Monthly Archives: February 2011

Wed 16th February 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The Best Part About a New DomainTools - DomainTools gets a facelift and new membership levels. DomainTools launched a new interface today. It makes finding and using its vast array of tools much easier. But the best part is that account credits are gone. In the words of DomainTools: “We’ve taken the most confusing pricing model ever conceived, and we’ve given it the axe.” Amen. The old system was based on “units” for various products. And the number of units required to order the same product ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo and Parked Still Top Domain Parking Companies, But Revenue Down - Survey reveals favorite parking companies but continued downward trend in parking revenue. A non-scientific survey of over 1,500 domain name industry participants shows that Sedo and Parked.com are still the top domain name parking companies. Sedo received 30% of the votes as top parking company in Domain Name Wire’s sixth annual domain survey. Parked came in a distant second place with 14% of the vote. Last year Sedo took 23% of the vote and Parked brought home ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Limited Edition Tucows Cookie Goes Back Up For Sale - Famous cookie goes up for sale. Last April I paid what I believe to be a domainer record for a cookie: $127.50. But this wasn’t just any cookie. It was a sugar cookie commemorating Tucows’ 10 millionth domain name registered. This is a limited edition cookie to be sure. And the proceeds from the cookie auction went to some Canadian charity that (I’m told) had nothing to do with ice hockey or Molson. The cookie has been sitting in my office for the past ... read more ...
Tue 15th February 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Afternic.com Post $450K In Sales Lead By Funo.com during $20K - Another LLLL.com domain name lead the sales chart at Afternic for the week ending February 13th. Funo.com lead the pack at $20K, floridaautoinsurance.com seemed like a bargain at $15K, and as usually there are plenty of sales in that $3K-$5K range that none of us would pay $100 for. Here is a complete list of all reportable sales of $2K or more for .com and $1K or more for other than .com’s. The other observation I have is that it seemed the non-com sales were very few in number compared to most ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Historia.com Sells On NameJet.com Again, This Time For Only $24K - The domain name Historia.com sold again yesterday for $23,903. We have been following this domain which sold a year ago on NameJet.com for $40,300 but the winning bidders refused to pay based on a claim of suspected fraudulent bidding. The winning bidder of this auction is “Domain Bank” In some other interesting Namejet.com sales: jinji.com sold for $10,200, i’m not sure what is up with that domains but there are several Asian sites using that word.  I’m sure one of the readers will tell ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Marchex Sold $2.1 Million of Domains Last Quarter - Marchex sells of more domain names. Marchex reported GAAP earnings of two cents per share after the bell today on $28 million revenue in the fourth quarter of 2010. It also announced that it sold $2.1 million of “non-strategic” domain names in the quarter. Marchex frequently reports seven figures worth of domain name sales in its earnings announcements. The company is famous for buying Yun Ye’s domain name portfolio for $164 million. A number of domain names ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo and Afternic Combine for Well Over $1M in Sales This Week - Two large domain name brokers have strong week. Sedo and Afternic have both turned in sales reports this week combining for well over $1 million in reportable sales. Sedo’s top reportable sale was Award.com for $56,005 and Afternic’s top reportable sale was Funo.com for $20,000. Here are other top sales for the week from Afternic: passings.com $15,000 floridaautoinsurance.com $15,000 nextstar.com $15,000 Fabo.com $15,000 prescreen.com $13,000 OnlinePcSupport.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy Devises “Pay for Placement” Idea for New gTLD Operators - Patent describes system where new top level domain operators can bid for preferred placement registrar sites. Want to get your new top level domain name positioned well on GoDaddy? Prepare to pay. That’s the idea behind a pay-for-placement approach for TLD placement on registrar web sites that Go Daddy has devised. Oh, and it has a patent on it. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued U.S. patent 7,890,602 (pdf) to Go Daddy today for “Tools enabling preferred ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Uh-Oh. ICANN Traveling to Another Trouble Spot for Jun Meeting in Jordan. - Safety and security will be concerns once again for upcoming ICANN meeting. [UPDATE: ICANN will move the meeting to another location.] I’ve got to hand it to ICANN’s meeting planners. They have a penchant for choosing locales that give less-traveled attendees heartburn. This hit a pinnacle for last year’s Nairobi meeting, where many of the biggest companies and sponsors decided to stay home over security fears. (Nairobi was probably a safer venue than the March ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Texas Considering a Dreaded “Affiliate Sales Tax” - Legislation would require etailers to collect sales tax if it has any affiliates in Texas. Add my home state of Texas to the list of states that are considering taxing etailers who have affiliates in the state. At least if one state representative gets his way. State Rep. Elliott Naishtat, D-Austin introduced legislation that would require online retailers to collect Texas sales tax if it and enters into an agreement with a Texas resident that receives a commission ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Google Adsense for Domains Testing New Design Templates - Two new templates being tested, including one with a graphic. Google’s self-service domain name parking program appears to be testing new design templates. An alert reader sent me an example of a domain name using Adsense for Domains “Online” that rotates between three different landers. In addition to the standard lander we’re all accustomed to, there’s a more basic one and one with a tropical theme: Update: another Adsense for Domains user sent me an ... read more ...
Mon 14th February 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
CinemaCity.com Gets A Reverse Hijacking UDRP Ruling - Prime Pictures LLC of Dubai, bought a UDRP against DigiMedia.com who was  represented by John Berryhill on the domain name cinemacity.com The three member panel not only denied the complaint but held that the Complaint amounted to a  Reverse Domain Hijacking. Nice to see the panel looked at the facts and circumstances at the time of the registration of the domain and did not find as other panels have bad faith on the renewal of the domain. Here is the panel’s findings: “Cinemas are operated ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.Co Three Letter Domains 95% Sold Out, 3 Character .Co Domains 46% Sold Out - Over this week  there were repeated comments on this blog to the effect that all 3 letter (LLL.co) .Co domain names were registered or reserved, leaving none available. We reached out to the .Co registry to confirm this and got the following information which is current as of February 9th “The total number of 3-letter domains (LLL.co) registered is 16,551 out of a possible combination of 17,576 so close to 95% have been registered already.” “Regarding the total possible number of registrable ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.Org Grows Over 10% To Over 8.8 Million Registrations - .ORG, The Public Interest Registry (PIR) today released the results of its bi-annual domain name report, “The Dashboard,” detailing the growth of the world’s third largest generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD). According to the report, the .ORG domain grew by 10.3% in 2010. ORG has over 8.8 million domains under management, which is a  net gain of 824,559 .ORG registrations in 2010. Other key findings from the latest “Dashboard” report reveal the following: In five years, .ORG’s domains ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainHack.er in FR and tagged
43.483 domaines ont été vendus sur Sedo en 2010 pour 76 millions d’euros - La plateforme de vente de noms de domaine SEDO vient de publier quelques informations quant aux domaines cédés en 2010. Au total, 43.483 domaines ont été vendu pour un montant de 76.012.091 euros, soit une augmentation de près de 40% par rapport à 2009. Les noms de domaine en .com demeurent les plus fréquemment vendus et totalisent à eux seuls 75% des échanges de gTLDs. L ́extension .net arrive en seconde place avec une part ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
SnapNames Increases Prices on Deleted Domain Names - Cost to get deleted domains increases from $59 to $69. On Tuesday SnapNames will increase its minimum fee for catching fully deleted domain names by $10 to $69. The fee increase only applies to domains that go completely through the deletion cycle and are deleted by the registry. It does not apply to domain names auctioned off through registrar partners and other sellers. Domains auctioned through registrar partners don’t go completely through the deletion cycle. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
L.A. County Health Department Sends New Alert to DOMAINfest Attendees - Those with multiple symptoms asked to undergo testing. The Los Angeles County Public Health Department has sent a new alert (pdf) to attendees of this month’s DOMAINfest conference giving explicit instructions for medical testing. In an email to DOMAINfest attendees, the health department asked people who have multiple symptoms to ask their healthcare professionals for a battery of tests. The L.A. health department will perform these tests for free for locals. The ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
New Chrome Extension Lets You Block Content Farms in Google - Google releases extension in response to “content farm” complaints. Tired of seeing eHow in your Google search results? Now you can block it. Today Google released a new Chrome extension that allows people to block entire sites from results when searching on Google. In a blog post, the company says it created this extension in response to outcry over content farms which have low quality or shallow content. Demand Media’s eHow has been a poster child for ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
VeriSign Scores a Win in Antitrust Lawsuit - Court rules plaintiffs don’t have standing to bring suit. A California court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by Coalition for ICANN Transparency (CFIT) against VeriSign for its .com and .net domain name contracts. The court ruling was first reported earlier today by DomainIncite. United States District Judge Ronald Whyte ruled that CFIT didn’t have standing to bring the antitrust lawsuit. The suit originally aimed to get ICANN to make a competitive bidding process ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Scott Day’s DigiMedia Wins Reverse Domain Hijacking Charge - WIPO panel finds complaint against DigiMedia.com was brought in bad faith. Legendary domain name investor Scott Day’s company DigiMedia.com has won a charge of reverse domain name hijacking against a Dubai company. Prime Pictures LLC filed the case in an attempt to get the domain name CinemaCity.com. But DigiMedia.com had registered the domain name way back in 1998, about 7 years before the complainant used “CinemaCity” in commerce. That clearly means the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Bankrate Acquires and Launches CreditCards.ca - Company launches credit card information site for Canada. Financial media company Bankrate recently acquired and has now launched CreditCards.ca, a credit card information site, Domain Name Wire has discovered. Bankrate recently purchased the company CreditCards.com as well, but the acquisition of the CreditCards.ca domain name appears to be separate. The site complements a Canada-focused sub site of CreditCards.com, ca.CreditCards.com. Based on DomainTools historical ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.nxt – Like an ICANN Meeting With a Pulse - by Kevin Murphy The inaugural .nxt conference on new top-level domains wound up in San Francisco Thursday, with most participants seeming to agree that it was a success. The two-day meeting attracted 196 sign-ups (about 20 of whom apparently paid but did not ultimately show up to collect their badges) and almost 20 sponsors, not a bad showing for a first-of-its-kind event. The purpose of the conference was to provide a venue to discuss the business of new TLDs without ... read more ...
Sun 13th February 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Hundreds Of News Outlets Are Now Covering The “Playboy Plague” - There are now several hundreds of news outlets that are covering what ABC called the Playboy Plague or what domainers have been calling the domainer flu, that struck at Domainfest Newspapers from the LaTimes to the Toronto Sun,to The New York Post to the Village Voice and even the Wall Street Journal have covered the story. TV stations from ABC to KABC To TMZ have also covered the story. I know there is an  old adage that there is all publicity is good publicity, I think that might be tested by ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Lead Story On Good Morning America: “The Playboy Plague” As Barbara and Howard Neu Star - Just watching Good Morning America on ABC  for Sunday morning and the second story lead on this national show (after Egypt) is the sickness out break at the Playboy Mansion party which was part of Domainfest. Referred to by ABC now as the Playboy Plague. In the teaser for the show are the familiar faces of Howard Barbara Neu. If your up and around (its now 8:05 AM EST) check out ABC and you will catch the story I will update this story as the segment actually ads. UPDATED The segment of the outbreak ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
The Internet is One Big Game of Telephone - Stories that start innocent enough often morph into something else. Do you remember that game of “telephone” you played in elementary school? The first person in the circle makes an innocent statement to the next person. “Mrs. Teacher is going on vacation to Hawaii next week.” By the time it gets passed along to the end of the circle the statement has morphed into “Mrs. Teacher’s husband is buying Antarctica and moving their because he hates Mrs. Teacher ... read more ...