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.

Wed 13th May 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Qualcomm, Express and other End User Domain Name Buyers - Qualcomm and Express among end user domain name buyers last week. The top sale on Sedo’s weekly transaction list for the past week was Same.com, which I wrote about here. Although that sale dwarfed the other public sales, some big companies were buyers. Qualcomm, Express and Choice hotels all made purchases. Also take a look at the €7,949 price paid for a hyphenated new top level domain name! Here’s a look at end user domain name sales at Sedo from the past week: Previous weeks’ lists can ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
BTC.com launched currently after being leased from association that paid $1 million for domain - Domain name buyer ran into trouble, so Bitcoinist leased BTC.com and has launched it as a site for cryptocurrencies. BTC.com launched as a cryptocurreny information site after a long term lease deal for the domain name.The $1 million sale of BTC.com last year raised a few eyebrows, even in the bitcoin-fueled crytocurrency bubble. The timing of the domain name sale was great…for the seller. Buyer GAWMiners quickly ran into financial (and perhaps other) trouble. But a UK company stepped in to carry ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Nepal, Cuba and IoT are trending in domain names - News stories generate domain name registrations. Verisign has released its list of trending terms in .com and .net domain name registrations last month. A couple of terms are directly related to news stories: Nepal, which is recovering from earthquakes, came in at #8. Cuba, which is being opened up even more to the United States, ranked #4. (Read this story about a domain name investor who was really early for Cuba domain names.) IoT, short for Internet of Things, ranked #6. (Verisign’s DomainView ... read more ...
Tue 12th May 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy finds it harder to grow tip line - Revenue growth slowed in first quarter. GoDaddy’s headline revenue number in Q1 was up 17.5% year-over-year, but the quarter-over-quarter number isn’t as pretty. Here’s GoDaddy’s revenue growth each quarter-over-quarter, going back as far as its S-1 filed with the SEC discloses: Q1 2015 was up just 1.2% compared to Q4 2014. Q4 2014 wasn’t a a huge quarter, either. In Q1, revenue increased about $5 million compared to the previous quarter. The lowest gross change in any quarter over the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy releases initial gain news as open company - Company posts 17.5% year-over-year growth in first quarter of 2015. GoDaddy has released its first quarterly earnings as a public company and will hold its first quarterly investor call later this afternoon. The company posted revenue of $376.3, up 17.5% compared to the first quarter of 2014. Revenue was up just 1% quarter-over-quarter. The net loss was $(43.4) million, which isn’t as bad as the same quarter last year but is worse than last quarter’s $(26.8) million. GoDaddy added about 400,000 ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Social app spends $233,333 for Same.com domain name - Company spends six figures for better domain name. Same, a social networking and chat app for the Chinese market, has purchased the domain name Same.com for $233,333. The company behind the app uses the domain name ohsame.com. Same.com now forwards to the existing website. Here’s the iTunes page for the app, which appears to have been released originally about two years ago. Anything.com, a company that owns a large portfolio of valuable domain names, was the seller. Sedo brokered the transaction ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Holdings reports $4.75 million domain name sales in Q1 - Sales up year-over-year but down quarter-over-quarter. Domain Holdings has released its quarterly report of domain name sales. The company sold $4.75 million worth of domain names in Q1 2015. Although this is up 40% over its sales in Q1 of 2015, the number is about half of what the company has sold in each of the past three quarters. Domain Holdings’ sales team has gone through a lot of recent upheaval, with a number of brokers leaving. Here are some other stats from Domain Holdings’ report: 65% ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
This week's new TLDs: .Design and 4 Early Access - .Design enters GA and Donuts releases four more domain names. Only one top level domain name enters true general availability this week: .Design went live this morning U.S. time. The domain name is being offered (fittingly) by Top Level Design. You can read more about the hotly contest auction for this top level domain, and listen to Top Level Design founder Ray King discuss why he thinks this domain offers so much opportunity. GoDaddy is offering .Design domains with a first year price of $29.99, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Scenes from a domain name auction in China - These are some of the Chinese domain name investors buying your domains. The domain name market in China is hot and is driving major price appreciation, especially in short domain names. What’s the Chinese domain name community like? A lot like that in other parts of the world. It has its own “big personalities” and players. It also has its own gatherings and domain name auctions. Last month, 域名圈 organized a live domain name auction in Beijing that attracted 200-300 people. 域名圈 ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Major.com UDRP denied, though no RDNH - A UDRP for a major domain name. A single member World Intellectual Property Organization panel has denied a UDRP filed by Major Wire Industries Limited against the owner of Major.com. Panelist Christopher S. Gibson declined to find reverse domain name hijacking, though. Major Wire Industries has been around since the 1800s, and decided to go after Major.com some 130 years after it was founded (and 20 years after Major.com was first registered). The company tried to buy the domain name, but didn’t ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Apartments.com's $100 million ad debate includes "We put a .com in apartments" - Ad campaign promotes apartments…and .com. Apartments.com recently launched a $100 million advertising campaign, and Verisign couldn’t be happier: One of the ad lines used in the campaign is “We put the .com in apartments”. The overall campaign is called “Change your apartment. Change the world.” and features actor Jeff Goldblum (Will Grace, Jurassic Park) as a Silicon Valley futurist. The year-long ad campaign aims to reach 95% of 18-49-year-olds with more than 3 billion ad impressions. ... read more ...
Mon 11th May 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
World Hosting Days discussion entrance to USA subsequent week - Popular international hosting conference makes its U.S. debut next week. World Hosting Days, a popular international conference for the cloud and hosting industry, is holding its first North American conference next week. The conference will take place at the 7Springs Ski Mountain Resort in Pennsylvania May 19-20. Speakers include Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. Holding a conference at a resort a bit outside a major city is an interesting approach. On the one hand, it’s more difficult to travel ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Despite domestic domain name news, domestic new TLDs not holding off - Political new top level domain names are not getting much attention. With all of the news recently about presidential candidates not registering relevant domain names, you’d think political new top level domain names would see a boost. Yet, they continue to struggle. Consider Rightside’s .democrat and .republican. The former has about 1,300 registrations and the latter just 800. .Vote also has fewer than 1,000 names in the zone file (and .voto is about 250) despite the registry striking deals ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Discussing domain names with Adam Dicker – DNW Podcast #32 - Long time domain name investor and DNForum owner Adam Dicker discusses the latest in domain names. This week we talk with Adam Dicker, long time domain name investor and owner of DNForum. We discuss how Adam got into the domain name business, how you can partner with Adam to develop his domain names, changes coming to DNForum, the latest semester of DNF College, and his opinions on topics such as IDNs and new top level domain names. Plus, some great advice for people just getting into domain name ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Kite.com UDRP denied, though no RDNH - Panelist tells complainant to go fly a kite. A single member National Arbitration Forum panel has denied a UDRP filed on the domain name Kite.com, but has not found complainant Kite Solutions, Inc. guilty of reverse domain name hijacking. Kite Solutions just got a trademark on “Kite” last year, and Kite.com was registered in 1995. It was pretty much a slam dunk case for the domain name owner, but this case introduced some interesting discussion of what happens when a domain name is leased. The ... read more ...
Fri 8th May 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tucows gets $1.5 million for selling .Online domain name - Registrar gets even figure sum to promote .online for three years. Tucows’ withdraw from a partnership to run the .Online registry has resulted in a $1.5 million gain for the company in return for lending marketing support to the new TLD for three years. The domain name registrar had formed a partnership with Radix and NameCheap to go after the .online top level domain name. The parties ended the partnership earlier this year, allowing Radix to own the top level domain name by itself. Tucows and ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
3D.Software domain name sells for $100,000+ - Big sale illustrates value of premium strategy for new TLD operators. Rightside has sold the domain name 3D.software for a six figure sum, CEO Taryn Naidu revealed on the company’s quarterly financial results call yesterday. The domain name was purchased by Visual Dynamics, a company that creates 3D software used for design. 3D.software resolves to a site similar to Visual Dynamics’ original site, VisualDynamics.com. According to DomainTools’ historical whois records, the domain name was transferred ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Last month's Top 5 Domain Name stories - Two acquisitions highlight top stories on Domain Name Wire last month. Apparently the snow has thawed in Boston, and things are definitely heating up in the domain name name industry. There were two notable acquisitions last month and big changes at Google. Here’s a look back at the top 5 stories on Domain Name Wire last month: 1. GoDaddy acquires Marchex’s domain name portfolio for $28 million– Marchex divested its domain name portfolio of over 200,000 domains, and now GoDaddy has its own ... read more ...
Thu 7th May 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tucows reports continued expansion as mobile services boom - Ting helps Tucows continue to post strong growth. Tucows reported continued revenue growth in an earnings release after the market closed today. The company posted $40.5 million revenue, up from $34.4 million in the same quarter last year and $38.8 million last quarter. Tucows’ Ting group, which offers mobile phone services and is moving into high speed internet, continues to be the growth driver for the company. Quarterly revenue from these services has nearly doubled in the past year and hit ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Rightside posts profit, gets $7.2 million from withdrawing new TLDs - Rightside posts profit and gets big haul from withdrawing new top level domain name applications. Rightside released first quarter earnings after the bell today. The company posted an adjusted EBITDA of $0.6 million and a GAAP profit of $1.9 million. Revenue from Registrar Services (i.e. eNom and Name.com) was $42.0 million, up from $37.5 million in the same quarter last year. Registry Services (i.e. new top level domains and backend services) revenue was $1.6 million, up from just $42,000 in the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Club turns 1 and these 17 registrars are offered domains for $1 - Registrars offer $1 special on .Club domains on first anniversary of launch. .Club is celebrating the one year anniversary of its general availability. As part of the celebration, 17 registrars are offering .Club domain names for about a dollar today only. (See the list at the end of this post). The registry put out an infographic today displaying some of the top level domain’s metrics after one year of .Club. Highlights include: 220,000 paid registrations 73,123 unique registrations 38,665 live ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Expired Domain Name Roundup including Moviez.com for $11k - Joseph Peterson reviews the past week in domain name sales at NameJet. At some point, yours truly will stop pointing out the fault line between Chinese and Western domain sales in these charts, inasmuch as I’m beginning to sound like a broken record! Still, for the benefit of those readers who are just now joining us, I’ll reiterate: Week after week, domain auctions at NameJet are dominated by purchases addressing either the U.S. or the Chinese market; and it’s always a tossup which group ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
One domicile cashes in twice in Verisign Contest - Twice the cash for Florida household. Verisign recently released the second batch of winners in its Internet Official contest. Here are the five that each took home $5,000: KidsCookDinner.com – Kate K, New York NYC SkinnyLA.com – Sarah G Los Angeles, CA SoldiersOnly.com – Alfred M, Jacksonville FL LastSecondFlights.com – Michael S – Wilton CT SeniorBride.com – Terry S., Port Charlotte, FL I couldn’t help but notice that there are now two winners from Port Charlotte, Florida. Last month ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
This week's new TLDs (retroactive edition) - Recapping this week’s domain name launches. It’s been a busy week and I missed doing my weekly new top level domain name preview. A number of interesting domain names launched this week, so I’ll recap what came out and how they did. Top Level Design’s .Design entered early access on May 5. You can pick up the domain names now at a premium, or wait for regular pricing general availability on May 12. Regular pricing seems to be about $50-$70, but some registrars are offering first year discounts. Public ... read more ...
Wed 6th May 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Club domain names by a numbers - A view of how .Club domain names are being used one year after the TLD launched. .Club celebrates the first anniversary of its general availability tomorrow. The top level domain name has eclipsed 200,000 domain names, making it one of the most-registered new top level domain names. What are people doing with these domain names? I once again turned to dataprovider.com to take a look underneath the hood. In a recent crawl, dataprovider was able to reach about three-quarters of the registered .Club ... read more ...