Monthly Archives: January 2013

Fri 11th January 2013
Written by The Domains in EN
Major League Baseball Denies It Paid Seven Figures For Rockies.com - Acccording to baseballamerica.com Major League Baseball is now denying that it paid seven figures for the domain name Rockies.com “A previous version of this story stated that MLB had paid a seven-figure sum for the rights to the Rockies.com domain name. ” “Matthew Gould said the figure was inaccurate, though he said he could not release the correct amount due to confidentiality agreements”. A couple of days ago it was widely reported that Rockies.com was purchased by MLB  for $1.25 Million ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Why $1.2 million for Rockies.com didn’t pass my spot test - Major League Baseball is denying that it paid $1.2 million when it bought Rockies.com. That doesn’t surprise me. This week you may have wondered why I didn’t cover the purchase of Rockies.com by Major League Baseball. After all, I’ve chronicled MLB’s quest to acquire the domain names of each of its 30 teams. I believe I was also the first to write about Rockies.com going up for sale. Here’s why I didn’t cover it: I didn’t believe it. Well, I believed ... read more ...
Thu 10th January 2013
Written by The Domains in EN
VisitLasVegas.com Becomes LasVegas.com & Fails To Register The Domain Of Its New Spokeman - According to a story in AdAge.com today, The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has launched a $20 million ad campaign rebranding its former visitlasvegas.com website into simply LasVegas.com The domain name VisitLasVegas.com now is simply forwarding to LasVegas.com The story goes on to say “The national campaign features a middle-aged man aptly named Mr. LasVegasDotCom” Already the developers of the $20 Million dollar campaign screwed up by not spending $10 of the $20 Million to register ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
NameCheap.com Teams Up Onepager To “Reduce The Number Of Parked Pages” - According to a press release just out, Namecheap.com has chosen Onepager as its exclusive website builder for its nearly 1 million customer accounts and over 3 million domains under management. “Namecheap customers now have the ability to launch their websites quickly and economically using the Onepager builder, immediately after choosing the perfect domain”. “Both Namecheap and Onepager hope this convenient option will reduce the number of ‘parked’ pages on the web, which often happens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
And Now IFFOR Is Going Into The New gTLD Business - Yesterday We wrote about IFFOR, the over $1.4 Million it should have raised from .XXX registrations and renewals and the $10K in grants it Awarded. Today comes word from xBiz.com once again, that IFFOR now wants to get into the new gTLD business as a service provider. According to today’s xBiz story, The International Foundation for Online Responsibility (IFFOR) “has launched a new policy service specifically for operators of new generic top-level domains”. “The Policy Engine service will ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
After Collecting At Least $1.4 Million, IFFOR Funded By .XXX Finally Gives 2 Grants Of $5K Each - According to xBiz.com, IFFOR the non-profit which receives $1o from each registered .XXX domain name, has issued its first two grants, in the amount of  $5,000 each. IFFOR stands for International Foundation for Online Responsibility and as I said is funded by .XXX domain name registrations and renewals. Each time a .XXX domain is registered or renewed IFFOR gets $10 of the registration or renewal fee paid to the registrar. According to the last monthly report ICM,  the operator of the .XXX registry ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
New Study: European Business Is Way Behind US In Getting Online - According to database and marketing firm Email-Brokers, European businesses are way behind the US in getting online. After looking at 13 million sites the company found that while Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands have the highest proportion of companies online, even in those countries 40% of business have no internet presence. “It is one of the ways to create employment and economic growth and it is not Star Trek, it exists today,” Email-Brokers head William Vande Wiele said. Britain and ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
NTAG Comments On RPM’s & Strawman Proposal - “NTAG concurs that ICANN should not—by interpreting an extension as “implementation’’—unilaterally require extension of the 60-day minimum. NTAG further agrees the 60-day period is the result of a multi-year process and should not be arbitrarily changed without Council action”. 2. The Special Trademark Issues Review Team’s (STI) unanimous consensus that claims should be a pre-launch RPM (Sec. 5.1), and the STI’s rough consensus that post-launch claims should not be required at ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
8 companies that altered their domain names…but it isn’t easy - It’s possible to change your domain name, but it’s easier to start with the right one. Silicon India has a slideshow (God, I hate those things)Mashable has a recent post titled “8 Successful Companies Who Changed Domain Names“. It covers: Ask Jeeves Facebook PayPal Twitter NBC News Google Perez Hilton Overstock It makes for fun reading, but it brings up a serious dilemma faced by many businesses. I’m starting a business, but I can’t afford the domain name ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
2 collection we use to lane my domain portfolio - Watch My Domains Pro and DomainTools Domain Monitor work in tandem to keep a watchful eye on my portfolio. Yesterday I reiterated my appreciation for Watch My Domains Pro, a tool I’ve been praising since 2007. Rob Sequin seconded my approval for the software in the comments. Watch My Domains Pro is one of two tools I use to monitor my domain portfolio. Watch My Domains Pro I use this to track the master list of domains I own. You basically add your domains and then ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Org indiscriminate cost to boost to $8.25 - .Org gets pricier. .Com prices may be fixed for the next six years, but that’s not stopping other registries from increasing prices. Public Interest Registry has informed ICANN that it will increase the wholesale cost of a .org domain name to $8.25 on July 1, 2013. It sent a letter to ICANN on Christmas Eve that was just published yesterday. Apparently I (and ICANN) are a bit late on this news, but that’s what happens when you slip a notice in over the holidays. A ... read more ...
Wed 9th January 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Citing New gTLD’s Forbes Asks: Did MLB Overpay For Rockies.com? - Forbes.com just published an article asking “Did MLB Overpay By Spending $1.2 Million For Rockies.com?” “All it took was $1.2 million dollars for Major League Baseball (MLB) to purchase the domain name Rockies.com, a URL that was formerly owned by the Canadian tourism portal Tourism Canadian Rockies.  ” “The ownership of a professional sports franchise’s name as a URL is a very valuable commodity that is often squandered.  For instance, the Brooklyn Nets does not own the website Nets.com ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Marchex is Hit With Another UDRP; This Time On uHealth.com - Marchex (MCHX) has been hit with its 11th UDRP since 2011. This time the domain at issue is uHealth.com The complainant is not listed but the domain name YouHealth.com is under management at CSC Corporate Domains Inc. The domain YouHealth.com has a creation date of 2000. The domain uHealth.com appears to have a creation date of 2002 and appears to have been another one of those domain names acquired by Marchex in the Ultrasearch portfolio On the trademark front the term uHealth has a trademark dated ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Have we finished a domain parking review lately? - Make sure your domains are pointing to places where they create value for you. I consider myself a fairly organized person. But when it comes to making sure my domains are parked correctly, apparently I’m a little lax. I just audited a few hundred of my domain names to check their nameservers. I was surprised at what I found: 1. Some of my domains were pointing to Go Daddy “coming soon” pages. 2. Others pointed to web site generator systems that long ago stopped ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What domains Reader’s Digest and 23 others bought final week - Reader’s Digest buys a .net and other end user domain sales. This week’s end user sales report includes big names like Reader’s Digest and the UAW. Also note the handful of companies that bought the .net equivalent of one of their .com domain names. Afternic The owner of Audioteka.pl bought Audioteka.com for $12,000. Vancouver Laptop, a laptop repair shop, paid $1,499 for ReplacementScreen.com. It already owns VancouverLaptop.com and VacouverLaptops.com. Sign ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Which domain name registrar is best? - Take the 8th annual Domain Name Wire Survey and give your opinion. Domainers are nothing if not opinionated, especially when it comes to domain name registrars. This year’s Domain Name Wire Survey once again lets you share your opinion on which domain name registrar is best. The question has been dominated by Go Daddy over the years, although newcomers are frequently attracting attention. In addition to sharing your opinion on which domain name registrar is best, ... read more ...
Tue 8th January 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Afternic.com Sells $900K In Domains - Afternic’s reportable weekly domain sales for the week of 12/31/12 – 1/6/13. Total domain sales for the week, including confidential sales and sales under $1000, summed to $ 907,271. I like Dropout.com for $11K Here are the reportable sales:   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Sedo Off To A Slow Start in 2013 With Only 870K in Transactions - Sedo.com started off 2013 with a slow holiday week with only 670 transactions taking place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling over $870,000. Over 46% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings. Highlights of public sales include: ·         Top .com: dgr.com at 14,200 EUR ·         Top ccTLD: aandacht.nl at 18,150 EUR ·         Top “other” TLD: videncia.net at 5,500 EUR Here are all the reportable sales: Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Guest Post: Promoting The New Top Level Domains – No Time For Napping - This is a guest post by Jennie-Marie Larsen, Chief Executive Officer of DomainDiction.com Jennie-Marie has an extensive marketing, PR business development background in web-based products and services with years of experience launching new businesses through digital marketing and channel management. She entered the domain name industry 12 years ago as Head of Europe for NeuStar´s registry business and managed the commercial market introduction and development of their business for .BIZ, .US, and ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Marchex & Berryhill Win Another UDRP This Time On Guarani.com - The Complainant Guarani S.A. of Sao Paolo, Brazil brought this UDRP against Marchex Sales, Inc, who as usual was represented by John Berryhill, Ph.D. Esq. on the domain name guarani.com The three member panel found that the domain which is a generic dictionary word which, among other things, refers to a South American ethnological group, a group of languages and dialects spoken by that group and has been the name of the official currency of Paraguay since 1943, coupled with the fact that the trademark ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Despite TM Going Back To 1998 & Parked Page UDRP Rejected on In-Case.com - The Complainant Incase Designs Corp. of Chino, California, lost a UDRP to get the domain name In-Case.com, despite the fact that complainant had a trademark in the US dating back to 1998 and that the domain holder was parking the domain. The case seemed to turn on the fact that the term although trademarked was generic, the domain holder owned many other domin names starting with the word “in” and  that the landing page showed local results when it was viewed from different countries, China ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Discover Card Buys Discoverit.com -             Discover Credit Card which already owns Discover.com, quietly acquired the domain name Discoverit.com back in July of last year. The domain name is not yet resolving but would be a great call to action type of domain and we would expect to see it used by the credit card company in a future ad campaign. If you want to see how Discover may use the domain name check out the picture above which comes courtesy of CreditCards.net So another example of  Domaining 6.0 Tonight is the Discover ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Afilias and Go Daddy to reason second .info auction - Second “sunrise” auction features 135 .info domain names. Afilias and Go Daddy are teaming up for a second .info auction consisting of domain names originally reserved in the .info sunrise period in 2001. The auction includes 135 .info domain names that were claimed as trademarks in the sunrise period, but the sunrise applications were later deemed invalid. The previous auction of over 100 domain names included cancer.info (which sold for $16,005 to an Arizona ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy starts display smallest offer cost alongside unpriced Afternic listings - Andrew, I had 40 offers via Godaddy/Sedo $60 special, closed 0 (ZERO). I followed up on a few of the domains, and saw some recent reg’s in lessor extensions, found out these were the people making the offers. They were clueless about the aftermarket process, and thought they could pay a premium of $60 instead of $10 to get the domain. I managed to close 3 deals on my own, each in the 4 figure range. If I had not followed up, most likely those inquiries may have sat idle for years, ... read more ...
Mon 7th January 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Name.com Screws Up On Promo Code & Gives “Thousands” Of Free .Com/Net’s - Prior to the announced sale of Name.com to Demand Media, Inc, it appears Name.com had an issue with a promo code which allowed “thousands” of .com and .net registrations and renewals to go through at zero cost earlier this month In a video posted on YouTube.com, Ashley an employee of name.com apologizes for the error: We had a problem with our January Promo Code “xxoo” which resulted in thousands of free .com .net registrations and renewals at zero cost which was unintended…sometimes we ... read more ...