Monthly Archives: August 2011

Wed 31st August 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
VeriSign: State Of The Domain Report: 215 Million Domain Names Registered; 8.6% Increase: 110 Million .Com/.Net - Verisign just published its quarterly Domain Industry Report for the quarter ending June 30, 2011 and here are some of the highlights: The second quarter of 2011 closed with a base of 215 million domain name registrations across all Top Level Domains (TLDs), which represents a 2.5% increase over the first quarter of 2011 and a 16.9 million, or 8.6% year-over-year increase. Verisign’s combined base of .com and .net domain names ended the quarter at approximately 110 million. New .com and .net registrations ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
What Could Be Worse Than ICANN? How About Total Control Of The Domain Space By The European Commission - You think ICANN running the domain space is bad? How about The European Commission (EC) controlling it? Kieren McCarthy of Dot-Nxt just wrote about six, yet unpublished papers by the EC’s Information Society and Media Directorate-General which  wants to have control over the domain space including: “””” A government veto over any new Internet extensions The creation of a list of names, drawn up by governments, that would be banned from registration Significant structural changes at overseeing ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
VeriSign: 5.2 Million More Domain Names - Base of registered domain names continues to grow. VeriSign released its quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief today, reporting that the total base of domain names increased by 5.2 million last quarter to 215 million. Registrations have grown by more than 16.9 million since the second quarter of 2010. The total base of .com and .net domain names passed 110 million. There were 8.1 million new .com and .net registrations during the quarter. VeriSign manages the registry ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Top Domain Name Wire Stories of Aug 2011 - Top 5 domain name news stories for the past month. August is coming to a close and I’m thankful. Why? It’s been so damn hot here in Texas that I’m counting down the days until fall. We also had some hot news in the domain industry this month. Here are the top stories attracting views on Domain Name Wire in August. 1. Canadian Court Rules Domain Names Are Property – ruling in Tucows suit lends credence to the legal idea of domain names as property. 2. Google ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Thoughtful Analysis on a Current State of a New TLD Program - New TLD program not exactly progressing at warp speed after approval. This is one of those blog posts where I essentially refer you to another blogger’s post. Kevin Murphy of DomainIncite published a story this morning titled “Should new gTLDs be delayed?” It’s a thoughtful piece that, as a fellow blogger, I know took some time to put together. And it’s really good. Kevin isn’t saying new TLDs should be delayed, but he gives a good run down of the current ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
10 End User Domain Name Sales Over a Past Week - Another week, another set of end user domain name sales. As I do weekly, here’s a look at a sample of end user sales through the Afternic platform… A client of brand management company MarkMonitor bought Stumblers.com for $6,000. Could the buyer be StumbleUpon? Accessories company Sprigs, which uses the domain name sprigsville.com, bought sprigs.com for $8,000. The owner of Offsitesolutions.biz upgraded to Offsitesolutions.com for $6,000. Austin, TX-based uShip.com ... read more ...
Tue 30th August 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Sedo.com Posts $650K In Domain Name Sales - Sedo just reported it’s sales for the week and sold just about $650K in domain names led by NBB.com which sold for $95,000 and on which we reported earlier today On the non-.com from the domain Pact.de sold for around $25,000 (19,000 Euro’s) and Melody.net sold for $14K a nice sale for that domain IMHO. That’s $1.2 million between Sedo and Afternic for the last week of August, not too shabby.   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Afternic Posts $650K In Domain Namw Sales Led By WorldTennis.com At $30K - Afternic.com just reported $650,000 in domain name sales for the week ending Sunday August 28th, 2011 and its a pretty impressive week right in the “dog days of summer” a traditionally slow time. The sales were led by WorldTennis.com which was sold for  $30K, followed right behind by a nice three letter domains IGX.com WorldTennis was bought by a company in Rio, Vahrcav Participacoes Ltd. Onlinemeeting.net was the high sale of non-.com’s selling for just under $5K Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
NBB.com Sells For $95K On Sedo - The domain name NBB.com just sold over at Sedo.com for $95,000. The domain name is current in escrow at Sedo awaiting transfer. The domain was owned by Malcolm Stone of Irvine Ca. To see some of the things that NBB stands for click here Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Who Will Get .Delta & Other Sticky Points In Our Final Dot Nxt Post - This is going to be my last post about the Dot Nxt Conference but an important one. In the audience from Dot Nxt was a women from Nigeria from a region known as Delta and she was at the conference to try to learn about getting .Delta for her community. Of course there are many other potential applicants for a .Delta including Delta Airlines and Delta Faucet. In the session on “Evaluation and Disputes” the issue was raise how this small community could wind up with .Delta and frankly the answer ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
TiVo Loses Trademark Case to Guy Named TiVo - TiVo, meet TiVo. DVR company TiVo certainly has a trademark to the term “TiVo”, but it may have found its match: a band member who goes by the nickname “Tivo”. Rocker Majan Fernandez Primitivo goes by the stage name “Tivo” for his acts, taking the last four letters of his last name. He registered Tivo.es to promote himself. That didn’t sit well with the DVR maker, who filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization to get the domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Walgreens Needs Pain Killers After UDRP Decision - Panelist rules against drugstore. Drug store chain Walgreen might need some Advil after reading a recent decision handed down by National Arbitration Forum. A single member panel ruled that Indian company Walgreens Realty International can keep the domain names walgreenstravels.com and walgreensholidays.com. At the time Walgreen filed the complaint there were merely parked pages at the domain names. The respondent created simple web sites on the domains after receiving ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Use Google Reader for a Quick Stats Shot of Your Blog - Reader collates stats about your blog in an easy-to-consume format. Google didn’t own FeedBurner when I started Domain Name Wire, and I also didn’t want to trust my RSS feed to a third party. That means I syndicate using plain old RSS. Fortunately, some major RSS readers including Google Reader now show you how many subscribers your blog has. Bloggers can see their full stats on the Google Webmaster console, but anyone can view the total number of subscribers ... read more ...
Mon 29th August 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
No Online Bidding From Live Domain Auction At The TRAFFIC Conference - The organizers of the TRAFFIC conference just announced there will NOT be any online bidding at the  live domain name auction held at the conference. Of course for many of the first domain TRAFFIC conferences there was no online bidding, but later shows had online bidding through either SnapNames.com or Proxybid. It seems phone and even some sort of text bidding will be allowed, but it certainly will give more incentive to people to attend the conference when online bidding is not available. Moreover ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Hurricane Domain Name Registrations Spike - Hundreds of domain names registered as Hurricane Irene approached the east coast. Whenever there’s a notable natural disaster or event, some people try to cash in with domain names. With Hurricane Irene making waves in the news (sorry) over the weekend, people started snapping up related domain names. TasteReports.com shows 196 domain names including the keyword “hurricane” were registered last Friday and Saturday alone. To be sure, not all of them had to ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Why Domains Are “The Worst Investment I’ve Ever Gotten Into” - It depends on if you’re investing or gambling. I was reading a blog post on The Hill this morning about a guy trying to sell Romney-Perry2012.com and Perry-Romney2012.com for $50,000. You read stories about this all the time as people try to bankroll on current events. But here’s what I found interesting: He has bought other domains in the past, but without much luck. “I have lost a bundle actually, and they’re the worst investment I’ve ever gotten into,” ... read more ...
Sun 28th August 2011
Written by The Domains in EN
In The Post Of The Year Frank Schilling Says Gold Could Hit $6K An Ounce & Why You Need To Save Your Money & Why The Best Play On The New gTLD’s Might Be As A Registrant - There is something about the end of summer that feels so very similar every year. The end of summer, of fun and frivolity always comes at the same time and echoes, like the lyrics from a Don Henley song. Aptly named “Labor Day” is like a starter’s pistol at a collective social race that has been programmed to begin through years of grade-school, college and university. Everyone around the world does it. Fighting the urge to be productive in September is like swimming against an unstoppable ... read more ...
Sat 27th August 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
From The Dot Nxt Conference: The Top Auction For A New gTLD May Top $50 Million - I moderated a panel on from the Dot Nxt conference yesterday and asked the panel how much they predicted the highest price of a auction  new gTLD extension would go for. As you may know if more than one application is received for the same string, the string maybe awarded to the high bidder in an auction. The panel was entitled “Show Me The Money” and the panelist certaily thought the highest price paid in an auction will run into the 8 figures. The panelist were; John Matson the COO of Architelos.com, ... read more ...
Fri 26th August 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.XXX Invades Times Square As iFriends.XXX Billboard Goes Up For A Day -                                                                 The ICM Registry in conjunction with the owner of the new site iFriends.XXX, put this billboard up in Times Square on Thursday for one day. The billboard was across the street from the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square. Many people thought that .XXX ads would not be accepted by mainstream media outlets but ICM seems determined to get .XXX into mainstream media and I think they put it up for a day just to ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Check Out The Guy Who Is Using A Six Figure Domain For His LinkedIn Page - As domainers we have seen a lot of great domains used pretty strange ways. Lets add the domain name SEC.com to that list Without a doubt SEC.com is a six figure, if not a seven figure domain name. SEC stands for among other things the Security and Exchange Commission and the Southeastern Conference. If you check out the site it goes directly to a Linked In page for Brendan Reilly. Mr. Reilly is a “Trader Financial Modeler” The domain name is registered to Software Editing Corporation of Wilmington ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Judge Dismisses Many of Monte Cahn’s Claims Against Oversee.net - Judge sides with Oversee.net’s Motion to Dismiss. Oversee.net got a big win today in a lawsuit filed by former employee Monte Cahn. The judge granted Oversee.net’s Motion to Dismiss (pdf) five claims ranging from Intentional and Negligent Misrepresentation to Unfair Competition. Oversee.net has argued that the case is merely a breach of contract case. When it filed the motion to dismiss, its lawyers wrote that the case “is nothing more than an alleged breach ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Oversee.net Pays $1,500 To Filer of SnapNames Class Action Lawsuit - Class representative gets a small check. Oversee.net has paid $1,500 to Stewart Resmer, the “class representative” for a lawsuit filed against Oversee.net in the wake of the halvarez shill bidding scandal. Resmer originally filed suit against Oversee in U.S. District Court Central District of California. But the judge tossed the case out because the amount of money concerned was under $5 million. As a result, Resmer’s lawyers refiled in The Superior Court of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
French Company Files UDRP Against Google’s AdWords.com - Company that was subject to Google UDRP fights back. French company Francotel, LLC has filed a UDRP complaint with World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) over the domain name Adwords.com, Domain Name Wire has learned. The case is not yet posted on WIPO’s web site. Francotel has a French trademark for “Adwords”. It filed to cancel Google’s European Union trademark for “Adwords” earlier this year but lost the case. Google filed a UDRP against ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy Inks Deal with Andretti Family - Domain registrar gets in bed with another Indy deal. Just a day after Danica Patrick announced her move to NASCAR full time, GoDaddy has announced a new IndyCar sponsorship. The domain name registrar has inked a deal with all three Andretti’s — Mario, Michael and Marco Andretti — as spokespeople for the company. It will also sponsor one of the Andretti Autosport IndyCar entries. The deal begins next year and goes through the 2013 season. The three drivers will ... read more ...
Thu 25th August 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
DomainTools.com Makes A “Strategic Investment” & Gets A Board Seat On OpenRegistry.com - OpenRegistry SA, ” announced today in a press release, is has raised capital “from strategic investors including DomainTools (www.domaintools.com) and that DomainTools.com will be getting a seat on the Board.” OpenRegistry provides back end platforms for many domain extensions including .Eu. OpenRegistry is expected to be a major player as a backend provider in the for new gTLD registries. According to the Press Release: “These funds (Which was not disclosed) will be used to further expand ... read more ...