Google: Improving News Search with Expandable Results - Google just announced some new features to its news search according to its blog:
“”Last year we updated Google News to make it easier for you to scan for stories that are interesting to you and let you dig deeper when you find them. Today we’re announcing an update that brings some of those same ideas to news search.
Over the next few days we’ll be rolling out the following features:
Click-to-expand news results clusters: Each news results cluster is collapsed down to one result with the ... read more ...
Monthly Archives: October 2012
Tue 23rd October 2012
Yahoo Beats Estimates & Shares Rise Almost 5% After Hours - Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) reported results for the quarter ended September 30, 2012 after the market closed today
Yahoo beat analysts’ expectations revenue in the three months ended in September rose 2% to $1.09 billion, yielding EPS of 35 cents.
Analysts on averaged had been expecting $1.08 billion and 26 cents a share.
Display revenue was flat, year over year, at $452 million, while search ad revenue was better than expected, rising 11% to $414 million.
A $2.8bn gain from the sale of the company’s ... read more ...
Lawsuit claims Go Daddy illegally available phone calls -
Two California men claim domain registrar recorded calls without permission.
You know the line…
“This call may be recorded for quality or training purposes”.
Well, according to two California men, their phone calls with domain name registrar Go Daddy were secretly recorded in violation of California law.
The lawsuit they just filed (pdf) seeks class action status and $5,000 per recorded phone call for all California residents who had a phone call with the company ... read more ...
InteriorDesign.com strike with UDRP -
Valuable generic hit with UDRP.
Another day, another amazing UDRP filing.
This time it’s for InteriorDesign.com, which is owned by P. A. Gordon in Guam.
Gordon owns some spectacular domain names, including Laptops.com, Getaway.com, Profit.com, Italy.com, Denmark.com, Netherlands.com, and Venezuela.com.
It appears Gordon is the original registrant of the domain from 1997; at a minimum historical whois records show the registrant hasn’t changed since at least 2000.
I ... read more ...
Mon 22nd October 2012
Ancestry.com Sold for $1.6 Billion Dollars - Ancestry.com, the publicly traded online genealogy site, is being purchased by Permira, a European private equity firm, for $1.6 billion.
The purchase price of $32 a share is a 9.7% premium from Friday’s closing price. Shares were up 7.9% in premarket trading on the news.
Ancestry.com went public in 2009 and is 15 years old.
The site has more than 2 million paying subscribers.
Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
Walmart Picks A .Co For Its New Store, Goodies.Co & No It Doesn’t Own a Matching .Com - Walmart Stores, a division of Walmart (WMT) has just launched a new shopping site at Goodies.co.
And no Walmart doesn’t own the Matching .Com.
The store which launched in “Exclusive Beta” this week, has unique product offering. Sign up for $7 a month and you get samples of new food products, you participate in surveys which earns you points to buy full sized versions of the product you like.
Here is how Goodies.co described its offering:
1. Subscribe to Goodies Co.
Receive a Goodies Co. ... read more ...
After TRAFFIC & ICANN Conference Our Winner For Best Swag Award Goes To: Rook Media - After attending both the TRAFFIC conference and the ICANN conference and grabbing all the free giveaways or Swag I could find (all in the interest of research) we are ready to award our Best Swag Award to: RookMedia.Net
At TRAFFIC all those who stayed at the conference hotel got an envelope slipped under their door with a very crisp $10 bill.
The accompanying letter read in part:
“Instead of buying you yet another branded USB-Stick, we decided to give you something you can actually use.
So here’s ... read more ...
SnapNames releases Android app for bidding -
App lets you update bids on the go.
Less than two months after it released an iPhone app, domain name marketplace SnapNames has released a comparable Android app.
The app lets you:
– Bid on your domain names in auction from your Android device
– View your bidding activity, number of bidders, time remaining high bidder status
– View your recent auction activity
As with the iPhone app, it does not let you directly add new domains/bids to your account. You may ... read more ...
Nordstrom sues peep sales site NoMoreRack -
Retailer claims flash sales site is infringing its marks.
Retailing giant Nordstrom has sued flash sales site NoMoreRack.com, claiming the site’s brand and domain name infringe its trademarks (pdf).
Nordstrom owns 110 “The Rack” stores, which are essentially its outlet stores. It has trademarks for “Rack” and “The Rack”.
NoMoreRack.com is a flash sales site, offering limited time closeout sales. According to this article, it generated $46 million in ... read more ...
Sat 20th October 2012
The Future Of Geo Domains: Chicago.com Makes $125K In 1st Year Of Selling SubDomains & Email Addresses - I had a chance to sit down with Josh Metnick who owns Chicago.com and started selling subdomains email addresses ending in Chicago.com.
In the first year, sales of subdomains and vanity email addresses using Chicago.com generated some $125,000 in revenue with virtually no marketing.
Josh shared the numbers with TheDomains.com exclusively:
“”Chicago.com is going well — our first year sales were approximately $125,000, but it’s recurring high-margin revenue. ”
“First batch of yearly renewals ... read more ...
Fri 19th October 2012
BindersOfWomen.com Hits eBay.com: Starting Bid $19K - BindersofWomen.com has hit eBay.com with a starting price of $19,000.
We received a message from the owner of the domain alerting us to the auction.
This domain name name is a shorter version of the hottest political domain of this week, Bindersfulofwomen.com which we wrote about several days ago as being registered by a Democratic Super Pace 90 seconds after the phrase was uttered by Mitt Romney in this weeks presidential debate.
We will keep on eye on the auction
Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
Owner of Domains Seized In Dec By ICE Sentenced To 40 Months In Prision - Back in December 2011, we reported that the Homeland Security ICE department seized 11 domain names for selling pirated movies, TV shows and games.
Yesterday the owner of two of the 11 seized domains, 36-year old Sang Jin Kim was sentenced by a federal judge to to 40 months in prison and was ordered him to forfeit more than $400,000 in assets.
The two domains were 007disk.com and 82movie.com
According to a press release by ICE:
“”Prosecutors charged Kim with criminal copyright infringement in ... read more ...
Guest Post: Another Day An Other Expansion of a UDRP in Favor of Complainants - This is a guest post by Paul Keating an attorney specializing in domain issues. As principal of Law.es, he provides legal advice to domain investors, registrars and service providers.
Law.es has offices in Barcelona and London:
Panelist Warwick A. Rothnie just released his “considered” opinion in Six Continents Hotels, Inc. v. Triptih doo (D2012-1600). I use “considered” loosely. The domain at issue was holidaysarajevo.com. The complainant was the owner of the “Holiday Inn” trademark ... read more ...
That offer we only got for your domain is a top you’ll ever get -
Ever reject an offer that you wish you would have accepted?
Have you ever turned down an offer on one of your domain names only to kick yourself later?
Domain investors often talk about “domain sales regret“, when you sell a domain that ends up selling for more later.
But I think the opposite is more often the case. You turn down an offer on a domain, only to wish later that you would have accepted it.
I can think of a couple cases off the top of my head. One ... read more ...
Thu 18th October 2012
Google Leaks Earnings Early & Stock Drops 10%: Paid Clicks Up 33%; Cost Per Click Down 15%: Has $45 Billion In The Bank -
Operating income, operating margin, net income, and earnings per share (EPS) are reported on a GAAP and non-GAAP basis. The non-GAAP measures, as well as free cash flow, an alternative non-GAAP measure of liquidity, are described below and are reconciled to the corresponding GAAP measures at the end of this release.
Q3 Financial Highlights
Revenues and other information – On a consolidated basis, Google Inc. revenues for the quarter ended September 30, 2012 was $14.10 billion, an increase ... read more ...
Peter Dengate Thrush Stepping Down As Director Of Minds + Machines (TLDH) At The End Of January - According to a press release Peter Dengate Thrush is stepping down as a Director of Top Level Domain Holdings (TLDH) at the end of January 2013
“”The Board of Directors of TLDH announces that Peter Dengate Thrush, the executive chairman, intends to step down as a director of TLDH at the end of January 2013. ”
Peter Dengate Thrush will remain as an adviser to some of the Company’s gTLD clients.
“”The Board of TLDH is very grateful to Peter for his substantial contribution to the development ... read more ...
Guest Post: The Future of Exact Match Domains In Search - This is a guest post by Mark Collier who describes himself as an SEO expert turned domainer.
I recently completed a significant correlation study of Google’s algorithm and noticed the continued decline since 2010 of the power of Exact Match Domains (EMDs).
After Matt Cutts’ announcement that Google latest algorithm update would target “low-quality” exact match domains, domainers were left feeling that the last 3 years have been nothing less than a pummeling by the search giant.
In 2010 ... read more ...
Frank Schilling’s Name Administration Gets Hit With UDRP On The Generic Domain Marshall.com - Marshall Amplification plc, just filed a UDRP against the quite generic domain name of Marshall.com which is owned by Frank Schilling’s Name Administration.
The company filing the compliant makes Marshall Amps and their official site is at MarshallAmps.com
Wikipedia.org has a page dedicated to all the different uses for Marshall and Marshall Amps is only one of them, including 18 cities in the US named Marshall.
Marshallmay refer to:
“Marshall”, a British/Commonwealth spelling for the military ... read more ...
DOMAINfest Becomes Webfest Global, Opens Registration, Publishes Tenative Agenda & Yes There Will Be A Domain Auction - According to a press release out this morning Oversee.net has changed the name of its conference from DOMAINfest To Webfest Global and opened registration for the conference that will be held February 5-7, 2013 at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica, California.
As last year the agenda shows the conference will not just be all about domain names.
The three-day Webfest Global 2013 conference will cover a variety of topics related to domain name investing, acquiring and converting online customers, ... read more ...
Go Daddy Picks Ad Agency To Produce Super Bowl Ad: 1st Time Since 2005 - “For the first time since its controversial 2005 debut, Go Daddy is producing its new Super Bowl commercials with the help of an ad agency.
Go Daddy officially signed the New York Office of Deutsch Inc. as its agency-of-record this week. Now, Deutsch NY is working to produce two thirty-second spots for the world’s largest Web hosting provider’s 2013 Super Bowl campaign.
The challenge is to create memorable, innovative ads that reflect the world-class Go Daddy customer experience and have the ... read more ...
Sedo’s Jeremiah Johnston gets curtsy for SXSW -
Johnston to give the lone domain name related talk at SXSW.
This week SXSW announced the panels and talks that made the cut for its 2013 conference in Austin.
Sedo’s Jeremiah Johnston has been selected two years in a row to give a talk about new top level domains.
Johnston will give a “Future15″ talk titled “New Domains Have Landed – Now What!?“.
Of course, new TLDs won’t have exactly landed by the time he gives his talk in March. But they will be imminent.
Next ... read more ...
Monte Cahn on ROTD, Televisions.com, and more -
Right of the Dot founder discusses his company’s latest brokerage deal and more.
A couple weeks ago Right of the Dot, a company formed by Monte Cahn and Michael Berkens, announced that it was the broker for Televisions.com and related domains.
I reached out to Cahn to understand the latest on why Right of the Dot is selling left of the dot, how much the domains might sell for, and more.
DNW: I understood what sale.com had to do with “right of the dot” since ... read more ...
RAA traffic updates and how it affects domainers -
Get ready for whois verification. Maybe.
Huge changes might be coming to the way you register a domain name, and domain investors need to pay attention.
Negotiations for a new Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA), the agreement between registrars and ICANN, are ongoing. Meetings are taking place at ICANN’s meeting in Toronto this week.
I’ve talked to multiple people close to the negotiations, including James Bladel, Senior Director, ICANN Policy and Planning ... read more ...
Lawsuits opposite ICANN and new TLDs start to hurl in -
Two prior TLD applicants sue over specific top level domains.
As plans for a 2013 rollout of new top level domains marches forward, two companies have sued ICANN to stop it from issuing certain top level domain names.
Both lawsuits come courtesy of companies that applied in the “proof of concept” round back in 2000.
Earlier this week DomainIncite reported about a suit filed by Name.Space against ICANN. Name.space runs an alternative root with 482 top level domains. ... read more ...
DOMAINfest rebrands as Webfest Global -
DOMAINfest gets a new name as it branches out from domains.
It was only a matter of time.
Oversee.net’s DOMAINfest has new name beginning with next year’s show: Webfest Global.
This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. Although the conference is run by Oversee.net’s DomainSponsor division, the subject matter has shifted in recent years. It’s not all about domains any more; it’s about lead gen, search engine optimization, affiliate marketing, mobile and web ... read more ...