Author Archives: DomainNameWire

About DomainNameWire

Domain Name Wire is a blog that deals with the domain name sector. The blog covers a range of domain related topics ranging from issues concerning expiring domains, monetization, domain registries and registrars, ICANN, policy, law etc. The blog began in March, 2005, after Mr. Allemann had dropped out of meetings to become involved in domain portfolio company, iREIT. The project began as a hobby to keep him involved in the domaining business, and then became his full-time business.

Fri 2nd March 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tumblr.com typo will sell for during slightest $24,000 tomorrow - Domain for sale on Sedo gets lots of traffic looking for blogging site. An auction for a typo of popular blogging platform Tumblr.com closes tomorrow, and it currently has a bid of 15,000 GBP (about $24,000 USD). The domain Tubmlr.com switches the b and the m. According to the sales listing page on Sedo it gets close to 8,000 visits per month, obviously due to its similarity to the blogging service. There’s only one bidder on the domain, and it’s possible that ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Domain financier featured in Crain’s New York - Publication profiles domain investor. Domain investor, entrepreneur, and Domain Name Wire reader Rick Singer was featured in Crain’s New York Business today. The article discusses how Singer bought StockProfile.com for over $10,000 about four years ago. He developed the site and sold it for $5 million in restricted equity. The author describes Singer this way: Mr. Singer is akin to a house flipper. He trawls for undervalued URLs, finds the ones that have the most ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Co-CEO shakeup during Oversee.net: Domeyer is CEO, Morrow out - Company settles on a CEO. That didn’t last long. Oversee.net’s co-CEO arrangement with Debra Domeyer and Scott Morrow is over. Domeyer has been promoted to (sole) CEO and Morrow is leaving the company. Oversee.net’s co-president and then co-ceo set up had many people scratching their heads. The only times I’ve seen a co-CEO situation is when two companies merge, and one CEO ends up leaving soon thereafter. In other cases it shows that the company can’t make ... read more ...
Thu 1st March 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
February’s tip 5 stories on Domain Name Wire - A look back at February on Domain Name Wire. 1. Amazon buys Prime.xxx domain name – Amazon scoops up Prime.xxx. It also bought YoYo.xxx for its YoYo.com brand. 2. KeyDrive acquires Moniker and SnapNames – you can also read my interview with KeyDrive’s CEO here. 3. Four newcomers among Top 10 domain parking companies – one of the top 10 parking options is shutting down (see next #4), but four newbies are on the list. 4. Google kills “hosted” Adsense ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Suddenly, people happier with ICANN - Satisfaction with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers skyrockets. ICANN is the domain industry’s favorite punching bag. But people want to punch it less this year. Every year on the Domain Name Wire survey I ask people to rate their satisfaction with ICANN. They can select “Good”, “Acceptable”, or “Poor”. And every year save for 2006, more people have rated it poor than good. But that changed this year, as more rated their satisfaction ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How we done a $2,333 RPM on a parked domain - Don’t just consider your click revenue. Too often as domainers we focus on how much money our parking company pays us for clicks. But that doesn’t take into consideration the whole value stream of parking. What other value do you get from your parked domains? Let me give you an example. I recently sold LinkDetective.com for $1,400 through Afternic. The domain also happened to be parked with the company. In the past 60 days I made precisely $0 from parking the ... read more ...
Wed 29th February 2012
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 ...
 
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
.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 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
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 ...
 
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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 ...
Tue 28th February 2012
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 ...
 
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
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 ...
Mon 27th February 2012
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 ...
 
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
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
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 ...
 
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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 ...
Sun 26th February 2012
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 ...
Fri 24th February 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Survey: DNForum is tip domain forum - DNForum is rated “top domain forum”. DNForum once again finds itself on top of the Domain Name Wire annual survey for “best forum”. 54% of people who voted for a top forum selected DNForum as best, and then there was a big drop off from there. There’s a virtual three way tie for the second most popular forum. NamePros received the second highest vote total. Nipping at its heals is the private forum DomainBoardroom, and DomainState is just a couple votes ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Four newcomers among Top 10 domain parking companies - Sedo is top parking company, but many newcomers rank in the top 10. Sedo and SedoPro are the top domain name parking companies according to respondents in Domain Name Wire’s 7th annual domain name industry survey. But a lot of new parking companies are challenging it. In absolute numbers, Sedo was ranked top. Google’s self-serve Adsense for Domains program, which is closing, ranked second. A good way to look at the parking rankings is to consider what percentage ... read more ...
Thu 23rd February 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What do people demeanour for in a domain registrar? - Don’t lose my domains, give them to me cheap, and be there to help. We’re going to kick off the results from this year’s Domain Name Wire survey with a look at which factors drive people to select their domain registrar. About 1,500 people ranked seven separate factors, and the results were the exact same as last year: 1. Security 2. Price 3. Customer service 4. Account management tools 5. Value added services 6. Intra-registrar transfers 7. What they do with ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Survey says GoDaddy is tip domain registrar - GoDaddy dominant, especially with larger domain registrars. 1,164 people answered the question “Which domain registrar do you think is best overall” on the 7th annual Domain Name Wire survey. But some of these survey takers responded to social media requests to vote for a particular registrar, skewing the results. If you consider all respondents, here’s how the list shakes out: 1. GoDaddy 43% 2. NameSilo 35% 3. Dynadot 9% 4. Moniker 7% 5. Fabulous 6% I suspect ... read more ...