Monthly Archives: November 2011

Tue 15th November 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
60 Days To Renew Your Domains Before Price Hikes - .Com prices jump 7% in January. Time is running out if you want to save money (or not spend more) on your .com and .net domain name renewals. VeriSign’s price hikes on its wholesale cost for the domains goes into effect January 15. The wholesale cost from VeriSign for .com domain names will increase from $7.34 to $7.85 and the registry fee for .net domain names will increase from $4.65 to $5.11. That doesn’t include ICANN’s 18 cent tax, which bumps the .com ... read more ...
Mon 14th November 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Google Changes Its Search Algorithm & Actually Talks About It - Google published a post today on its blog “to share the methodology and process behind our search ranking, evaluation and algorithmic changes. ” “Here’s a list of ten improvements from the past couple weeks: Cross-language information retrieval updates: For queries in languages where limited web content is available (Afrikaans, Malay, Slovak, Swahili, Hindi, Norwegian, Serbian, Catalan, Maltese, Macedonian, Albanian, Slovenian, Welsh, Icelandic), we will now translate relevant English web ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.Co Registry Responds To Overstock.com Announcement, Overstock.com Gives More Details & Releases The O.Co iPad App -   Some in the domain industry (read: domainers) are up in arms about the recent announcement by Overstock.com that it would slow down its rebranding to O.co.   Given the amount of speculation and commenting going on about this within that community, I felt it was appropriate to reach out to Overstock.com and get a clear picture of what is going.  Here you go: —————– Why did Overstock.com first begin using O.co? When Overstock.com started twelve years ago we only sold surplus inventory. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Citrix Assigns $18 Million Value to Cloud.com Domain Name - Company puts domain name on the books at a huge sum. How much is the cloud.com domain name worth? According to Citrix’s accountants, it’s $18 million. The company acquired Cloud.com (the business) for $200 million plus earlier this year. George Kirikos just noticed that the company is amortizing the domain itself with a value of $18 million. Now this is just an accounting number, so I’m not sure the domain was worth that much when it wasn’t attached to a business. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domainer Colin Pape Files Complaint with FTC Over Google - Claims Google unfairly promoted its own web properties. Someone close do the domain name industry is getting lots of press today. ShopCity, led by Colin Pape, filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on November 11. Pape has been in the domain industry for a while and even keynoted the Epik conference last year. Bloomberg BusinessWeek is covering the story. ShopCity says that Google unfairly used its control of search results to damage ShopCity.com, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
This is a 5,000th Post on Domain Wire - Thanks for helping Domain Name Wire reach another milestone. Domain Name Wire has hit a milestone: this is the 5,000th post. It seems like just yesterday that I started this blog. But it has been nearly 7 years of exciting research, sleuthing, and writing. The domain industry has seen its ups and downs during this period, but I believe it is stronger than ever. The trajectory is pointing upward, and I look forward to covering the good and the bad as it moves forward. Of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DOMAINfest Enters a Post-Playboy Era - Next DOMAINfest Global conference just a few months away. For three years DOMAINfest has been defined by a single event: its party at the Playboy Mansion. Don’t get me wrong. The conferences were great and packed with excellent sessions. But when people talked about the conference it inevitably came back to that one party. The 2012 conference will be different. The final party will be at a different (and less controversial) venue, The House of Blues. I suspect ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Retail CPCs Up, Finance Clicks Cost Less - How are your parking pages doing? If you’ve noticed your finance parked domains are hitting headwinds lately, you won’t be surprised by new data released today by Efficient Frontier. Efficient Frontier, which manages some of the biggest pay-per-click spending in the industry, is reporting a sharp increase in the amount advertisers are paying for clicks in the retail industry. Finance has declined. The CPC for retail was 56 cents in October, up from just 46 cents ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
The Real o.co Lesson - Branding a new domain name — and especially a new top level domain — takes a long time. [Update: The .co registry has posted an interview with Overstock regarding what it is doing.] News that Overstock.com, err, o.co, is slowing down its efforts to rebrand to o.co, didn’t come as a big surprise to me. Too drastic. Too fast. That’s how I’d describe the company’s move from Overstock.com to o.co. And there’s a lesson for .brand new top level domain applicants. Last ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Why CRIDO Has No Cred - Lead organization knew about new TLDs but did nothing about it. Last week a large group formed to pressure the U.S. government for help in its opposition to new top level domain names. Coalition for Responsible Internet Domain Oversight (CRIDO) includes 87 associations and businesses, including the recently outspoken Association of National Advertisers (ANA). Is the group too late to the table? Michael Berkens says they are because there were plenty of opportunities ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy Auctions Now Autotransferring and Paying in 5 Days - Easier transfers and faster payments. I sold the domain name EnglishDesk.com on Go Daddy a week ago, and have benefited first hand from changes made to GoDaddy Auctions. Domain Name News first wrote about the changes a few weeks ago. For a domain name sold through GoDaddy Auctions that is also registered at GoDaddy, the domain is transferred and payment processed within five days. I listed the domain with Go Daddy Premium Listings. This let’s people buy a domain ... read more ...
Sun 13th November 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
The Seller Of OrangeJuice.com On NameJet.com Is Back With SkiBoats.com & The Deadline Is Tonight - Back in May of this year the domain name OrangeJuice.com sold on NameJet.com for $44,800. The same domain holder that sold that domain, now has the domain name SkiBoats.com for sale on NameJet.com The backorder deadline for SkiBoats.com is 11pm EST tonight. As of publication there are 230 back orders for the domain, that will allow someone to bid in the auction The high bid is currently $1,400 but that is pretty irrelevant  at this point. Is the domain SkiBoats.com worth more than OrangeJuice.com? Best ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Google: Search Share Increases, Sends Invites To Music Event & Announces An Incubator In Israel - Google is in the news this weekend. According to comScore, Google’s US market share rose to 65.6 % in October, from 65.3% from September. Yahoo fell to 15.2% which I think is a new low. Microsoft’s Bing, rose to 14.8%. Google also sent out invites to the media for an event this week to officially launch its Google Music Service, which is in Beta. You can read more about Google Music here The event is going to be held on at 2 p.m. PT (5 p.m. ET) on Wednesday, November 15 in Los Angeles. Google ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Microsoft’s Bing Gears Up for Black Friday - Microsoft registers domains for upcoming shopping days. Black Friday is less than two weeks away, and Microsoft is busy registering domain names for the big day. In recent days the company has registered a handful of domain names related to its Bing search engine and Black Friday and the following Cyber Monday. Among the domains it has registered: BingBlackFriday.com and .netBingCyberMonday.com and .net The domain names currently forward to the Bing search engine ... read more ...
Fri 11th November 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
The Opposition To a New gTLD Program Is Looking Like The FSC Vs .XXX More Everyday - Well the news yesterday that 87 “major national and international business associations and companies have joined forces with the ANA (Association of National Advertisers), forming the Coalition for Responsible Internet Domain Oversight (CRIDO) to oppose the rollout of ICANN’s top-level domain expansion program.” The announcement got a lot of press, yet the whole thing seems puzzling to me. While the press release announcing this new Coalition threw out some nice names like the Grocery Manufacturers ... read more ...
Thu 10th November 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
MostWantedDomains.com Brokers The Sale Of Meet.Me For A World Record Price Of $450,000 - I’m proud to announce that MostWantedDomains.com has successfully brokered the sale of the domain name Meet.Me for $450,000 in what we believe is a world record price for a .Me domain name. The Domain was jointly owned by My company, Worldwide Media, Inc., Rick Schwartz and Ammar Kubba. The domain name was acquired at the silent portion of a TRAFFIC auction for $5,890 back just over three years ago. The domain will become the 7th highest sale of the year on DnJournal.com YTD chart and the 3rd highest ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Switch Communications Files Federal Lawsuit Against Buyer Of Switch.Net - According to Vegasinc.com, the dispute over the domain name Switch.net which was won on Namejet.com for $3,700 on November 18th which had a UDRP filed against in 2 days after acquisition by a Swiss company, is now the subject of a federal lawsuit filed under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. “Switch Communications Group LLC, operator of a big data center in Las Vegas, sued a Canadian man on Wednesday in what it calls a trademark dispute.” “Switch charged in the suit that Dorian ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Highlights From Tucows Earnings Call - Tucows had an earnings call after releasing its financial results for the third quarter of 2011. Here are the highlights from the call: Revenue grew by in excess of 18% year-over-year topping $25 million for the first time. Cash provided by operating activities for the quarter was a healthy $1.6 million. In OpenSRS domain services revenue and transaction volumes were each up 19% compared to the third quarter of last year. We processed more than $2.1 million transactions in Q3, the first time we’ve ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Court Grants Oversee.net Motion to Dismiss in Monte Cahn Lawsuit - Court grants Oversee.net’s Motion to Dismiss several claims brought by former employee Monte Cahn. A U.S. District Court has granted Oversee.net’s latest motion to dismiss in a lawsuit brought by former employee and Moniker founder Monte Cahn (pdf). Oversee.net had requested the court to dimiss a number of claims in Cahn’s second ammended complaint against the company. Oversee.net says the claims were merely rehashes of previous claims the court dismissed. With ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Twitter Wins Twiter.com Domain Name Case - Twitter awarded Twiter.com domain name. Twitter has won a case with World Intellectual Property Forum over the domain name Twiter.com. The company filed the complaint back in June against the typo of its popular service. The owner of the domain forwarded it to a “survey” site where the owner was paid after visitors divulged their information and completed offers in the hopes of receiving prizes. Twitter then dropped and refiled the case in July, most likely because ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tucows Updates: Domains Now on GoDaddy, No Acquisitions Planned - Tucows’ own domain names available for instant transfer on GoDaddy. During Tucows’ investor conference call yesterday, company CEO Elliot Noss announced that the company had completed its technical integration with GoDaddy to sell its owned and operated domain names in the registration path. The deal is similar to one struck by NameMedia to list its owned and operated portfolio of domains on GoDaddy. When someone searches for a domain that is available for sale, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Domain Companies Show Off Their Wares during Ad-Tech - Giant Ad-Tech conference continues today in New York City. There are 277 exhibitors at this year’s Ad-Tech conference in New York City, and that includes some domain name companies. The conference started Tuesday with the exhibit hall opening Wednesday morning. Afilias and its dotMobi brand will be showing off the mobile internet and .mobi domain names at booth 1950. Sedo will evangelize the power of a great domain name at booth 2115. Affiliate.com and its TheParkingPlace ... read more ...
Wed 9th November 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
NameJet.com To Roll Out New Beta Version Of Site Today - NameJet.com is rolling out a major upgrade to its site today. I have been playing with a Beta Version of the site for a few days and I really like the new format. The site has a cleaner look and feel to the site, and find its easier to navigate backorders, active auctions, reports and general browsing. The front page has “NameJet Hot Picks”, which are “hand selected hot domains”, Last Chance where you will find a list of pending delete domains that already have backorders, pre-release domains ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Tucows Swings To a Slight Loss: YummyNames Sells $1.785 Million In Domains & Announces A $10 Million Stock Buy Back Program - Tucows Inc. (NYSE AMEX: TCX, TSX:TC),  reported its financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2011 after the market closed today. The company had a $.02 loss per share for the quarter vs a $.02 profit for the same quarter last year YummyNames sold $1,785,000 in Domains vs only $1.250 million in the same quarter last year Tucows also announced today a stock buyback program to repurchase up to $10 million of Tucows common stock. Under the program, Tucows may, during the twelve-month ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Afternic.com Sells $1.086 Million In Domains Led By Strapless.com For $16K - Afternic.com just sent out it  sales for the week ending November 4th. Afternic is now reporting total sales including those not reportable and those under $1K. Total domain sales for the week, including confidential and sales under $1000, totaled  $1.086 million. Afternic.com reportable sales over $1000 totaled $549k. Here is the list of reportable sales: Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...