Monthly Archives: September 2011

Thu 22nd September 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Next Up: NewDomains.Org Conference in Munich Next Week - Tommorow we start heading out to Munich for the NewDomains.org conference. The conference is expecting around 250+ attendees many of which have never attended a conference on the new gTLD program according to the show orgainzers. As you can see from below its a pretty packed confernece with a lot of the top people in the field coming to chat about the new program Dr. Stephen Crocker the new Chariman of ICANN will kick the conference off as the keynote speaker. I will be speaking on a panel on the ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Chanel Files Massive SuitAgainst 399 Domain Holders and over 450 Domain Names - Chanel just filed a massive  lawsuit against 399 defendants holding over 450 domain names some of which contain a trademark of owned by one of  Chanel company and others sites which sell what Chanel alleges are counterfeit products. Chanel is asking the court for many remedies including injunctive relief, transfer or cancellation of the domain names,  as well as attorney fees and other damages against all the defendants, many of which live outside the US or have registered addresses outside of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy Poised to Hit 50 Million Domain Milestone Next Week - A big milestone for the biggest domain name registrar. The Go Daddy Group, which includes domain name registrar GoDaddy.com, is likely to cross the 50 million domain milestone next week. The company hit 45 million domains registered just nine months ago in December. The 50 million domains number represents the total number registered at a point in time. If you add up all the domains registered over time the number would be much higher. As of the end of May GoDaddy.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Cricket Communications Dismisses Case Against Cricket.com Owners - Cricket.com to remain with current owners. Wireless company Cricket Communications has dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit it brought against the owners of Cricket.com. Cricket Communications sued Global Cricket Ventures alleging that the site about the cricket sport was merely a coverup to show ads related to wireless phones. The mobile phone company said that Global Cricket Ventures had hardcoded a Cricket Wireless logo onto its site to look like it was merely part ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Are Fewer People “Playing Around” With Domains? - Number of people part-timing with domain names seems to have fallen. Many sectors of the domainer industry have experienced a steep fall since about 2007. Has the number of people dabbling in domain names also dropped? I suspect so. Over the past year or two I’ve noticed a drop in the number of hangers on. I think we’ve seen this at domain industry shows, on domain forums, and perhaps even on blogs. People that used to comment all the time have simply disappeared. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Etsy Upset About “Sucks” Domains - Company files complaint over EtsySucks.com and four other domains. [Update: Etsy won the case.] Arts marketplace Etsy.com has filed a complaint with National Arbitration Forum over EtsySucks.com, .net, .org, .biz, and .info. The domain names appear to be owned by the former editor of the now defunct “Unofficial Etsy News Blog”. Etsy has received its fair share of criticism from current and former users, so it’s no surprise that these domain names exist. Freedom ... read more ...
Wed 21st September 2011
Written by The Domains in EN
HomeRun.com From A $131K Domain Sale To Being Purchased By A Company That’s Got $240 Million In Funding - Techcrunch.com today highlighted a company Rearden Commerce, a company I never heard of before, which just raised $133 Million in new financing from a few companies that you might have heard of: American Express and JPMorgan Chase, and Citi. In the TechCrunch goes on to say that Rearden just acquired “HomeRun.com, creator of the HomeRun social buying service and its OfferEngine platform, which powers group commerce programs for third-party consumer websites.” Just a little while back the domain ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
SilverCoins.com Sells On Sedo For $100K, MyLooks.com Sells For $50K + Another Game Domain For $25K - Two more nice domain sales just crossed Sedo.com sales wire. The domain name SilverCoins.com was purchased for $100,000. The domain name is and has been under privacy for the past several years. There haven’t been much hotter investments in this horrible recession than Gold and Silver making this IMHO a good purchase. MyLooks.com also sold today on Sedo.com for $50,000. The seller appears to be Modern Empire Internet Ltd. of Hong Kong. Both domain names are still pending in escrow at Sedo. A third ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
RealEstate.com Purchased For $8.25 Million - According to TechCrunch.com in what may well be the buy of the century in the domain name world, Market Leader, (NASDAQ: LEDR) a provider of online marketing and technology solutions for real estate professionals, this morning announced the acquisition of RealEstate.com. A Market Leader spokesperson informed TechCrunch.com  that the purchase price was $8.25 million. At that price, IMHO it certainly one of the best buys in the last 5 years in the domain space. Considering that not only did Market ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Minds + Machines Announces New Program For .Brand gTLD Applicants Starting At $25K Per Year - According to a press release today Minds + Machines, announced a new program for brand owners who are considering applying for a new generic top-level domain (gTLD) from ICANN. The program’s highlights include: Ability to acquire a gTLD now, then use it as needed, when needed Flexible and innovative pricing commensurate with use – as low as $25,000 per year, up to a maximum of $100,000 per year. Full consulting and technical services covering the entire gamut of application, evaluation, launch ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Google’s Schmidt Faces Senate Hearing Today - Google’s executive chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt will be speaking before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee later today as that panel looks to determine whether Google abuses its power in online search. Antitrust regulators are investigating complaints that Google favors its own commerce services and offerings in its search results, among other allegations. Some companies has complained that there search ranking dropped when they Paid Ad budget dropped. According ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainHack.er in FR and tagged
La Palestine a aussi son extension de nom de domaine « .PS » – Ya - La Palestine a déjà son extension de nom de domaine (ccTLD) « .PS ». C’est l’Autorité Nationale Palestinienne de Nommage Internet (PNINA) qui la gère depuis son lancement en 2004. Depuis le 15 août 2010 l’ICANN a donné l’accord à la PNINA d’administrer et de gérer l’extension « .FALASTEEN » – l’extension composée en caractères arabes – pour permettre aux aux organisations locales et internationales, aux sociétés, mais aussi aux détenteurs de marques ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
New Report On Daily Deal Industry: Acquisitions Increasing; Valuations Dropping “Quickly & Signicantly” - Research firm CB Insights, published a report on “the Daily Deal” industry calling it the “most detailed and comprehensive report on MA transactions, MA valuation multiples, transaction deal terms and investment funding trends.” According to the report: The four key takeaways which emerged after an analysis of the data and numerous acquirers, investors and acquisition targets in the daily deal industry. Daily deal MA activity is climbing significantly Valuation multiples are dropping – ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
ad:tech London Kicks Off - Show heads to London for two day vent. The London edition of ad:tech got underway this morning with a discussion with Nike brand communications director, global football Ed Elworthy and EuroRSCG CEO Russ Lidstone. The event runs through Wednesday at the National Hall in Olympia in London. Compared to the U.S. ad:tech shows, exhibitors at the London show have a definite slant toward mobile advertising. There are about 170 exhibitors the show. If you’re at the conference ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Overstock.com Continues O.tld Purchases with O.info - O.info latest domain name acquisition by online retailer. Overstock.com has acquired O.info from domain name registry Afilias, adding to its collection of o.tld names. The company has gone all in with O.co, and in fact its press release announcing O.info is titled “O.co (aka Overstock.com) Acquires O.info Domain for New Consumer Portal”. It’s clear that the company is moving forward with its rebranding efforts. It previously picked up O.biz for use as a b2b ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
End User Domain Buys from Washington Post and Entrepreneur - Two large publishers buy domain names. The Washington Post Company and Entrepreneur Media both bought domain names this week. Here’s a look at these and a handful of other end user sales at Afternic over the past week. The Washington Post bought expressnow.com for $1,188. After buying FullBeauty.com for $4,290 two months ago, Redcats USA picked up FullBeauty.NET for $1,856.80. Online document signing solution RightSignature bought pleasesign.com for $1,000, signatureonline.com ... read more ...
Tue 20th September 2011
Written by The Domains in EN
Afternic.com Sells $570K In Domain Names Led By Sosg.com For $15K - Afternic.com just posted its reportable domain names sales for the week ending Sunday September 18th, totally around $570,000 The highest sale was Sosg.com for $15,000 and Toushay.com for $11K.  I assume that domain has some relation to the French word touché Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Sedo.com Sells Over $900K In Domain Names Led By Xueqiu.com For $100K & Business.Me Which Sold For $56K - Sedo just posted its sales for the week and sold over $900K in reportable sales led by xueqiu.com which sold for $100K and Business.Me which sold for 40,000 Euro’s or about $56,000. In all Sedo reports they sold 954 sales through their marketplace, totaling $1.79 million. No I have no idea of what Xue Qui is or means maybe one of our  readers can help us out.     Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
US Justice Department Alleges That FullTiltPoker Was A Ponzi Scheme - According to WSJ.com, the Justice Department amended the charges already filed against Full Tilt Poker and some of the executives, alleging that Full Tilt Poker was a “Ponzi scheme that allowed the company to pay out $444 million to themselves and other owners, which included other famous poker players.” “The government alleges Full Tilt executives misrepresented to the website’s players that the money the company was supposed to be holding in player accounts was safely held when it was actually ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
BusinessWeek/Bloomberg Interview’s Jeremiah Johnston Of Sedo Called: The Domain Name Business - Businessweek/Bloomberg published an interview with the Chief Operating Officer of Sedo.com  Jeremiah Johnston entitled simply: “The Domain Name Business” Here are some of the highlights: Is the buying and selling of Web site domain names a viable business? The days of the Internet pioneers who grabbed one-word, fantastic domains are largely over. The buying and selling of domain names has remained one of the few bright spots during the global downturn. There are almost 174 million domain names ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
With 5 Hours To Go Domainfest/Snapnames Auction Has $235,000 In Bids - The Domainfest auction running on SnapNames.com ends today at 3:15PM EST in according with its  normal closing rules. With about 5 hours to go as of time of publication there was $235,000 in bids however many of the bids are still below reserve. We will be closing our poll on the right hand side of the blog, later this afternoon or as soon as one the $100K + domains reach reserve. So far the only one of the domain names listed in our poll with a reserve of $100K + with a bid is Hardcore.com which ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
iMedia: “Why Your Brand Should Invest In A Category Defining Domain Name” - An article appearing in imediaconnection.com yesterday pointed out what most of us know, but many large corporations do not, the importance of having a Category Defining or category killer domain name. The article recounts Amazon’s purchase of Quidsi Inc. for  $500 million which owned the category killers of and Soap.com, and Diapers.com and goes on to state: “The ability to rank well in search engine results is a key factor that makes category-defining domain names valuable digital assets.” “Category-defining ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Offers.com Acquires CouponCodes.com For A “Huge Amount of Money” & Launches Today - About 2 1/2 years ago we wrote about Offers.com which at that time had just launched by a domainer in the coupon/Deals  space, after buying the domain for $180,000. Fast forward and today the company behind Offers.com have acquired the domain name CouponCodes.com which launched just today. I spoke to the Steve Schaffer CEO of Vertive, Inc, late yesterday afternoon. The purchase price for the domain was described as “huge amount of money” “I can’t say,  and won’t say how much we spent, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Justice Department: Full Tilt Poker Was Ponzi Scheme - U.S. government says Full Tilt Poker paid out money to investors that belonged to players. Earlier this year the U.S. government confiscated Full Tilt Poker’s domain name FullTiltPoker.com. The government later gave the domain name back, but now there’s more bad new for the company — or should I say its players? Now the U.S. government has basically called it a giant ponzi scheme. The company allegedly didn’t hold onto all of its players’ cash balances and ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Vertive Buys CouponCodes.com Domain Name - Austin company buys another killer domain name. Austin, Texas online savings company Vertive has acquired the domain name CouponCodes.com for an undisclosed sum. Vertive is now stranger to the power of domain names. It operates Offers.com (it also owns Offer.com) and company founder Steve Schaffer sometimes attends domain name conferences. According to an article in The Austin American-Statesman, Schaffer has been pursuing the domain name for several years. The seller ... read more ...