of the biggest bakery companies in the world. The Domain Holder represented himself and beat back a claim on 25 domains may of which contained trademarked terms and were all pointed to a PPC page.  Moreover the domain holder rejected an offer by the complainants to buy the domains for $500 each saying “they were worth much more” I’m not sure I have ever seen a global brand lose a UDRP for so many domains in one case. However ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Browser Wars Update: Chrome Hits 10% Usage In US; 14.5% In Europe & FireFox Is #1 In Europe For The 1st Time - According to the firm Netmarketshare.com, Google’s Chrome Browser just hit the 10% mark, in market share just 2 years after introduction. As you would expect most of the gain in market share came at the loss of Internet Explorer. According to figures released yesterday, Chrome has a 9.98% share of the market up from just over 5% in January 2010. Internet Explorer went from having a 62.12% market share in January 2010 to ending the year with a 57.08% share. Safari gained just about 1.5% in 2010 ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Quick Poll: Will Gambling.com Sell For More Than Sex.com? - The news today that Gambling.com is being brokered by Sedo.com with a reserve price of $9 Million, raises the obvious question. Will Gambling.com which sold last time for $20 Million sell for More or Less than Sex.com just sold for at $13 million? You can vote on the poll on the right and place any comments below. Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
HTML5.com: An Example of Buying Ahead of a Curve - Old domain is suddenly relevant. There’s been a bit of buzz lately about the domain name HTML5.com, which was redirected to a page at Apple.com about HTML5. A quick look at the whois shows that Apple did not buy the domain name, but it recently came out of privacy with a new owner’s name. [Update: someone else bought the domain on GoDaddy for $5500 in December.] Is HTML5.com worth a lot of money? It’s certainly not chump change. That’s why an archive of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
VeriSign Gives ICANN $500k for Sponsorship - Hefty price tags to sponsor March event. I’ve written before about the relationship between ICANN and sponsors of its meetings. It looks like ICANN has upped the ante for its Spring meeting in San Francisco. As Kevin Murphy spotted today, ICANN has new sponsorship tiers for its next meeting reaching up to $500,000. VeriSign, which brings in over a half billion a year in fees on .com and .net through a contract with ICANN, has already signed up at the $500,000 ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Why Creating and Canceling TRAFFIC during ICANN Were Both Smart Moves - It was a great idea, but ultimately doesn’t work out. When ICANN announced that its Spring meeting would be held in San Francisco, I immediately thought “this would be a great time to hold a domain name conference.” An hour later I received an email from Rick Schwartz saying that TRAFFIC would hold a “retreat” in conjunction with the ICANN meeting. Great idea. Shortly thereafter I started thinking of a bunch of problems with this idea. Just this week Schwartz ... read more ...
Tue 4th January 2011
Written by The Domains in EN
If Gambling.com Sells For Reserve, It Will be Less Than 1/2 of What It Sold For Last Time: $20 Million In 2006 - A bunch of stories are out today about Gambling.com hitting the auction market with a reserve price of $9 Million. What I find especially interesting about the story is that the domain appearently sold for more than twice the current reserve price in 2006. According to the WSJ: “”In May 2005, Media Corp paid $20 Million Dollars cash for gambling.com, ten times the amount it earned the previous year.” “The following year, the portal, which provided information on gambling to punters and ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
MediaPost: ‘Long Tail’ Advertisers Are Back - MediaPost.com just published a post entitled Long Tail Advertisers Are Back”. The blog post which cited a report by Kantar Media said: “”While much of the 2010 ad expansion has been coming from the biggest advertising categories – especially automotive and consumer packaged goods , Kantar’s analysis shows that the so-called “long-tail” of advertising, smaller brands and companies ranking outside the 1,000 largest advertisers, are also expanding their ad spending once again.” “During ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Sedo Increases Sales Commission 50%; From 10% to 15% : For “Domain Sales By Our Sales Team” Without Notice - Thanks to a reader who noticed that Sedo.com is raising their commission rate 50%, from 10%-15% effective TOMORROW. Changes to Sedo’s domain brokerage service prices on January 4, 2011 “””Sedo is committed to helping individuals and businesses find their ideal domain name with the services they need to do so. ‘”” “”In reflection of investments in our tools and services and an increased demand for highly personnel-intensive brokerage, we will increase the commission on successful ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy Explains Whois Blocking - Company explains access restrictions on third party sites. Users of third party whois search tools have been frustrated in the past few days whenever they look up a domain name registered at Go Daddy. Instead of seeing who owns the domain name, they are given a URL to look up the whois information directly at Go Daddy. Here’s an example from DomainTools: This appears to be occurring on many whois lookup sites, not just DomainTools. For example, searches at who.is ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
PodNova.com Finally Changes Hands for $90,000, OnlineKredit.net for EUR 100,000 - Podnova.com and OnlineKredit.net make for strong sales week. The domain name PodNova.com has sold at Sedo for $90,000. This was an active web site until earlier this year. Compete.com shows it getting as many as 20,000 unique visitors in February 2010 before falling off a cliff when the site shut down. It currently gets around 5,000 uniques. What’s also strange is it looks like this sale took a long time to close, or at least to transfer to the new owner. It ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
My Thoughts on a Moniker Whois Privacy Incident - It’s an unfortunate incident. Not a scandal. I’ve waited a few days to write about the Moniker whois privacy flap. My first reaction was that this whole thing was being blown way out of proportion, so I wanted to wait and see how I felt in a few days. But I still feel the same way. What happened I really don’t know all the details behind what happened. What I can gather from reading this blog entry is that an Oversee.net employee found out who owned a domain ... read more ...