Monthly Archives: September 2011

Tue 27th September 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Amazon.com Buys KindleFire.com Domain Name - Yes, Amazon.com owns KindleFire.com. Amazon is rumored to be launching the Kindle Fire tablet and eReader on Wednesday. But a lot of people have asked, “what about the domain name?” After all, the company owns a lot of other nature Kindle domains, such as KindleWave.com. Domain Name Wire has confirmed with the previous owner of the domain name that he sold it to Amazon.com. The New York resident who sold the domain name didn’t divulge any details, but the domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Moniker Accepting Submissions for Premium Year-End Auction - Company to hold month long auction with just 50 domains. Moniker is holding a premium domain name auction starting next month that will be limited to 50 top domains. The auction will run for a full month beginning October 1820. Domain submissions are due by October 13. The company is looking for good 1-2 word generic domain names or 1-4 character domains. If Moniker does this right I think it could be a good opportunity for sellers. The company has had a solid year ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy’s Real Number: 225 Million - Registrar has 50 million domains on the books. But how about over time? This past weekend Go Daddy topped the 50 million domain name mark. This number is kind of like a balance sheet: it means the company has 50 million domain names currently registered with it. But what about the longer view? I asked Go Daddy for some indication of how many domains it has registered over time. Since it became a registrar, Go Daddy has registered more than 225 million years worth ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
The Return of WWW. - www. will make a comeback with new top level domain names. Type in any correctly configured domain name and you don’t need to include www. Technically www is merely a subdomain. That’s why you usually see ads that just promote something like DNW.com instead of www.DNW.com. People know it’s a web address because of the .com. I started thinking about this today when I was dropping my daughter off at school. I was behind a truck that had a URL with www on it: www.somename.us. Was ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
You Must Read This Before Developing Your Domains - Why developing your domain names might be a bad idea. From time to time I read excellent blog posts that explain aspects of domaining much better than I can. Nat Cohen delivered yesterday with a post titled “The Dangers of Optimism -or- Don’t Develop“. His point in a nutshell: just because you’re a good domainer or have good domains doesn’t mean you can build a web business. It’s very true. They require very different skills. I’ve seen countless web ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
.Mobi Turns Five - Mobile domain reaches five year anniversary. Five years ago yesterday .Mobi launched its landrush period, officially opening the doors to what would become a wild roller coaster for domain investors. Remember Flowers.mobi? I quickly came full circle on .mobi. I remember meeting the .mobi team at DomainRoundtable in Seattle and thinking “Wow, this is a new domain extension that actually makes sense.” But technology quickly caught up. Mobile web access became less ... read more ...
Mon 26th September 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
UnitedDomains.com Tops 400,000 In New gTLD Pre-Reservations - UnitedDomains.com which just has been taking pre-reservations for new gTLD domain names back in March of this year, just crossed the 400,000 mark. Currently there are 406,000+ new gTLD domain name pre-reservations at United. They are taking pre-reservations in the following new potential  gTLD’s: Keep in mind that Uniteddomains.com is German based and although like any ICANN accredited registrars can accept customers worldwide, to some extent may have a bigger customer presence in German and ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Power.com Hits The TRAFFIC Domain Name Auction - T.R.A.F.F.I.C., the domain industry’s signature domain conference is pleased to announce that Power.com has been added to the roster of domains slated for auction on Tuesday October 18, 2011 at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Fort Lauderdale, FL. “We’re ecstatic to have the exclusive assignment to auction such a prominent domain. It demonstrates the level of trust and commitment that serious domain asset managers have for the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. franchise,” said Rick Schwartz, CEO of T.R.A.F.F.I.C. This ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo Introduces CNAME Parking - Parking company touts benefits over DNS. Domain parkers have only a few days left before the end of URL forwarding for Google parking. For most people that means switching to DNS parking. But there’s another option at some parking companies, including CNAME. CNAME parking basically lets you point the web traffic for a domain to the parking servers. It’s how Google’s own Adsense for Domains self-serve product originally worked. It’s a bit more work the first ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Group Wants to Commercialize .NA But Is Getting Ahead of Itself - Premature press release discusses re-launch of .na. Could the African country of Namibia be the next to capitalize on a commercialized TLD, a la .tv or .co? A consortium within the country would like to, but it may be getting ahead of itself. I received a press release from Groot Group this morning that announces: In an effort to help businesses and marketers around the world specifically target their online customers, the .NA domain extension is due to launch this ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy Hit 50 Million Domain Milestone Over Weekend - Big milestone for world’s largest domain name registrar. Last week I said Go Daddy was going to hit 50 million domains sometime this week. Turns out the world’s insatiable appetite for domain names made it happen a bit faster than predicted: Go Daddy says it hit the milestone over the weekend. The lucky registrant who will now get added exposure for his domain name? Kranthi Kumar Kukkala of India. Kukkala registered DBAkit.com. Fortunately for him the site about ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Exit Strategy for Domainers: How to Sell Your Portfolio in a Hurry - How to sell your portfolio in a hurry. A reader emailed me the other day asking if I’ve ever written about exit strategies for domainers. I don’t think I have, but it’s a good idea. So here it goes. The problem with exiting the domain industry. Most domain names aren’t very liquid. They can be sold quickly but not at full market value. A good portfolio of non-traffic generics turns over about 2% to 3% a year without pushing the sales out. You can achieve ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Oversee.net Blasts Monte Cahn’s Amended Lawsuit - Oversee.net continues to say lawsuit with Monte Cahn is merely about contract claims. Oversee.net has filed a motion to dismiss (pdf) numerous claims in Monte Cahn’s second amended lawsuit. The motion to dismiss starts out with this telling line: “Apparently, the third time is not the charm.” The second amended lawsuit was the third complaint brought by Cahn. Oversee.net claims Cahn’s latest complaint is “fundamentally flawed”. It asks the court to dismiss ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Registrar HiChina May Go Public in U.S. - Parent company considers spinning off registrar it bought two years ago. Alibaba’s domain name registrar HiChina may be spun off into a public offering in the United States according to a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange. Alibaba paid $79 million for a controlling stake in HiChina in 2009. HiChina could be considered the “Go Daddy of China”. This begs the question if Go Daddy should buy the company. As it turns out, one of Go Daddy’s new owners Silver ... read more ...
Sun 25th September 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
HuntingMoon.com Adult Auction Underway With 888 Adult Domains - Huntingmoon.com is holding an online auction for adult domain names. WARNING:  The following post contains sexually explicit domain names,  so if your under 18 or offended by such material do not read further. There are 888 adult domain names up for sale from SexTape.com with a reserve of $2.5 Million all the way down to FeetFucked.com with $1 reserve. The auction ends on October 6th at 2:20pm EST or 5:20pm PST. Yes I know its a strange time for an auction to end. Currently there are $35,000 in ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Roche Loses Control of 454.com, Fights to Get It Back - Pharma company loses key domain name. [Update: Roche has won the domain arbitration.] Roche subsidiary 454 Life Sciences has lost control of its 454.com domain name and is asking a UDRP panel to help it get it back. The history on 454.com is intriguing. Piecing it together with the help of DomainTools’ historical whois, there are several times over the past two years when this domain name may have been compromised. But earlier this month it suddenly was under a ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Facebook Registers FBPAC Domains Previously Owned by American Farm Bureau - Facebook makes intriguing domain registrations. Facebook has yet to settle an ongoing trademark dispute with American Farm Bureau despite paying millions to buy the FB.com domain name from it. Now Facebook may have upped the ante, registering FBPAC.org and FBPAC.us. The two domain names were previously registered to American Farm Bureau until they expired in 2009. American Farm Bureau owns FBPAC.com and FBPAC.net. Although the farmer lobbying group doesn’t operate ... read more ...
Sat 24th September 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Forbes.com: Out Of Google Senate Hearing: “Google’s ‘Bait & Switch’ Deception Exposed” - Forbes.com just wrote a pretty scathing article on Google based off the Senate antitrust hearing on Thursday saying  “Google has perpetrated what maybe the largest bait and switch scheme ever.” “Simply, Google has baited over a billion users to implicitly trust Google Search by continuously promising that its search engine is unbiased and “always does what is best for the user.” “However, as Google’s market power has grown over time, the evidence shows Google has increasingly switched ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Is this Trademark Lawsuit Unethical or Something Worse? - Trying to get a domain name that existed before your trademark. I’m a big supporter of intellectual property rights. Unfortunately I’m stuck writing more often about lawyers and companies that overstep their bounds. The latest case: Smart Tax Holdings, LLC. The company filed a federal lawsuit (pdf) against Marchex for the domain name SmartTax.com. The plaintiff started using the name “Smart Tax” in 2006 and filed a trademark on it. The trademark was granted ... read more ...
Fri 23rd September 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Gold Vs. Google 2 Years Later To The Day: One Is Up Over 70% a Other Only 4% - September 23rd 2009 Google hit $500 a share and Gold hit $1,00 an ounce and we asked the question: “What you think is a better investment right now, Google at $500 a share or Gold at $1,000 an ounce.” We put up a poll for a week and the results were split right down the middle, 50% picking Google, 50% picking Gold. So we sit exactly two years later. Google is trading at $520 a share up 4% over 2 years. $10,000 invested in Google two years ago would be worth just $10,400. Over the last 52 weeks ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Frank Schilling Sells SiteWeb.com For $100K On Sedo - Frank Schilling NameAdministration just sold The domain name SiteWeb.com  for $100,000 on Sedo There are certainly going to be mulitple applications in the new gTLD program for .web which may have been the impetus for a sale. It looks like the transfer to the new owner has completed and the domain is under privacy at Godaddy going to a Godaddy Placeholder. Congrats to Frank on another great six figure sale.   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Breaking: Federal Court Rules Bad Faith Under ACPA Applies Only To Initial Registration Not To Renewals Or Transfers - While these exchanges between the Hises and GoPets Ltd. were taking place, the Hises added content to gopets.com. According to records from the Internet Archive, a non-profit organization that archives websites, content first appeared on gopets.com on September 26, 2004, approximately a month after Bethke’s first inquiry about the site. Initially, the content consisted solely of a picture and description of a lost dog. The record does not reflect whether the website was updated at all during the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Google AdSense to Start Displaying Gambling Ads - AdSense to show gambling ads, but with a number of caveats. Google Adsense will start showing gambling ads on its publishers web sites starting September 27, but many people will never see them. The ads will only show up for people visiting the site from a country where online gambling is legal. In other words, don’t expect to see them any time soon in the United States. Also, ads won’t show up on a site unless the AdSense publisher has opted in to showing gambling ... read more ...
Thu 22nd September 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Another Day & Another Bargain For A Public Company That Grabs Buckingham.com For Just $10K - Yesterday we told you about a public company that got a deal, maybe the deal of the decade when it purchased RealEstate.com and 400 other domain names for just $8.25 Million. Today comes news that another public company, Buckingham Exploration Inc. (OTCBB: BUKX) announced today that it has  purchased the domain name Buckingham.com for just $10,000. The seller of the domain Mr. Robin Relph, however is an insider of the company,  and is not only a director but chairman of the board. “””The ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Quick Poll: So How Much Will Sex.co Sell For At The TRAFFIC Auction? - Rick Schwartz just send out an email announcing that Sex.co would be on the auction block at TRAFFIC. This is certainly one of the high profile .Co domains so the question is what do you think it will sell for In some recent .Co sales Luxury.Co sold for $60K and Women.co sold for $30K. Sex.com as you know most recently sold for $13M Of course we don’t know what the reserve price is of the domain so it may not sell at all and we gave you that selection. Please vote on the right and put your pick ... read more ...