Monthly Archives: April 2015

Wed 22nd April 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Minds + Machines: Premium Names Are 3%.of Registrations; 25% of Revenue - Minds + Machines Group Limited (LSE:MMX), released some interesting information in a press release we received overnight. Premium Names accounts for approximately 3%. of Minds + Machines new gTLD registrations,  but accounts for 25% of its revenue. Minds + Machines also announced that they “hold a significant inventory of Premium Names across its gTLD portfolio and sees significant opportunities for recurring annual revenues in this area”. It is not clear from the PR whether the owned and operated ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Breaking down Minds + Machines' domain name Portfolio - Registry releases detailed stats on domain name registrations. Top level domain name registry Minds + Machines released an update on its progress today, including a detailed breakdown of how its top level domain names have fared so far. The company has 165,364 registrations as of April 20. The majority of these registrations are for domain names in which Minds + Machines isn’t the outright owner. It either provides backend services or has a partnership. Its wholly-owned domain registration tally ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Marchex Sells Its Domain Portfolio Of 200K+ Domains To Godaddy For $28.1 Million - Marchex, Inc. (NASDAQ: MCHX), today announced they have entered into a definitive agreement to sell its remaining domain portfolio of more than 200,000 domains to GoDaddy Inc.(NYSE: GDDY). Under the agreement, Marchex received cash consideration of $28.1 million from Godaddy, plus additional earn-out payments the terms of which were undisclosed including the maximum additional earn out. Marchex also announced it sold $6.7 million in direct domain sales since January 2015 so the aggregate proceeds ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.Poker Winds Up Its 1st Day With 1,342 Registrations & .Science Tops 150K Registrations - .Poker launched into general availability yesterday and including those domain names registered by trademark holders in the Sunrise period and those Landrush applications that were awarded uncontested, .Poker finished the day with 1,342 registrations. .Poker is not one of the cheap gTLD extensions with non-premium domains selling for around $50 and some premium domains selling for into the $x,xxx range About 800 domain names were  registered yesterday. .Science is racked up 5 figures in domain registrations ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy acquires Marchex's domain name portfolio for $28 million - An in-depth look at GoDaddy’s purchase of over 200,000 domain names and what it means for domain name investors. GoDaddy has acquired Marchex’s Archeo domain name portfolio for $28.1 million.GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) has acquired about 200,000 domain names from Marchex (NASDAQ: MCHX) for $28.1 million, plus a potential earnout. Marchex has owned the portfolio for a long time, and it includes most of the 100,000 domains it acquired from domain name investor Yun Ye for $164 million in 2005. The company ... read more ...
Tue 21st April 2015
Written by DomainHack.er in EN and tagged
New gTLDs Make US, UK Web Users Feel Less Secure Online: Survey - Change is scary, and that could be part of why 87 percent of consumers are uncomfortable visiting websites that use new generic top-level domains. According to a recent survey by NCC Group, 40 percent of web users in the US and UK feel less secure online since new gTLDs were introduced. NCC Group surveyed 10,000 consumers in October 2014 in collaboration with IDG Research Services. The responses are part of its “New Internet Study”, released in April. It seems that respondents’ fears aren’t ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainHack.er in EN and tagged
Metrics for New gTLDs Performance - The essay describes six groups of gTLD performance indicators: (1) the presence of a secondary market; (2) uses of second-level domain names; (3) the identity of the owners of parked and not-in-use domain names; (4) domain name renewals; (5) the market size of the supporting complementary assets; and (6) the character of the person in charge of a given registry. A time-trend of these indicators would convey any price inefficiencies and bubbles, and the health of the industry. However, there ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Sedo Sales Total $1.2 million led by Houtian.com during $59,000 - Over the past week, 568 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling $1.2m. 54% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings.  Highlights of public sales are: Top .com: houtian.com at 59,000 USD Top ccTLD: lights.co.uk at 25,000 GBP Top “other” TLD: drone.academy at 6,000 USD There were a lot of strong country code sales this week with 4 selling in the five figure range. As a longtime fan of .TV, I especially liked Rocket.tv at $6,224. $6,000 for Drone.Academy ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Virtual .US Town Hall assembly takes place Wednesday - .US owners should tune in and ask questions at online event tomorrow. Neustar, the registry that runs the .US country code domain name for the United States, is holding a .US Public Stakeholder Town Hall tomorrow, April 22. The virtual town hall takes place from 1-3 PM ET and registration is required. The usTLD Stakeholder Council, which was organized last year, is planning the event. There are a few topics on the agenda, but there will also be an open floor for people to ask questions. As the owner ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainHack.er in EN and tagged
ICANN to investigate .sucks registry over eye-watering fees - Brand owners, many of whom have registered their trade marks with the Trademark Clearinghouse to get first dibs on new gTLD domains during Sunrise Periods, are being charged a hefty premium by the '.sucks' registry. In the last year, most new domain name registries that have opened gTLDs (eg, .network, .business) have charged trade mark owners a couple of hundred dollars to apply for domains matching their trade marks during Sunrise Periods. To apply during any registry's Sunrise ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Wiz Khalifa Wins Control Of 8 Domain Names - Based on this United States trademark registration, Complainant has established rights in the TAYLOR GANG mark pursuant to Policy, paragraph 4(a)(i). See Janus International Holding Co. v. Scott Rademacher, WIPO Case No. D2002-0201 (finding that “registration of a mark is prima facie evidence of validity, which creates arebuttable presumption that the mark is inherently distinctive. Respondent has the burden of refuting this assumption”.)Complainant has a pending United States trademark applications ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Google starts mobile hunt rankings shakeup - Search rankings on mobile devices are shifting starting today. Today is the day. Google has begun changing search results on mobile phones based on if sites are mobile friendly or not. According to a blog post from the company, the search rankings rollout will start today but take about “a week or so” before it gets to all pages in the index. The rankings are on a page-by-page basis, so site owners can’t just make a mobile-friendly home page and skip the rest of the site. The good news for ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.London, .NYC and new ways to calculate a success of a TLD - A deep dive into how .London and .NYC are being used. The .London and .NYC top level domain names were both launched last year and have risen to the top of new TLD leaderboards. .London currently has about 60,000 registrations and .NYC has topped 75,000 in the zone file. Does that mean .NYC is “beating” .London? It’s interesting to compare the two domains. Both are world cities and major financial centers. Yet there’s a big difference in eligibility for these domains. Anyone can register ... read more ...
Mon 20th April 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Will .Poker Take Off ? - Christopher Hofman from European Domain Centre interviewed Roland LaPlante and Brett Samuels from Afilias on the eve of .Poker going live. Brett Samuels listed a number of high profile brands among early stage registrants including basically any Vegas casino on The Strip such as MGM and Treasure Island, general betting sites and news sites such as PokerNews. Here is an overview: Casinos: Bally’s, Borgata, Caesars Palace, Mirage, Monte Carlo, etc. Online gaming sites: Bovada, Fulltilt, Grosvenor, ... read more ...
 
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New Domain this week: .Poker - Afilias launches .poker this week, and it is the only new TLD launch I could find. I can only find one new top level domain name on Calzone.org that’s launching this week, so it will get a little extra focus. Afilias launches .Poker on Tuesday with support from about 70 registrars. Retail pricing appears to be in the $40-$50 range. Heading into today, there are about 540 domain names in the .Poker zone file, so it’s off to a fairly good start through sunrise and landrush. Some of the good domain ... read more ...
 
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
FairWinds Partners: " Top-Level Domains Owned by Brands Gaining Momentum" - Jennifer Schoelwer wrote an article on the FairWinds Partners blog that delves into gaining momentum for branded top level domains. The article is focused on .brands, not generic strings open to everyone. The article takes a look at French bank BNP Paribas and the steps they have taken to explain their upcoming .bnpparibas to their customers. Jennifer ends the article, “It is clear is that brands will – and have – set a new standard for online trust and consumer experience.” From the article: While ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
WDD.2015.Delhi SnapNames Domain Auction Gets $100K Bid On Computer.de - The domain name auction being run in conjunction with The World Domain Day conference on Snapnames.com has drawn over $400,000 in bids. All bidding is led by Computer.debut there is also a $75K bid on enetwork.com and LatinoTimes.com as well as a $50K bid on Bodyguards.com and GTR.com but none of the reserve have been met on any of those domain names yet. The WDD.2015.Delhi domain auction closes on Thursday at 3:15 PM EST according to SnapNames.com normal closing procedures. Here are all of the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Help! My Domain name was stolen! with Pablo Palatnik – DNW Podcast #29 - What would happen if your business’s domain name was stolen? Imagine waking up one day and finding that your business’s domain name was stolen. That’s exactly what happened to Pablo Palatnik, founder of online sunglasses retailer ShadesDaddy.com. On this week’s episode, Palatnik explains how he first learned his domain was stolen, his understandable freakout, and his full court press to get the domain name back. It’s a fascinating story that hopefully can help other people who become a ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Domain Movers: Chong.com, Voice.com and More - Welcome to Domain Movers! Get ready to read some interesting and detailed digging on some recent domain activity which involves newly registered domains by companies, domain name acquisitions by companies and simply domain movers for one reason or another. Enjoy these often early discoveries and the reasons that I found why the domains are moving. JPMorgan Chase Co. with the help of brand protection service MarkMonitor has acquired the domain name SoYouCan.com, which was actually acquired on March ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Is Amazon.com a biggest user of new domain names? - Amazon has registered a bunch of domains under new TLDs, and it’s forwarding them to pages on its website. It’s still unclear what Amazon.com’s strategy is for the many top level domain names it will soon control. But we might get a hint from examining its use of other registry’s top level domain names. Amazon.com has been a big buyer of second level domain names in new TLDs. For example, it picked up many city names under .delivery. I’ve also noticed recently that it registered a bunch ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Stolen domain name 608.com returned to owners in UDRP - Panel orders 608.com transferred back to its previous owner. An Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre (ADNDRC) panel has ordered the domain name 608.com be returned to its previous owner, who said the domain name was stolen from him. In the dispute, Complainant Chiu Tsen Hu said he purchased the domain name at Sedo in 2006 for $6,009. He has used it in various ways since then, including to promote his domain names for sale. He alleged that the domain name was stolen from his eNom account in ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainHack.er in EN and tagged
Sorry Kids There Will Be No .Unicorn In The Domain Space But There Will Be A … - .Unicorn will remain a mythical creature when its comes to new domain names. You will not be able to register a .Unicorn domain as two domain name extension that were put into the same contention group by ICANN .Unicorn and .UNICOM have resolved with unicorn.eu withdrawing their application for .Unicorn Instead of .Unicorn we now have the less sexy .Unicom which was applied for by China United Network Communications Corporation Limited whose website is chinaunicom.com To be fair both .Unicorn and ... read more ...
Sun 19th April 2015
Written by The Domains in EN
Sorry Kids There Will Be No .Unicorn In The Domain Space But There Will Be A .Unicom - .Unicorn will remain a mythical creature when its comes to new domain names. You will not be able to register a .Unicorn domain as two domain name extension that were put into the same contention group by ICANN .Unicorn and .UNICOM have resolved with unicorn.eu withdrawing their application for .Unicorn Instead of .Unicorn we now have the less sexy .Unicom which was applied for by China United Network Communications Corporation Limited whose website is chinaunicom.com To be fair both .Unicorn and ... read more ...