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 4th November 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Why Endurance bought BuyDomains, and because a cost competence make sense - BuyDomains is a natural fit for Endurance, and you need to look at more than price-per-domain to understand its value. Endurance International, a $2.1 billion (market cap) rollup of hosting and domain name companies, announced this morning that it acquired BuyDomains from NameMedia. The tie-up makes sense for Endurance, which is generally considered the #2 domain name registrar in terms of domains under management. It will now be able to sell its massive customer ... read more ...
Mon 3rd November 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
October’s Top 5 Stories on Domain Name Wire - A look back at last month in the domain name industry. Halloween has passed and the holiday season is quickly approaching. Last month’s big domain name news included bullish analyst reports on new TLDs, a Big Apple domain, and zero click traffic. Here are the top five stories from last month in order of most views. 1. Analyst: new TLDs to hit $500 million in 3 years – B. Riley Analyst Sameet Sinha issued a report estimating the revenue potential of new TLDs will ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.OOO runs another full page, front page journal ad - They’re spending big bucks, but they’ll have to back it up with results rather than just lies and predictions. Last month I wrote about Infibeam, the company behind the new domain name .ooo, and its front page ad on the Times of India. It has returned with another front page ad – including the inside front page. The inside page of the ad, which you can see here, talks about Infibeam’s vision for the domain name. I don’t know if I’d call it a vision or ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Michael Bloomberg’s waggish .NYC domain name registrations - Michael Bloomberg protects himself in .NYC. Who is one of the new .NYC domain name’s top registrants? None other than former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Or a law firm representing him, to be more specific*. I count 400 domain names that appear to have been registered on Bloomberg’s behalf. Many of them seem like reasonable registrations to protect his interests: bloombergfamilyfoundation.nyc bloomberggiving.nyc officialmikebloomberg.nyc But there are ... read more ...
 
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Domain Appraisals with Estibot’s Luc Lezon – Domain Name Wire Podcast #5 - Listen to Domain Name Wire Podcast #5. What’s a domain name worth? It’s the key question whenever you buy or sell a domain name. That’s part of the reason people use Estibot.com to appraise 1.8 million domain names a day. Automated domain name valuations are not without their critics. On this week’s podcast, we chat with the guy behind the Estibot service, Luc Lezon. We discuss some of the factors in the Estibot algorithm, the challenges of domain valuation ... read more ...
Fri 31st October 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN
Domain Name Wire Podcast is now on iTunes - Listen to the Domain Name Wire Podcast on your iOS or Android device. The Domain Name Wire Podcast is now on iTunes, giving you one more way to listen to the show each week. You can find the podcast by visiting this link on your Apple device. iOS users can subscribe to the podcast and listen each week on your iPhone or iPad. I’d also be grateful if you take a moment to review the show! Android users (and iOS fans as well) can listen to the show through the Stitcher ... read more ...
Thu 30th October 2014
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Expired Domain Report: a clever .net sale and more - Joseph Peterson takes a look at the past week in the expired domain name market. There has been some discussion this past year among domain investors about the market outlook for .NET domains. Traditionally, .NET has played second fiddle to .COM for the most part, and some predict that wave after wave of new TLD releases can only erode .NET’s position. Just last week, a DNW reader expressed the view that “.NET is slowly dying”. Not everyone shares that opinion, ... read more ...
 
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“Creepy” .Com videos get 600k watches, here are 2 some-more [Watch] - If you thought “Fish on a Bus” was weird, wait until you see “Bee in a Bar”. Last week Verisign released videos under its new marketing campaign “Make Your Idea Internet Official”. The videos have been described in a number of ways, with “creepy” being one of them. Yeah, “Fish on a Bus” is certainly creepy. Both videos have soared to 300,000 views on YouTube. I have no idea how Verisign is promoting these videos and if it is buying views. But ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.ooo owners Infinibeam isn’t only crazy, it’s a misinformation machine - Company is spreading a lot of incorrect information about domain names. I was rather amused when Infibeam, the Indian ecommerce company behind .ooo, announced its bold ambitions for the domain name last month. I figured it was just a publicity stunt. Kevin Murphy called the company’s sales targets including millions of first year registrations “batshit crazy”. I filed Infinbeam in the “PR stunt” file, or perhaps the “delusional” file. Then yesterday ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Does auctioning off a new TLD to a top bidder set adult failure? - Why did losers not value the domain name as high as the winner? Let me start by saying I’m not a big fan of the idea of community priority and similar mechanisms for determining which applicant gets a particular top level domain name. But I’ve also been thinking lately about the auction process and its effect on the long term health of new top level domain names. When an auction is used to resolve a new top level domain name contention set, the company with the ... read more ...
 
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Neustar reports earnings, .Co grossed $4.4 million final quarter - .Co acquisition helps boost revenue at Neustar. Neustar reported third quarter earnings after the bell today. The company, which operates .us, .biz and .co, reported a 7% lift in revenue and a 1% increase in net income compared to the third quarter of 2013. A big growth driver was the addition of .Co, which the company acquired in March. .Co added $4.4 million to the revenue line during the third quarter. Neustar originally reported the purchase price of .Co as $109 ... read more ...
Wed 29th October 2014
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Critics contend Google is “Hispandering” with new .Soy domain name - If the company is Hispandering, it’s also mompandering and corporationpandering. New top level domain name registries offering regional, niche, or cultural domains, take note: the people you’re targeting might take it the wrong way. That’s apparently the case with .soy. Google’s new domain name isn’t targeted to yuppies who don’t like cow’s milk. It’s targeted to the Hispanic community. “Soy” is Spanish for “I am”. But some people in the community ... read more ...
 
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21 finish user domain name sales during Sedo - A sex toy company, pet food seller and Big Blue bought domain names last week. Sedo sold $1 million worth of domain names last week, including some to big name buyers. It looks like IBM even got into the mix. Here’s a list of 21 end user sales at the marketplace last week: (You can view previous lists like this here. If you’d like to learn how to sell your domain names like these on Sedo, download this report.) ShowReel.co.uk 1,500 GBP – Guy Harris, male voiceover ... read more ...
 
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Domain Holdings sole scarcely $10 million in domain names final quarter - …and 98% of sales were .com. Domain Holdings’ outbound domain name sales machine continued to churn last quarter, with the company selling $9.55 million worth of domains in Q3. That’s down slightly from the $9.9 million it sold in Q2, but that quarter included a $5.0 million sale. The biggest transaction in Q3 was $2.7 million. And compared to Q1…it’s up nearly 3x. Here’s some other interesting data from Domain Holdings’ quarterly sales report: 28% of ... read more ...
Tue 28th October 2014
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Radix gets .site as Google participates in a private auction - Radix tops Google and three others to win .site domain name. New top level domain name company Radix has secured the .site domain name, the company announced on social media this morning. That means the company has .website, .site and is still in the running to complete the trifecta with .web. Particularly interesting is that Google was in the contention set for .site. To my knowledge, the company has been a holdout for participating in private resolution of new TLD ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Feedback skeleton to gold feedback height with domain names - .Feedback domain names will come with a full-fledged feedback system. Jay Westerdal’s company Top Level Spectrum has submitted a request to ICANN to offer a feedback platform combined with its forthcoming .feedback top level domain name. The platform would mean that .feedback registrants could almost instantaneously launch a site on their domain names with a full-fledged feedback system. They could just register the domain and then log in to set up the site. In ... read more ...
 
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Amazon.com heading competence tip off skeleton for new tip turn domain names - Trademark application covers registry services related to selling domain names to the public. What does Amazon.com plan to do with top level domain names it is the registry for? Does it still plan to earmark them for just Amazon.com’s use? Is it just for defensive purposes? Or will it promote them to consumers? We don’t know much, but a recent trademark application provides some possible hints. Earlier this month, Amazon filed an intent-to-use trademark application ... read more ...
 
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TLD Registry opens Chinese domicile and names GM - Chinese IDN registry opens office in “China’s Silicon Valley”. TLD Registry, the company behind the Chinese IDNs Dot Chinese Online (.在线) and Dot Chinese Website (.中文网), has opened a Chinese headquarters and named a new General Manager for China. The company’s China headquarters is in Beijing’s Zhongguancun, commonly known as “China’s Silicon Valley”. Last Friday’s opening party was attended by Embassy of Finland‘s Minister Commercial, ... read more ...
Mon 27th October 2014
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.XYZ harnesses a energy of .Com to foster the domain names - Company uses com.com to market .xyz domain names. Regardless of what you think about its approach, I’ve got to hand it to .xyz. The top level domain is trying a bunch of creative marketing and sales tactics. Here’s one a reader just tipped me off to: the company is using the com.com “typo” to inform people about available .xyz domain names. Depending on which domain name .com.com you type in, .xyz will give you a pitch for .xyz. For example, type in baseball123.com.com ... read more ...
 
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Domain Name Wire Podcast #4: Ron Jackson recaps this year’s domain name sales - Listen to Domain Name Wire Podcast #4. What impact has the launch of hundreds of new top level domain names had on the domain name market? In this episode of the Domain Name Wire podcast, DNJournal editor Ron Jackson recaps year-to-date domain name sales and discusses recent sales trends. He also talks about how he got started in domain investing and the types of domain names he selling these days. It’s a can’t-miss episode. Also: the economics of private vs. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
This week’s new TLD launch - Slim pickings for new top level domain names this week. You might notice something subtle in the title of this post. It’s singular. That’s because, as best I can tell, just one publicly available domain name is entering general availability this week: .saarland. Saarland is a German state. The domain name launches on Thursday for about $30 retail. The claims period for .brand domain name .bnpparibas also start this week. If you count early access, two more domain ... read more ...
 
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Turkish grill sequence guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking - Develi Restaurant chain guilty of abusing UDRP. A restaurant in Turkey has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name develi.com. The complainant runs a restaurant chain called Develi and uses the domain name DeveliKebap.com. A key problem for the complainant was that Develi is also the name of a city in Turkey. Although the complainant has trademarks including “Develi”, these are figurative marks as part of a drawing. In fact, when ... read more ...
Sun 26th October 2014
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ICANN: no preference nonetheless on Morocco meeting - Organization is considering its options due to possible travel restrictions. ICANN today responded to rumors about postponing next February’s meeting in Morocco by saying it has not yet made a decision. However, it confirmed that it is considering a postponement related to the Ebola outbreak. While Morocco itself is not at the center of the outbreak in Western Africa, host officials are concerned that future travel restrictions might limit the ability for people ... read more ...
Fri 24th October 2014
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Why .com had a good entertain (and .net didn’t ) - Thank the Chinese and discount pricing for continued demand for .com domain names. Verisign handled 8.7 million new registrations in .com and .net in the third quarter this year, the most ever in a third quarter. That amounted to 1.15 million domain names added to the namespace. The addition was basically all in .com, as .net continued a flat/slow decline. So why did .com do so well? And why did .net flounder? Here’s Verisign’s viewpoint, gleaned from its Verisign’s ... read more ...
 
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Over 200 lapsed domain name sales [results] - Joseph Peterson reviews the past week of expired domain name auctions. It will surprise some people that the country responsible for last week’s #2 Namejet expired auction is Turkey. Kemer.com ($11.4k) describes a seaside resort region. No, Italy, Greece, and Spain are not the only countries on the Mediterranean. ICANN has offices in Turkey, and so do domain investors. Meanwhile, there’s nothing surprising about the $16k sale of 9135.com. China has deep pockets ... read more ...