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.

Sun 22nd February 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
DNW has been rested – take a look - The site looks similar, but it should run better. You might not notice anything different when you visit Domain Name Wire today. But under the hood, the site has been completely redone. It should now load faster and work better in more browsers, with better responsiveness for mobile devices. If you experience any glitches or problems on the site, please first try to do a hard refresh or clear your cache. If the problem persists, I’d be grateful if you can send an email to me at editor (at) domainnamewire.com ... read more ...
Fri 20th February 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Guy takes third gash during MySchool.com with lawsuit - Owner of MySchool411.com really wants MySchool.com, preferably without paying for it. If at first you don’t succeed, try try again. That’s apparently Joseph Carpenter’s belief. Carpenter runs the site MySchool411.com. He filed a UDRP against MySchool.com in 2010 and lost. He filed another one last year and lost again. Now he has filed an in rem lawsuit (pdf) against the domain name in a third attempt to get the domain name without buying it. The lawsuit uses the Uniregistry whois privacy on ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
So we got a call from Register.com this week… - Registrar called about a renewal, and it was strange. If you have any domain names at a Web.com registrar (Register.com and Network Solutions), you know the company is big on marketing to its customer base. You literally get one email every day from the company, promoting everything from search engine optimization to Facebook pages. Most of them end up in your spam folder. This week I got a call from Register.com that was helpful in one way, but disconcerting in another. I won a domain name in a ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Brand.com domain name goes behind on a market - Company that acquired domain name in 2013 is changing business models. The owner of Brand.com, which bought the domain name for $500,000 in 2013, is putting the domain name back on the market. ReputationChanger.com acquired the domain name in 2013 and rebranded as simply Brand.com. Now Brand.com is changing its business focus to a news-related business model (and corresponding name) and no longer needs Brand.com. The short, five letter .com domain has a number of potential uses. Before the current ... read more ...
Thu 19th February 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Highlights from Rightside Q4 financier call - Domain name company Rightside (NASDAQ: NAME) reported results today. Rightside reported fourth quarter and full year financials for 2014 after the bell today. The company had earnings of $1.5M for Q4, and adjusted EBITDA of $0.6M. For the year it turned in a net loss of ($1.9M) and adjusted EBITDA of ($3.1M). I just listened to the conference call, and here are some of the highlights from the quarter: The company got $7.8 million for losing new top level domain name auctions. In Q3 it reported $8.6 ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
gTLD Food Truck entrance to Austin during SXSW - Sedo to promote top level domain name choices during SXSW. Sedo is bringing its “gTLD frozen yogurt” marketing idea to Austin next month during the SXSW conference. The company partnered with registries for a similar program during dmexco in Cologne last September. Sedo served frozen yogurt with toppings, and the toppings were all named after different TLDs. For example, someone who wants their froyo topped with chocolate sauce and sprinkles might have to order it “with .club and .sexy on top”. In ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How to Get a Lowest Prices during GoDaddy - GoDaddy has a bunch of pricing tiers and discounts. The best deal depends a lot on the size of your domain name portfolio. If you’re a domainer, you shouldn’t be paying list price for domain name registrations at GoDaddy (or any registrar, for that matter). Since a lot of readers use GoDaddy, I thought it worthwhile to run down the various discount options at the registrar. Price is one of the most important considerations when choosing a domain name registrar, according to last year’s Domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
39 some-more End User domain name sales - 39 recent end user domain name sales at Sedo. Over the past week, Sedo’s network sold 538 domains totaling $1.2 million. As usual, I’ve done some research and compiled this list of 39 transactions where I’ve detected a specific end user. Some domains actually sold during a prior week but have only just emerged from escrow for inspection. At the moment, several of last week’s larger purchases – including Shein.com ($95k) and HOOQ.com ($50k) – remain indeterminate. 1Bridge.com ($999) ... read more ...
Wed 18th February 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Top domain apparently regulating spam to get to a Top - New TLD registry sends spam to people who have registered other new TLDs. [Update: See statement from the .Top registry below.] How do you get attention for your new top level domain name in a crowded field? One new top level domain name company has apparently resorted to sending lots of unsolicited email — and likely scraping Whois to do it. .Top is currently ranked #9 in terms of registrations, surely helped by a 99 cent price tag at some registrars. The company behind it, Jiangsu Bangning Science ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Amazon goes large on city .Delivery domain names - Company registers major city domain names in new .delivery top level domain name. Whether by drone or by truck, Amazon is improving delivery. Just expect more innovation in Denver than Detroit.Amazon.com is obsessed with improving delivery, from its local locker pickup to Sunday delivery to delivery by drone. So perhaps it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that the company registered a bunch of city.delivery domain names when they became available earlier this month. Here are some of the top 30 ... read more ...
Tue 17th February 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Donuts launches Name.Kitchen to marketplace new domains - Site promotes alternatives to .com domain names. Donuts, the largest new top level domain name company, promised it would rev up its marketing in 2015. Here’s one example of that, in the form of content marketing: Name.Kitchen. The new site has articles and ideas about new domain names and promises: …a kitchen atmosphere around the subject of name creation. It is especially geared toward entrepreneurs (aka “business chefs”) scratching their heads for ideas. We offer inspiration on cooking ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Xixia.com during $19k and other NameJet Expired Domain Name Sales - Reviewing the past week of expired domain name sales at NameJet. China reclaims the top spot among this past week’s expired domain auctions at NameJet. For 12 out of the past 30 weeks, the top sale (out of the auctions I’ve covered) has been attributable to the Chinese domain market. Last week, CarAds.com reigned supreme. This time it’s Xixia.com ($19.5k), a county in Henan province or (alternatively) a district of Yinchuan city. The phrase NewLogic.com suggests disruptive innovation. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New TLDs on daub this week: .Yoga, .Sydney, .Cricket & more - A half dozen more new TLDs make their entrance this week. Six new top level domain names debut this week, with .Sydney already having launched yesterday. Here’s a rundown. .Sydney – this Australian geo domain name launched yesterday. The domain isn’t carried by some of the bigger U.S. registrars, but some of the major Australian registrars have it. They aren’t cheap. Instra is asking $85. For some reason MelbourneIT quoted me $240, which must be for multiple years. The rest of this week’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
NameBio upgraded with pivotal new comps feature - Upgraded domain name sales database makes it easier to find comps when buying and selling domain names. Domain name sales database NameBio.com has been overhauled, and one of the new features should prove useful when searching for sales comps for domain name sales. Adam Strong brought in domainer and developer Michael Sumner to assist with the new site, which includes more data sources and a better mobile browsing experience. Domain names have also been split into 250 categories (underneath ten main ... read more ...
Mon 16th February 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Watch Daniel Negari plead new TLDs on NBC Bay Area - Negari goes on NBC’s Press:Here to discuss .xyz and new top level domains. Just over one year ago ICANN’s Akram Atallah went on NBC Bay Area’s Press:Here show to discuss new top level domain names. The same program interviewed .XYZ founder Daniel Negari in a show published Friday. You can see the interview below. (Daniel is also this week’s Domain Name Wire podcast guest.) Press:Here is a weekly roundtable that features Silicon Valley tech reporters. This past week Michal Lev-Ram of Fortune ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Just how most did .Blog and .Store sell for? - Here’s a rough idea. On Friday I wrote about Minds + Machines and its payoff for losing the .blog and .store domain name auctions. Primer Nivel won the auction for .blog and Radix walked home with .Store. How much did they pay for these domain names? We don’t know for sure based on the data Minds + Machines disclosed, but we can get a general idea of the combined total. Minds + Machines pocketed $3.4 million. This includes its proceeds from these two auctions plus its refund from ICANN for withdrawing ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.XYZ and new TLDs with Daniel Negari – DNW Podcast #20 - How .XYZ became the most registered new top level domain name. Daniel Negari’s .XYZ domain name is the most registered new top level domain name by far, with about 800,000 registrations. But this hasn’t come without controversy. In this episode, Daniel talks about that controversy, how he got started with domain names, why he’s selling his .com’s and his plans for other new top level domain names. Also: Taylor Swift’s questionable domain registration, Sonic.net rebrands as just Sonic, ... read more ...
Fri 13th February 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
A summation of NameJet's record month - NameJet set a record during January with the most sales over $2k it has ever reported – 148 domain auctions in all. Its previous record was 131 sales back in December 2013. To put that in perspective, NameJet’s top month during all of 2014 scored only 105 sales; and its 2014 monthly mean was 78. Just 8 more sales, and the market place would have doubled last year’s average. At the same time, NameJet’s highest sale during January ($29.1k) was below average – ranking 24th out of 44 months ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
34 new tip turn domains accommodate their predestine in a subsequent 45 days - It’s auction mania for new TLDs. Winners and losers will be made in the new top level domain name program over the next 45 days as 34 domain names reach their deadline for contention set resolution. ICANN has scheduled 14 domain names for auction on February 25 and another 20 on March 25. Few of these contention sets won’t be resolved by the auction dates. Already, two hotly contested domain names on the docket for this month have been settled: .blog and .store. .Blog had 9 contenders and .store ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Minds + Machines gets .DDS, pockets millions from .store and .blog - Company adds to its cash pile as .dds, .store and .blog are settled. New top level domain name company Minds + Machines announced today that it has won the contention set for the .dds domain name, beating Google. DDS is short for “Doctor of Dental Surgery” and is the designation that most U.S. dental schools give graduates. Dentists often display their titles as “Jan Smith, DDS”. The domain name faces a bit of competition, including .dentist and .dental. Minds + Machines also lost a seven ... read more ...
Thu 12th February 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Texas Rangers get Rangers.com for $375k, MLB now blank only 3 group names - Major League Baseball adds one domain name to its collection, but three still elude it. The Texas Rangers are now found at Rangers.comDNJournal’s weekly domain name sales list includes Major League Baseball’s $375,000 purchase of Rangers.com, making it the 28th team name the league has acquired in .com. I’ve been watching MLB’s team names for a while as they’ve slowly tried to complete their collection. As of 2013 they were missing just four domain names. At the time, I said Rangers.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Why Sonic.net rebranded as Sonic, and how it got Sonic.com - Nearly decades after it was founded, Sonic.net acquired the matching .com domain name and rebranded. After 20 years of being known as Sonic.net, the California ISP and telecom rebranded as merely “Sonic” after acquiring Sonic.com.When Dane Jasper co-founded California ISP and telecom company Sonic.net in 1994, he settled on .net because the .com was already taken. Another California company, Sonic Solutions, had registered Sonic.com the year before. Using a .net didn’t seem like a big problem ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
36 End User Domain Name Purchases - Here are 36 domain names sold at Sedo recently that were acquired by end users. Sedo had another strong batch of sales last week: 12 spanning $10k – $18k and another 4 ranging from $35k all the way up to $150k. Most of the big-ticket items couldn’t be pinned down conclusively – either because the domains are unused and under privacy or because the transfers remain incomplete. One $60k purchase – Employer.com – can be ascribed to a domain investor, but I haven’t yet asked him whether ... read more ...
Wed 11th February 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Online partnership splits, one association will work new TLD - Companies end .online partnership, but all three will help market the domain name. A three company partnership for the .online top level domain name has broken up, and it appears Radix will now run the domain name by itself. A partnership between Radix, Tucows and NameCheap won the contention set auction for .online last year, reportedly paying more than $10 million for the domain name. All three parties then made capital contributions to the partnership to cover the cost of the auction and running ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Taylor Swift registers ITaughtTaylorSwiftHowToGiveHead.com (no joke) - Domain name registered at MarkMonitor today after guitar teacher domain name makes the news. New York Daily News reported yesterday about Taylor Swift going after her former guitar teacher, who registered the domain name ITaughtTaylorSwift.com. Her management company apparently sent him a demand letter, stating that the domain name includes her “famous Taylor Swift trademark” in its entirety. Sometimes when this happens, companies defensively register other domain names to protect themselves. ... read more ...