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.

Thu 5th August 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo Sells YYY.com for $45,444 - Sedo sells three letter .com for big money. Domain brokerage Sedo has sold the domain name YYY.com for $45,444, according to the site’s recent sales section. So the question for all you three and four character domain name fans: is this a ccc.com domain or a vvv.com domain? Is it a triple premium? Is it a million-zillion-triple-premium-triple-repeat dot com? The domain name’s whois record currently shows Sedo’s brokerage, and it was previously protected by ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
.Co, DNW Certified Stats, and ICANN on Domain Masters - Listen to last night’s show archive. Last night I was on Domain Masters on WebmasterRadio.fm. I’ve been on the show a couple different times, but this is the first time since Chef Patrick took over as host. He also had co-host Morgan Linton with him last night. You can listen to the show here. During the show I talked about a number of topics, including: -Domain name theft, and an important ICANN comment period that domainers need to pay attention to in an effort ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Live Current Sells More Shares, Now Can Avoid “Grey Market” for Perfume - More equity sales from troubled company. Fresh on the heels of raising $370,000 through equity sales at the end of last month, Live Current Media has raised another $225,000 through the same offering. That brings the total to $595,000. All told, the equity sale included 5.95 million shares and 5.95 million warrants to purchase shares at 15 cents each within the next two years. Live Current says it will use this money for general purposes and to purchase inventory ... read more ...
Wed 4th August 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo Sells OY.com for $90k, German Cloud Computing Domain Goes for $38k - No six figure sales, but two letter domain comes close. Domain brokerage Sedo sold oy.com for $90,000 this past week, which was the company’s top completed sale. The company also had a big cloud computing domain sale, moving cloud-computing.de for 29,000 EUR, or about $38,000 USD. It’s not Cloud.com, but it’s still a good domain for the booming field of cloud computing. Here are other notable sales for the week at Sedo: .com p6.com 15000 USD befrank.com 15000 USD ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Fannie Mae Launches $50,000 KnowYourOptions.com Web Site - Mortgage backer launches web site at $50k domain name. Fannie Mae has launched a new web site at KnowYourOptions.com, a domain name the company purchased for $50,000 in June. The company, which was bailed out by U.S. taxpayers, bought the domain name through domain broker Sedo. Hopefully a U.S. citizen sold the domain name to them to make up for his higher taxes. As expected, the site (warning: annoying auto-play talking person on site) details homeowners’ options ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
CDRate.com Domain Sells for $42,500 - Rates are low, but domain prices are high. If you’ve shopped for a certificate of deposit rate recently, you were probably disappointed by the results. Bankrate reports the typical 6-month CD is returning just 0.85%. Perhaps you should invest in domain names instead? One of NameMedia’s (runs Afternic and BuyDomains) top reported sales this week was for CDRate.com at $42,500. The domain gets some traffic according to Compete.com. NameMedia releases only a small ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
In AOL Advertising.com Case, Court Explains Perils of Generic Domain Names - Building a brand around a generic domain name may create trademark headaches. You usually find the real juicy stuff in a company’s annual report in the footnotes. That’s why I like to read every part of court cases, too. In the recent U.S. Court of Appeals case of Advertise.com vs. AOL Advertising (Advertising.com), the court noted the challenges of creating a brand around a descriptive and generic domain name in footnote 6: Somewhat incredibly, AOL attempts ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Google Wave and Lessons on Simplicity - Goodbye Google Wave. I hardly understood you. So Google Wave is getting the ax (sort of). This may have been the most hyped Google release in ages, even though so few people knew what the heck it was they were clamoring for a coveted invite for. Why did it fail? It was confusing. People didn’t instantly get it. It’s a lesson web application developers need to learn. Over the years I’ve seen new applications come out that were simplistic versions of more ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Google Now Enables International Targeting of .Co Domain Name - Owners of .co domains can now tell Google for what location their content is targeted. Today Google finally enabled targeting the .co domain name to locations other than Colombia. .Co is the country code domain name for Colombia, so Google generally considered web sites on .co as targeted only to Columbia. I confirmed with Google on July 22 that it would enable this re targeting, and again about a week later, but many have been impatiently waiting for the changeover. To ... read more ...
Tue 3rd August 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sharing Domain Parking Stats is Easy with DNW Certified Stats - Introducing an easier way to share domain name parking stats. I’m excited to announce the launch of DNW Certified Stats, a service that makes it easy to share domain name parking stats. Here’s how it works: 1. You fill out a simple form including your domain names you want to display stats for. 2. DNW Certified Stats fetches the stats from your parking company and creates an online certificate you can share. 3. You provide your unique certificate code to anyone ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DomainSponsor Doubles Revenue in Europe, Plans Two European Roundtables - Parking company sees results from new European operations. The two largest Google domain name parking partners have long known their turf — DomainSponsor was strongest in the U.S. while Sedo was strongest in Europe. Many years after Sedo set up an office in the U.S., DomainSponsor finally decided it needed a home base in Europe, opening an office last year. DomainSponsor said today that it’s getting results, doubling its revenues and customers since May 2010. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Wikileaks Could Put More Pressure on Whois Privacy Services - Could WikiLeaks backlash bring renewed attention to whois privacy services? The backlash against WikiLeaks over its release of thousands of secret U.S. government documents about the war in Afghanistan is building. It’s never pretty when your web site is blamed for death. And although the public now knows who is behind WikiLeaks, I think the situation may place more attention on the use of whois privacy and proxy services. WikiLeaks.org was registered in 2006 using ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Facebook Wins Facebook.me Domain Name in Arbitration - Social networking site picks up domain name in arbitration. A World Intellectual Property Forum panelist has awarded the domain name Facebook.me to the giant social networking site. In what may be one of the longest WIPO UDRP decisions I’ve ever read, the panelist ruled against Amjad Abbas. Facebook claimed that Abbas had placed the domain name on a page with other domains that were for sale for a minimum of $2,000. Other domains listed for sale on the site included ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
VeriSign CEO: “PPC is a Dead Thing” - PPC no longer a driver of domain name registrations, says VeriSign CEO. When it comes to growth opportunities for the .com namespace, domain parking “is a dead thing”, VeriSign President and CEO Mark McLaughlin explained on an analyst conference call yesterday. McLaughlin was responding to a question from JP Morgan Chase Co analyst Sterling Auty, who asked: …on the 7.9 million new names that came in during the quarter, you mentioned international, but are there ... read more ...
Mon 2nd August 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Live Current Raises $370,000 Selling New Shares - Live Current places 3.7 million shares and hires COO. Live Current Media, which owns Perfume.com, has raised $370,000 selling additional shares to accredited investors. The company sold 74 units to six different investors, with each unit including 50,000 shares of stock and a warrant to purchase another 50,000 shares for 15 cents each within two years. Each unit cost $5,000. Currently, shares of Live Current sell for 10 cents over the counter. To put it in perspective, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Dot VN Says It Needs to Raise Cash This Year - Dot VN looks for cash to continue operations. Dot VN, Inc., the sole provider of .vn domain names accredited by Vietnam Internet Network Information Center (VNNIC), disclosed in its annual report Thursday that it must raise cash this year in order to execute on its business plan. At the end of the last financial year (ending April 30) the company had $135,664 cash and total current assets of $443,469. But it owes a lot of money, albeit much of it to the company’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Panelist Blasts Credit Europe Bank for “Flagrant Abuse” of UDRP - Lawyer states that his client’s interests are more important than domain owner’s, so they should get the domain name. A World Intellectual Property Organization domain arbitration panelist has some harsh words for Credit Europe Bank and lawyer Novagraaf Nederland after it brought a case against the owner of CreditEurope.com. The registrant of CreditEurope.com got the domain name in 2003, several years before Credit Europe Bank started trading under the Credit ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Why We Know a Blackpad Will Suck - What’s in a product name? I predict that Research In Motion’s Blackpad will suck. Why? Because it’s a me-too device with a me-too domain. Research in Motion (RIM) acquired the domain name Blackpad.com, which set off a media tizzy of excitement over RIM’s new product last week But much like the many would be “iPhone killers” out there, this device seems destined to just try to copy the success of the iPad. The name really says it all. Why on earth would ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Latona’s to Auction Off Remaining Zuccarini Domains during TRAFFIC - Domain names will be auctioned off at TRAFFIC in October if court approves. Assuming court approval, Rick Latona has scored a coup by getting rights to auction off the remaining domain names owned by John Zuccarini to satisfy a court judgment and U.S. tax lien. After losing a cybersquatting case to Office Depot, Zuccarini’s domain names were handed to a receiver. That receiver has had his share of challenges, including letting some of the domain names expire. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Com and .Net Base Tops 100 Million Domain Names - VeriSign reports growth over 100 million domain names. As forecasted, the total number of .com and .net domain names under management topped 100 million in the second quarter of 2010, reports VeriSign. The company ended the quarter with 101.5 million domains across the two top level domain names. VeriSign added 7.9 million new domain names in the quarter, representing 13% growth year-over-year. The naming services business grossed $164 million for the quarter, up ... read more ...
Sun 1st August 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Top Domain Name Wire Stories of Jul 2010 - A look back at July in the domain name industry. It’s hot outside here in Texas, and it was a hot month for domain name news. Here are the top 5 stories on Domain Name Wire from July, ranked by views. 1. How to Maximize Chances of Getting .Co Domains, and at Lowest Prices – apparently a lot of people maximized their chances, snapping up hundreds of thousands of .co domain names. 2. Tucker Carlson Buys Keith Olbermann Domain Name – pundit Tucker Carlson knows ... read more ...
Fri 30th July 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Who Didn’t Do Their Homework on .Co Launch? - Despite .co’s best efforts, cybersquatters pile on. Washington Business Journal published a story today about companies that didn’t register their .co domain name equivalent, and how cybersquatters snapped up a lot of these domain names. The story is somewhat amusing: Local businesses beaten to the punch by online speculators include sports teams, media companies and even tech-savvy federal contractors. “They didn’t do their homework,” said William ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Woman With World’s Smallest Waist Wins Cybersquatting Lawsuit - A domain name is a terrible thing to waist. Cathie Jung, who is in the Guinness Book of World Records as having “The Smallest Waist on a Living Person” at 15 inches, has won rights to the domain name CathieJung.com. Jung filed an Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act en rem (meaning it was against the domain name and not the registrant) case back in December 2009. Jung claimed that the domain name was registered by a corset designer. Indeed, it appears ... read more ...
Thu 29th July 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Hack DealsPl.us Loses Case for DealsPlus.com - Company tries to get “proper” version of its domain through UDRP but fails. I’ve argued many, many times that you shouldn’t create a web site at a “domain hack”, where the top level domain name is part of the keywords. Here’s just another example, courtesy of a decision at World Intellectual Property Organization. Sazze, Inc, which operates DealsPl.us, has lost a case brought against the owner of DealsPlus.com. DealsPl.us is a big web site, getting ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Raising Kids to Be Entrepreneurs - This video will resonate with a lot of domainers. If you’re a domainer, you’re probably an entrepreneur. Maybe not a full time entrepreneur, but at least you take your future into your own hands. Which is why I think you’ll appreciate this video from Cameron Herold speaking at a TEDxEdmonton. A warning: it’s 20 minutes long, so watch it when you want to take a break. But watch the whole thing, including the video at the end from Grasshopper.com. I’ve ... read more ...