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.

Tue 24th March 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
The state of internal domain names…based on a banking book - Almost all local businesses advertising in a coupon book included a website on their ad. Most coupons in this mailer had a website address on them.How many local companies promote their websites in ads, and what kind of domain names do they use? A coupon book I received in the mail recently gives insight, even though it’s a fairly small sample size. I opened up a coupon mailer the other day from RSVP. It bills itself as “Upscale Offers for Life Home” and most of the coupons are for the same ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
This week's new TLD launches: .Green and .Tires - .Green finally comes to fruition this week. Two Three new top level domain names are available to the public this week. .Green went live this morning and is available at a number of registrars. .Green domain names are available to everyone. Pricing at the three registrars I checked is between $60-$80 for the first year. Earlier this month I spoke with DotGreen Community CEO Annalisa Roger on the Domain Name Wire Podcast. You can listen to the story of the long road to .green and the purpose behind ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Ping and .Srl domain names to be staid Wednesday - Two top level domain names head to the auction block on Wednesday. Auctions to settle contention sets for the .Ping and .SRL top level domain names will take place on Wednesday. The so-called “Auctions of Last Resort” will take place because one of the applicants didn’t want to settle the set in a private auction. Google and mySRL GmbH will square off for .SRL. SRL is similar to Limited Liability Company and is appended to the end of many company names. PING (the golf company) and Radix will ... read more ...
Mon 23rd March 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How Major League Baseball can Boost New Domain Names - If it actually uses its new TLDs, Major League Baseball can have a profound affect on awareness of new domain names. On today’s Domain Name Wire Podcast, Michael Berkens discussed some of the recent new top level domain name auction results. One that I think is interesting is .Baseball, which was won by Major League Baseball (MLB). MLB has been aggressive about buying .com domain names that match team names. It currently owns all but three team names in .com after acquiring Rangers.com for $375,000 ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
2 engaging new TLD-related videos - .Rocks, not .com, and .XYZ. I don’t have any cute cat videos to share with you this Monday, but I have a couple new top level domain name-related YouTube videos might interest readers. In the first one, one of the ten-year-old members of music band V² explains that their website is vsquared.rocks. Not .com, his brother explains: The second video is some footage of .XYZ’s #XYZsquad, commonly known as the purple people, at SXSW in Austin. .XYZ definitely upped the game with its purple people ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New TLD Auction Results with Michael Berkens – DNW Podcast #25 - What do the winners and losers of new TLD auctions mean for the program? Google, Amazon, Donuts…lots of big companies are duking it out in auctions to control top level domain names. The results include a lot of surprises. On this week’s show, fellow blogger and new TLD consultant Michael Berkens talks about who’s winning and losing these auctions, and what the implications are for the new top level domain name program overall. Also: SXSW recap, GoDaddy IPO update, and Donuts launches “Freedom ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Donuts' initial new domain names are starting to drop… - Donuts’ first domain name registrations are starting to drop. Here are initial numbers. Donuts is releasing renewal numbers for its new TLDs daily as the first batch of names exit the auto-renew grace period. Yesterday, Donuts COO and Co-Founder Richard Tindal blogged results for the 6,352 Donuts domains that exited the grace period as of Saturday. Of these, 85.3% were renewed. About one third of these domain names were sunrise registrations, which should have a higher-than-normal renewal rate. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Weebly introduces module for domain name registrars and hosts - Reseller program allows hosts and registrars to offer Weebly website builder tools. Website builder Weebly launched a new program for domain name registrars and webhosts today, enabling them to offer Weebly’s website creation tool to their customers. NameCheap and Endurance International Group (which owns a number of hosting companies and Domain.com) are initial customers of the new Weebly for Hosts. Weebly for Hosts is essentially a reseller program, allowing companies to offer a simple website ... read more ...
Fri 20th March 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The many successful chairman in a domain name attention is… - No surprise at the top, but it gets interesting after that. How most people probably envision dinner with Frank Schilling.This year’s Domain Name Wire Survey asked respondents who the most influential person is in the domain name industry, as well as who they’d most like to have dinner with. Unsurprisingly, domainer-turned-registry/registrar/parking/sales person Frank Schilling was the top vote. 38% of people said Schilling was the most influential person in the industry. Rick Schwartz came in ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
2 Things that could mistreat domain names - Forget new TLDs vs. old TLDs. The industry needs to focus on outside threats, too. Much of the conversation in the domain name industry over the past year has been about this battle between new TLDs and .com. The debate has been about if .com is king or if new TLDs pose a challenge to them. This internal debate has reduced focus on threats from outside the domain name ecosystem: apps and browsers. Apps are an alternative to websites, especially on mobile phones and tablets. Many in the domain industry ... read more ...
Thu 19th March 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Uno domain launches Uno Social Site - Site gives .uno domains away for free, but ensures free domain names will be used. An example Uno Social SiteThe company behind the .uno top level domain name has launched a new social media aggregator called Uno Social Site. Uno Social Site aggregates your data from various social networks (such as Facebook and Twitter) in one place. It also allows you to add additional media. Notably, the free service comes with a free .uno domain name. Registries have been working hard to get people to register ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN bill offer shows new TLDs weaker than expected - As registrars predicted, 2015 forecast was too rosy. ICANN released its 2016 draft FY16 Operating Plan Budget for the fiscal year beginning this July, and it shows weaker-than-expected new top level domain name results in the current year. The group expects just $14.1 million in revenue from new TLDs for FY 2015 (which ends in June). That’s well below the budgeted $19.8 million. That $19.8 million number itself was a shadow of its original proposed forecast after ICANN slashed the number of new ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy sets IPO range, skeleton to lift $400M during adult to $3B valuation - Company sets anticipated range in SEC filing. GoDaddy revealed a planned IPO range of $17.00-$19.00 per share in an SEC filing this morning. At the mid price point of $18.00, GoDaddy will raise $396 million. If it prices at the high end, and its underwriters exercise and option to purchase 3.3 million more shares, it could reach $481 million. If it prices at $19.00 per share, the IPO would value GoDaddy at just shy $2.9 billion. On the low end it will be about $2.6 billion. The private-equity investment ... read more ...
Wed 18th March 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Goldman Sachs and other finish user domain name buys - A Goldman Sachs company was among those buying domain names at Sedo last week. Sedo handled 675 domain name transactions last week for a total of $1.2 million. The top sale was TheRecRoom.com for $89,888. This was clearly an end user purchase, but the domain name’s whois record is protected by privacy. As for the ones that appear with open whois records…Goldman Sachs bought one of the domain names for its AYCO company. Other buyers include a dog breeder, an RV seller, and a storage company. (You ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
LuckyGames.com, BearClaw.com and other Expired Domain Name Sales - Joseph Peterson reviews the past week of expired domain name sales at NameJet. Without the added attraction of money, games of chance are a bit boring compared to games of skill or strategy. So it’s fair to assume LuckyGames.com (with its $9.5k high bid) stands for slot-machine-style gambling rather than chess, basketball, or mine sweeper. Luck rather devalues success, although lottery winners seldom tear up those oversized novelty checks. NameJet’s #2 expired auction from the past week, BearClaw.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
2 impression domain names turn accessible today - Short domain names to be released today. Top level domain name company Rightside is releasing 20,000 two character domain names across its TLDs today at noon EDT. The two character domains to be released include at least one number in them, taking the form of NL.tld, LN.tld or NN.tld. That obviously limits the appeal compared to two letter domains, but two letter domains are still in limbo at ICANN. I would think the better domains are ones typically used as brands (e.g. A1) and ones with specific ... read more ...
Tue 17th March 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Promoting Top Level Domain Names with Google Ads - Verisign is promoting an article about .com when users search for “domain names” on Google. I saw an interesting Google Adwords ad today when searching for “domain names”. Most ads for this search are usually for domain name registrars such as GoDaddy. But this one caught my eye: The ad links to this story on CBSNews.com, and was clearly promoted by .com registry Verisign to keep .com top of mind. This got me thinking about promoting top level domain name choices to people when they turn ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Donuts launches ad debate to boost recognition of new TLDs - Company starts campaign to build awareness of the availability of alternatives to .com domain names. Donuts launched its first major, web-based advertising campaign to raise awareness of new top level domain choices yesterday evening. The “Freedom of Choice” campaign involves display and video advertising targeted to small and medium business owners, entrepreneurs and tech-savvy early adopters. Ads will show on Forbes, Mashable and Fast Company, as well as more general sites such as YouTube and ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
A day in a domain name village during SXSW - Here’s how domain name companies marketed their wares at SXSW this year. Yesterday afternoon I went downtown to see what all of the domain name companies were up to at SXSW in Austin. I started by searching for the .Space grilled cheese sandwich stall. Unfortunately, they had just run out of sandwich materials before I got there. But the company gave away 1,100 .Space-branded sandwiches through yesterday afternoon. Here’s a picture of the GrilledCheese.space stall. Radix founder Bhavin Turakhia ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Trademark King still wants to TM famous outlines and brands - Company submits specimens for many of its dubious trademark applications. Proof of use for a domain name owned by another person?The company that spent about $50,000 trying to trademark what are mostly famous brands, trademarks and common phrases is still pushing on after receiving initial refusals from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Indiana company Trademark King Inc filed over 150 trademark applications around Thanksgiving last year. The applications include a lot of famous brands (e.g. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain parking still falling, according to survey - Revenue still shrinking for many domainers. How low can domain name parking revenue go? Still lower, apparently. That’s according to the approximately 200 people who responded to this year’s Domain Name Wire Survey. 36% of respondents said their 2014 domain name parking revenue was lower than 2013. Only 17% said it was better, while roughly half said it had stabilized. Most domain name parkers have settled on just one domain parking company, rather than working with a bunch. About 40% of people ... read more ...
Mon 16th March 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GMO loses village bid for .Shop domain name - Company scores just six points in evaluation. GMO Registry has lost is Community Priority Evaluation (CPE) for the .Shop top level domain name. The company scored 6 points out of a possible 16 on its CPE, falling well short of the 14 required. It scored no points for Community Establishment and Nexus. It picked up a handful for registration policies because of some basic registration restrictions. It also scored some on Community Endorsement, mostly because there was no opposition. The decision is ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Crowdsourcing and Domains with Ryan Noble – DNW Podcast #24 - Crowdsource.com and finding good domain names using the crowd. Ryan Noble has built a big business on Crowdsource.com. In this episode, he’ll explain how his company helps big brands tap into large pools of remote workers to complete big projects. He also discusses how the company uses great domains like Write.com and Transcribe.com to drive business. Ryan also explains the fascinating way he uses crowdsourcing to discover great domain names to register. Also: Domain Name Wire turns 10, SXSW invades ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Froyo and sandwiches starting conversations about new TLDs during SXSW - Free food with a sales pitch. Sedo’s Solomon Amoako (left) and Jeremiah Johnston enjoy some domain-filled frozen yogurt.Spreading awareness of choice in top level domain names isn’t easy. One-on-one conversations might be the best way to explain what they are and why you might want one. That’s the idea behind promotions by Sedo and Radix at this year’s SXSW conference in Austin. Sedo set up a food truck in a downtown area with high foot traffic and is offering free frozen yogurt. People have ... read more ...
Fri 13th March 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
NameJet Expired Domain Report - Frank Schilling made a comment yesterday regarding NameJet that I believe is significant – and not because it’s anything new … rather the opposite. Many people, myself included, have observed rising final auction prices and speculated about the intermixture of wholesale and retail purchases at NameJet going back at least a year. So why does it matter (and it does) that Frank Schilling calls the present an “interesting moment where the line between wholesale and retail is getting closer ... read more ...