Monthly Archives: August 2011

Tue 9th August 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Demand Media Renews Ad Deal With Google - Demand Media renews advertising deal with Google as loss widens. Demand Media released earnings this afternoon for the second quarter. Some of the GAAP financial highlights include: -Revenue up 32% compared to Q2 2010 -Net loss increased to $2.4 million -Traffic acquisition costs (the amount shared with partners) decreased from $3.1 million in Q2 2010 to $2.8 million this year But also buried in the press release is an announcement that the company renewed its advertising ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo’s Jeremiah Johnston Steps Down, Will Open Private Practice - Long time domain industry exec steps down. Sedo has just confirmed a rumor that started percolating recently: COO Jeremiah Johnston is leaving the company. Johnston will remain General Counsel to the company as he opens his own private practice. Honestly, with Johnston’s involvement with all of the company’s legal business I had kind of forgotten that he was also COO. He was instrumental in bringing resources and money to Internet Commerce Association, and he ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Nintendo 1-Ups for Popular SuperMario.com Web Site - Nintendo wants to lay claim to high traffic web site. Decades after bringing the iconic video game character Mario and the Super Mario series to millions of gamers, Nintendo has decided it wants the domain name SuperMario.com. The company just filed a complaint with World Intellectual Property Forum to get the domain name. Nintendo may be concerned about the content of the site, which is a collection of online Super Mario games. The site gets a whopping 200,000 visits ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
HostingCon Kicks Off in San Diego - Conference for the web hosting industry invades San Diego. HostingCon kicked off yesterday in San Diego, bringing together the web hosting industry and its many related service providers. I arrived late in the morning and caught the last ten minutes of a talk from OpenSRS’ Adam Eisner titled “What do New TLDs Mean for your Hosting Business”. Some members of the audience wondered if their clients would want them to acquire their brand names for all the new TLDs, ... read more ...
Mon 8th August 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICM Announces Close Of Founders Program For .XXX: Several Domains Sold “Well Into The Six Figures” - ICM Registry, the company behind the .XXX top level domain (TLD) successfully concluded its Founders program, which had been running for the last 9 months.  This unique program was designed for early adopters from within the adult industry to secure and develop key .XXX domain names as showcase sites ahead of the official launch of .XXX on September 7, 2011. “35 companies from the adult industry from around the world were accepted into the Founders program, claiming approximately 1,500 .XXX domain ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
CountrySide.com Sells For $16,300 & Wanlian.com Sells For $17,200 On NameJet & $55K More In Bids Go To Waste - The domain name Wanlian.com sold on Namejet.com today for a whopping $17,200 and Countryside.com sold for $16,300. Another $55K in Bids went to waste, as 3 domain names failed to meet reserve. Wanlian seems to be a popular domain in the Asian culture both on the personal level and also included in the name of many businesses. The domains that failed to meet reserve on my list were: woodshop.com $8,766 soccerequipment.com $15,802 foodguide.com $30,000 Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ZY.com Sells For $106,000 On Sedo - The domain name ZY.com just sold for $105,999 on Sedo.com. There were 5 bidders at $50K or above but only 2 from $72,500. A nice sale for a domain we posted about when it went up for sale. Congrats to the seller and buyer.     Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
So How Much Will The Stock Market Go Down Tomorrow In Wake Of Downgrade? - Tomorrow will be the first day the US stock exchanges open up for trading since SP downgraded the credit rating of the US on Friday from AAA to AA+. So the big question is what will happen in the markets tomorrow? In the middle east, the only place markets have opened since the downgrade the news wasn’t too good. Israel’s stock market fell more than 6%, and the Tel Aviv 25 Index ended the trading day down 6.99%. The Dubai Financial Market (DFM) General Index fell 3.7% on Sunday the General Index ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
You May Have Missed Some Big Domain Name News Last Week - If you missed these stories, take a look. There were a couple big domain name stories last week that you may have missed, especially since some of it came out Friday afternoon. And the news all comes out of Canada. First, on Thursday I wrote about how domain name registrar Tucows (OpenSRS, Hover) is integrating Afternic DLS’ premium network. The company will list domain names in Afternic’s inventory for sale on its network and customers can instantly purchase ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Product Expansion? Toys ‘R’ Us Gets Tattoos ‘R’ Us Domain Name - Company gets a bunch of unusable domain names in arbitration case. Is it the right strategy? Before long, Toys ‘R’ Us might be able to get into the credit card, insurance, legal, and even tattoos businesses. OK, so it doesn’t really plan to, but it just won a domain name arbitration case for 21 domain names including ‘rus’ that it can probably never use. The case was filed against “The R Us Group” and includes domain names such as TattoosRUs.info, homebusinessopportunityrus.com, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Alibaba Strikes Out In Domain Name Dispute - Alibaba loses domain name arbitration case. Global internet giant Alibaba has lost a domain name dispute for the domain Alibaba.info because of insufficient evidence that the domain was registered in bad faith. One member of the Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre panel dissented. The majority of the panel took issue with Alibaba’s evidence that the domain name was registered in bad faith. Alibaba presented evidence that the domain name was used in bad ... read more ...
Sun 7th August 2011
Written by The Domains in EN
VentureBeat: “Why ISPs Are Hijacking Your Search Traffic & How They Profit From It” - Venturebeat.com just wrote a post about A study released today by a UC Berkeley project called Netalyzr, which revealed that some Internet users on some ISPs, who search for a word or term are being redirect the user to websites rather than to a page or search results about the keyword in question. “The Berkeley project, called Netalyzr, was created to measure DNS behavior. However, over the past few months, the Netalyzr team noticed some unexplained and unexpected redirections across at least ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
HubPages Switches to Subdomains to Optimize for Google - Google Panda update forces HubPages to transition user content to subdomains. Web community HubPages is making a drastic change to its URL structure in an effort to recover from Google’s Panda update. The site’s content is created by members who share in advertising revenue. Like many similar sites, it was hit hard by Google’s update targeted at so-called “content farms”. The site will now provide a subdomain (third level domain) to each member, such as ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Names Are a Great Alternative Asset in Financial Uncertainty - Domain names aren’t denominated in a single currency and are easily transferable around the world. With SP’s downgrade of U.S. long term debt, financial markets around the world are trying to make sense of it. It’s not like the U.S. economy and outlook has actually changed since the announcement was made. And few people trust SP, the same company that rated a number of worthless mortgage securities AAA. But of course this means turbulent times are ahead for ... read more ...
Sat 6th August 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.XXX To Be The Diamond Overall Sponsor of TRAFFIC - According to a Press Release out tonight the ICM Registry, the company who is running the .XXX TLD today announced it had signed to be the Diamond Overall Sponsor of T.R.A.F.F.I.C. 2011, to be held at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Fort Lauderdale Beach, Florida from October 16 to October 19, 2011. “The event will be the first opportunity for ICM to unveil its long-term plans for the .xxx TLD to the Domainer community since approval back in March earlier this year. “The event will enable us to promote ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Hey Surprise Demand Shares Led The Way Up Almost 10% Through Another Bad Day In The Markets - While the Dow Jones Average squeaked out a gain today the NASDAQ had another down day. However most of the domain company’s stocks did well. Demand Media which has been beaten to death by blogs actually rose almost 10% today to finish at $9.26 Web.com which agreed to buy Network Solutions for $540 Million the other day, rose for the 2nd consecutive day up 15% to almost $12  a share. Shares of Web.com hit a low of $8 a share before the deal was announced. So that’s an increase of 50% in 2 days ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Jobs Foes Get Cold Shoulder From ICANN - Response to disclosure request mostly redacted. The .JOBS Charter Compliance Coalition, a group of companies opposed to the expansion of who can register .jobs domain names, has gotten the cold shoulder from ICANN in a recent request. The group made a request through ICANN’s Documentary Information Disclosure Policy (DIDP) for information on how and why the IANA database entry about the “purpose” of .jobs was changed. ICANN responded by releasing the support ... read more ...
Fri 5th August 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Another $100k+ Day For NameJet As AloeVera.com Sells For $45,200 & BedBugs.org Sells For $21,400 - The domain name AloeVera.com Sold For $45,200 on Namejet.com today, leading another $100K plus day for the auction house. Here are a few other domains that sold today on our sheet: Badger.com  $27,400 Bedbugs.org  $21,400 FilmGrants.com  $5,200 SpanishCourses.com $5,100 FaceIt.com $4,990 LowCostHealthInsurance.net  $4,300 chloride.com $4,100 energ.com $3,750 EcoHost.com $3,600 Points.org $3,200 echological.com $1,100 NoseJobs.com had a bid of  over $33K but didn’t meet reserve. Badger.com ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Buyer Of YouPorn.com Takes Over Operation of Certain Playboy Online & Entertainment Businesses - According to a Press Release, the company that bought YouPorn.com Manwin out of Canada, has agreed to be an operating partner for certain Playboy-branded online and entertainment businesses under the label Playboy Plus Entertainment. Under the terms of the agreement, PEI will retain oversight of brand management. Additional terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Alta Loma Entertainment, Playboy’s mainstream production company that develops, produces and distributes original content to television ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Federal Court Rules Domain Seizures Do Not Violate Free Speech & Loss of Domain Is Not A Substantial Hardship - Yesterday, United States District Court Judge Paul Crotty decided to deny Puerto 80′s request, which means the domain will remain in the hands of the U.S. Government. The Judge argues that seizing Rojadirecta’s .com and .org domains does not violate the First Amendment of the Constitution. “Puerto 80’s First Amendment argument fails,” the Judge writes. “Puerto 80 alleges that, in seizing the domain names, the Government has suppressed the content in the ‘forums’ on its websites, which ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Marchex Reports Earnings: Revenue Up Over 40%; Sells $2.7 Million In Domains & Shares Are Up 19% - Marchex, Inc. (NASDAQ:MCHX)  reported its results for the quarter ended June 30, 2011 yesterday and had a nice quarter. Shares of Marchex are up over 19% today in an otherwise down market on the news (trading at $9.34 as of time of publication. Here are some of the highlights of the earnings report: Second Quarter 2011 Consolidated Financial Results: Revenue was $38.8 million for the second quarter of 2011, compared to $21.4 million for the same period of 2010. GAAP net income applicable to common ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Fail: NameJet.com System Is Saying Auctions Are Over For Today, Although 5+ Hours Remain - The is a glitch in NameJet.com system today as you can see from the screenshot below All of the domain name auctions I’m entered into today are showing that the auctions ended, although there are hours to go before the auction closes: Each auction has these words on the bidding page: “We’re sorry, you weren’t the high bidder.” This famous phrase known to all who use NameJet.com indicates the auction has ended an you lost. I’m not sure how this is going to effect the auctions today but ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Guest Post: From 0 To 10,000 Uniques In Less Than 60 Days: A Case Study - This post was written by Sean Sullivan who Director or Tier 1 Development with  DomainHoldings: Not long ago I wrote an article asking if a .US domain could become just as successful as a .Com. The story was about CelebrityGossip.us, a domain that I acquired for my girlfriend Erika  as a side project that I thought would be fun for her. After she showed that she had significant interest in it I thought that I’d help take it to the next level and do some professional development on the project. So ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Trefis: Total Domain Registrations To Go From 120 Million To 360 Million By 2018 But .Com & .Net Share Down To 40% - Stock analysis firm Trefis is saying they expect domain name registrations to triple from approximately 120 Million current registrations to 350 Million by 2018. However they also call for the percentage of .com and .net registration to shrink over that time to 40% due to the new gTLD’s. “Upside to our forecast could arise from market share gains as new rules will allow businesses to register any domain name. This could lift our forecast for total user base of .com and .net domain names that ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Canadian Court Rules Domain Names Are Property - Ruling on appeal gives victory to Tucows, expands scope of domain names as property. The Court of Appeal for Ontario has ruled in favor of Tucows on its appeal over a domain name dispute, setting a precedent for domain name registrants that their domain names are property. In 2009, Brazilian company Lojas Renner S.A. (a subsidiary of JC Penney) filed a UDRP against Tucows for the domain name Renner.com. Tucows acquired the domain name when it bought MailBank. Tucows ... read more ...