Monthly Archives: February 2012

Wed 29th February 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Grandparents.com Last Sold In 2010, Becomes A Public Company & Raises $3 Million - Grandparents.com, Inc., has become a public company. The domain was acquired by the owners in 2010. According to a Press Release today, “the company formerly known as NorWesTech, Inc. (OTCBB: NWTH), a Delaware corporation (the “Company”), announced today that it completed a reverse acquisition transaction with Grandparents.com, LLC (“GP”) in which GP contributed substantially all of its assets to the Company in exchange for which the Company assumed certain liabilities of GP and issued ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
An easy approach to register domains for $2 each - How to register domains for $2.00 at big name registrars. I know a lot of readers are always on the lookout for domain coupons and special offers. So I’m going to tell you a way to register domain names for as little as $2 each. And I’m not suggesting using some no-name registrar. We’re talking GoDaddy, Network Solutions, and Register.com. What’s the magic trick? Just Google “domain name”. Seriously. Registrars know that people who search for “domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Monte Cahn and Michael Berkens get trademarks for “Right of a Dot” - Two trademarks issued yesterday. Right of the Dot, the new top level domain advisory company founded by Monte Cahn and Michael Berkens, has been granted two trademarks related to its brand. Both trademarks, registrations number 4,104,592 and 4,104,593, were registered by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on February 28. The first is for the brand “Right of the Dot” and the second is for the company’s logo. Right of the Dot is unique in the field of new top ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Fantasy Island earnings home to Columbia Pictures - Colombia Pictures wins dispute over domain name. “The domain! The domain!” Fantasy Island has been returned to Columbia Pictures — in cyberspace, that is. The company just won a domain name dispute for FantasyIsland.com. You can’t blame the company for not registering FantasyIsland.com when the show first aired in the 70s. Although you can question why it waited until now to file this complaint. One possibility: there’s talk of a reality TV show in the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
.XXX “most important” domain news story of 2011 - New domain selected as most important news story of 2011. .XXX was the “most important” domain news story/topic of 2011, according to over 1,000 people who answered the question on the 7th annual Domain Name Wire survey. Why did 25% select .xxx as the most important news story? Well, it certainly got a lot of play in the traditional media. It’s also the culmination of a long and challenging road getting the top level domain through ICANN. And it has to do with ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
.Net still second best to .com, contend domain investors - When forced to choose an alternative, most go with .net. If a domain investor can’t get the .com for a domain name but has to choose a secondary gTLD, they choose .net 62% of the time. That’s based on 1,137 survey responses in Domain Name Wire’s 7th annual industry survey. Survey respondents are asked: “If you wanted to register a generic domain and .com was already registered, which extension would you register assuming it was available? (assume you have ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
HP buys CloudFolders.com for $3,790 (and 18 other domain sales) - HP buys domain for cloud offering and a look at 18 other end user domain purchases this past week. HP is the biggest name on this week’s end user domain sales report. The company purchased CloudFolders.com for what amounts to pennies (or a fraction of a penny) to the company: $3,790 at Sedo. Interestingly, the company did not also acquire CloudFolder.com (singular). Here are 18 other end user sales, including if they took place at Afternic or Sedo: Injury Care of ... read more ...
Tue 28th February 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Afternic.com Sells Almost $1.4 Million In Domain Names Led by ApartmentListings.com & Tech.Pro - Afternic.com just published its weekly sales of domain names and sold a total of $ 1,374,675. Its reportable sales were led by ApartmentListings.com for $87,500 Interestingly a .Pro took 2nd place with Tech.pro selling for $25,500 This is the 2nd big .pro sale of the year with Go.pro selling for $40K on Godaddy in February. With Sedo.com reported sales for the week that is almost $5 Million in domain name sales in one week just between Afternic.com and Sedo.com As Adam Sandler would say “not too ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Sedo Has Its Best Week Of The Year Selling Over 1,200 Domains for Over $3.5 Million Led By kboing.com For $150K - Sedo.com just had a Apple like week, selling over 1,200 domain names for over $3.5 Million dollars in sales In all 1207 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace, totaling over $3.5 million. 31.4% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings. Highlights of public sales include: ·         Top .com: kboing.com at 150,000 USD ·         Top ccTLD: tev.de at 15,000 EUR ·         Top “other” TLD: optionstrading.org at 10,000 USD Kboing.com is being directed to ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Feds Not Only Seize The Domain Name Bodog.com But Indict The 4 Owners/Operators Including Calvin Ayre - Last night Calvin Ayre broke the news that the domain name Bodog.com had been seized by the federal government. Today the Feds broke the news to Mr. Ayre that he has been indicted along with three others described by the Feds as the “owners or operators of the site, Calvin Ayre, James Philip, David Ferguson and Derrick Maloney.” Ayre is accused of operating an illegal gambling business involving sports betting and conspiring to commit money laundering. According to Forbes.com, “None of the ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
The Founder Of Flickr Maybe On The Other Side, As PinWeel.com Threatens Over PinWheel.com - TechCrunch.com covered the story today over the what seems to be an upcoming battle between PinWheel.com and Pinweel.com What makes this story really interesting is that the co-founder of the correctly spelled PinWheel.com,  Caterina Fake was the co-founder of  the incorrectly spelled Web 2.0 type of domain, Flickr.com (missing the “e”). According to reports Flickr.com tried to buy Flicker.com, but at the time the owner wouldn’t sell, so they went with Flickr.com instead. After Yahoo bought ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Abbott Laboratories gets defensive with domains for spin-off CEO - Company registers “sucks” domains and others for new pharma unit CEO Richard Gonzalez. Abbott Laboratories is splitting into two this year, and Richard A. Gonzalez will be the CEO of its pharmaceuticals unit. As a number of companies do for their senior leadership, Abbott is making sure you don’t register web addresses to tarnish Gonzalez’ name. Yesterday the company registered at least two dozen domain names related to Gonzalez. Some are benign, such as ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Government law is tip emanate confronting domain marketplace in 2012 - 21% of those surveyed think government regulation is biggest issue in domain market this year. Domain investors think government regulation is the top issue facing the domain name market in 2012. That’s according to 1,143 people who answered the question on the 7th annual Domain Name Wire survey. 21% said that government regulation is the biggest issue facing the market this year. I suspect the timing of SOPA had a lot to do with that. While the overall economy ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Overstock.com launches hunt engine attract during o.info - Site aggregates reviews from Overstock.com. Overstock.com has officially launched o.info, a domain name it acquired from .info registry Afilias back in September. A press release issued today says the site features “blogs, reviews and buying guides”. It’s really just a thrown together aggregation of reviews from Overstock.com that lead users back to Overstock.com. In other words, it’s like one of those Amazon affiliate stores that Google has done its best ... read more ...
Mon 27th February 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Google Blogs About Out 40 Changes It Made In February - Google just published on its blog,  40 changes to search quality “This month we have many improvements to celebrate. With 40 changes reported, that marks a new record for our monthly series on search quality. Most of the updates rolled out earlier this month, and a handful are actually rolling out today and tomorrow. We continue to improve many of our systems, including related searches, sitelinks, autocomplete, UI elements, indexing, synonyms, SafeSearch and more. Each individual change is subtle ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Here’s A UDRP That Will Drive The TM Crowd Nuts MariahRadio.com - In A UDRP issued today a one member panel denied the complaint of a trademark holder on the domain name MariahRadio.com While we often write about questionable to outright awful UDRP decisions where domain names are taken away from the holders this one might drive the trademark crowd crazy. The complainant had a TM on the exact term “Mariah Radio” The Domain name was going to a parked page. The domain holder didn’t file a response to the UDRP. The case seems to have turned on the fact that ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
100,000 New gTLD by 2020? One Blogger Has Just Made That Prediction - Naseem Javed  is a frequent author of articles on domain names and gTLD issues and he has been published fairly frequently by CircleId.com where his 23 posts have been viewed over 600,000 times. He just published a post on business2community.com, making the case that there will be as many as 100,000 new gTLD’s by 2020: “””Imagine. Suddenly it’s 2020, and ICANN has just opened its 10th window for gTLD applications.”” “A fast and streamlined operation is churning the new gTLD brands ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
AOL targets Huffington Post Union of Bloggers (HPUB) - Site hit with domain dispute. The Huffington Post Union of Bloggers (HPUB), a site and organization formed by former Huffington Post bloggers and other writers, may lose its main domain name. A case against HuffingtonPostUnionofBloggers.org was filed at National Arbitration Forum today, presumably by HuffPo owner AOL. While the site owns the shorter HPUB.org domain name, it forwards that name to the longer one, and the longer one is what’s indexed by Google. Losing ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Escrow.com again ranked tip domain escrow service - Escrow.com is escrow service of choice for over half of domain investors. Escrow.com has once again been selected by domain investors as the top domain name escrow service. In the seventh annual Domain Name Wire Survey, 60% of the more than 1,000 survey respondents said Escrow.com was best. Here are the top 5 escrow services, as rated by survey respondents in January: 1. Escrow.com 60% 2. Sedo 11% 3. eCop 9% 4. Moniker 9% 5. EscrowDNS 6% Earlier this year Escrow.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Which association is many innovative in offered domains? - Four old names and a new one on this year’s list. Which company is most innovative when it comes to selling domains in the aftermarket? 1,152 people shared their thoughts on this question in Domain Name Wire’s annual survey. In first place is Sedo, capturing 37% of the vote. Next up is GoDaddy at 27%. The company has steadily marched up the charts in this category as more and more domainers find ways to both buy and sell on its auction platform. A new entrant ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Investment organisation files cybersquatting box to take down site that calls it a Ponzi Scheme - Company files cybersquatting lawsuit to get control of inflammatory web site. San Francisco based investment firm New Island Capital has filed an in rem case against NewIslandCapital.com. The company uses the domain name NewIslandCap.com. This should be a cautionary tale for any financial firm that doesn’t shore up important domain names. The registrant of NewIslandCapital.com has put up a page page that reads: New Island Capital ↗ Distinguishable This company ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain parking income still dropping, reduction than $10 RPM - That sinking feeling. Domain investors continue to report falling domain parking revenue, and most people report earning less than a $10 RPM. That’s according to greater than 1,000 people who answered the parking survey questions on the 7th Annual Domain Name Wire Survey. While a lot of people reported neutral domain parking revenue in 2011 compared to 2010, and some reported greater revenue, this graph tells the tale: Is this just a case of the small guys getting ... read more ...
Sun 26th February 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
First 7 Figure .TV Domain Name Sale To Be Reported “Within A Week To A Fortune 500 Company”?? - According to a comment left on TheDomains.com on our post about Verisign’s renewal of the .TV contract, the first seven figure domain name is going to be reported to DnJournal.com “within a week” The commentator goes on to say that the .TV domain name sale is in escrow and is being purchased by a Fortune 500 Company. “”First 7-figure .tv sale to be reported to DnJournal within one week” “”Just waiting for payment to escrow acct.” “”Buyer is fortune 500 corp., domain is two word ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domainer awarded $30k after being named in fraudulent counterfeiting lawsuit - Judge says sanctions warranted against plantiffs and lawyer. Remember domain investor VL Raymer, who found herself wrongly named in an alleged counterfeiting ring of Primp products last year? Well, justice has been served. Apparently the case didn’t just stink against Raymer, who owns Primp.com. The plaintiffs who own(ed) the Primp trademark also allegedly omitted some other important information against other defendants in its lawsuit and when it filed for a temporary ... read more ...
Sat 25th February 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Verisign Renews Contract With Tuvalu To Run .TV Registry Through 2021 - I have confirmed that Verisign has they have signed an extension with the government of Tuvalu to operate the ccTLD domain name extension .TV through December 31, 2021. Prior to the extension, Verisign’s agreement with Tuvalu to operate the .TV ccTLD, only ran through 2016. During the most recent Verisign earnings call, they listed signing the renewal of the .TV contract of one of Verisign’s accomplishments in 2011.  However no further details were given.  Moreover I haven’t read or seen ... read more ...