Author Archives: The Domains

About The Domains

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 5K domain names . Michael is also a Director of RightoftheDot.com which is a consultant in the new gTLD space and a broker of super premium domains. Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest this year.

Thu 9th January 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
CentralNic and Co.com Ink Deal - According to a press release we received today, Co.com LLC and CentralNic (LSE: CNIC) announced an agreement today, under which CentralNic will provide the technical registry services to make co.com domain names available through registrars worldwide. With the introduction of co.com, companies who missed out will have a second opportunity to get a generic and global domain name ending in .com at an affordable price. The co.com registry will have an open registration policy, meaning that any company, ... read more ...
 
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Go Daddy Fires Back during AMPAS - Two weeks ago Mike covered the news that The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences which hands out the Oscars had filed another lawsuit against Godaddy under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (“ACPA”). The Hollywood Reporter is out with a story now where Go Daddy claims that the Academy gets special treatment from the judge hearing the case. They go on to say that the judge has a certain affinity for AMPAS because the judge has a daughter who is an actress. From the article: In ... read more ...
 
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Paul Sloan Author Of Mainstream Domain Articles; CNET & Business 2.0 Lands At Coupons.com - Paul Sloan, who has written some of the most read articles about the domain industry is the new head of communications of Coupons.com According to the bizjournals.com, “Coupons.com is among a record group of venture-backed companies that are valued at more then $1 billion.” “In addition to his time at CBS Interactive’s CNET, Sloan has worked at Fortune, Business 2.0, CNN Bloomberg and U.S. News and World Report.” Paul has written about Mike Mann for CNET (Meet the Mann who registered 14,962 ... read more ...
 
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Fairwinds To Host Beyond The Dot Conference In Washington Feb 19th - FairWinds partners is hosting the Beyond the Dot 2014 conference on February 19th in Washington DC The conference will  bring together policymakers, corporate representatives, non-profit staff, government officials, and average Internet users to explore how new gTLDs will change the way we approach Internet navigation, commerce, search, security and more. This conference will be the first about the expansion of the TLD space to be held in the Washington DC area and “the first of its kind to address ... read more ...
Wed 8th January 2014
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18 Year Old Domain InShape.com Saved In UDRP From InShapeClubs.com - In-Shape Health Clubs, LLC who operates under the domain name inshapeclubs.com, just lost its bid to get the domain name inshape.com which was registered way back in 1995. The one member panel however failed to find Reverse Domain Name Hijacking Here are the relevant facts and findings by the one member panel: Complainant registered its IN SHAPE mark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) for use in the field of physical fitness instruction and health services (Reg. No. ... read more ...
 
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Google May Not Be Showing Your Desired Ad To Put More Money in Their Pocket - Alan Mitchell of Calculate Marketing wrote over a year ago that many may be paying too much for their Google Adwords clicks. In an article on Search Engine People he gave this example: To see why, let’s suppose you have four Google AdWords keywords: red bikes red bikes sydney men’s red bikes men’s red bikes sydney All four of your keywords are set to phrase match, meaning that they can only be triggered on Google if the searcher types a search query which includes that keyword as a phrase ... read more ...
 
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Guilty Of RDNH: JJGC Industria E Comercio de Materiais Dentarios S.A. of Curitiba, Brazil - JJGC Industria E Comercio de Materiais Dentarios S.A. of Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil, represented by Baril, Brandão Brofman Advogados (BBB), Brazil has just been found Guilt of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) on the domain name neodent.com. The domain holder represented themselves. Here are the relevant facts and findings by the one member WIPO panel: “The Complainant is based in Brazil but has sales and other operations around the world. Its business is the production, sale, and support of ... read more ...
 
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Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone Launches His Newest Project On a .Co; Jelly.Co - Biz Stone one of the co-founders of Twitter, just launched his newest project on a .Co domain name. Jelly.co Jelly.co is an app which was originally launched on jellyhq.com which is now forwarding to the domain name jelly.co “Using Jelly is kinda like using a conventional search engine in that you ask it stuff and it returns answers. But, that’s where the similarities end. Albert Einstein famously said, “Information is not knowledge.” Knowledge is the practical application of information ... read more ...
 
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Namejet.com Reports $840K In Dec Sales Led By 5.co.uk - Namejet.com reported some $841,000 in domain name sales in December These sales are not all inclusive but  simply are reportable domain name auction sales that took place in December 2013. Sales were led by 5.co.uk which sold for $67,611 Actually .there were plenty of big dollar co.uk sales Personally I got outbid on getcash.com at $33,901 <![CDATA[]]> Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
Tue 7th January 2014
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Cisco Acquires A Domain In Stealth Mode That Represents An Industry They Say is Worth Trillions - Mike did a story the other day about IOT.com and it having a price tag of $2.8 million.  The Internet of Things has become a very hot topic over the last couple years, Cisco has also been busy branding the Internet of Everything or IOE.  IOE.com is now owned by Cisco although the sale was never made public. The name back in the day was first owned by the  International Oceanic Enterprises of Alabama, they were a seafood company doing business as Master Marine. They subsequently let the registration ... read more ...
 
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Afternic/GoDaddy Sell $1.3 Million In Domain Names - Afternic/GoDaddy released its sales report for the week of 12/30/13 – 1/5/14 All sales for the week totalled $1,363,221. The top .com sale was lead by MyTicket.com for $20,000, with the top non-com sale lead by Uber.org for $36,000. Below is the complete report: Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
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Sedo Transactions Total $3.4 Million Over 3 Week Period - Over the past 3 weeks, 1,317 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling $3.4 Million. 49% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings. Highlights of public sales include: · Top .coms: msc.com at 35,000 EUR · Top ccTLD: jobs.ca at 450,000 USD · Top “other” TLD: 3.biz at 12,500 EUR Below is the complete list of transactions between Dec 16th, 2013 and Jan 5, 2014: Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
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Domain Name Game.Cn Sells For a Record $511,000 - According to nicenic.net,the domain name Game.CN sold for $511,972.38. .Cn is the ccTLD for China. According to the story, the domain was a previously reserved .CN domain name Game.CN which was in a public auction, which ended in bidding 3.098 million cny,” with intensive competition of 686 bids in the last hour”. “”That Game.cn broke three million refreshed .CN open bidding history, also won the big honor of most expensive .CN domain name in 2013 But why can Game.CN get so popular? It’s ... read more ...
 
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Overstock Gets Hit With $6.42 Million Fine From California Court Over Boosted Comparison Pricing - According to Wired.com, online retailer Overstock.com got hit with a $6.42 million dollar fine levied by a state California court finding that “Overstock’s price comparison techniques violate the state’s unfair competition and false advertising laws. ” When comparing its prices on products “to those listed by competitors, the judge found, the company is overstating the differences and misleading consumers. In short, the judge ruled that the company must better explain its comparisons on ... read more ...
 
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Afternic Adds China’s 2nd Largest Registrar To Fast Transfer Network: Now Has 18 Of Top 20 - Afternic.com which is owned by Godaddy, today announced their partnership with Xinnet, the second-largest domain registrar in China and 17th-largest registrar in the world. The agreement brings the world’s largest portfolio of fast-transfer domain names to Xinnet customers. With the addition of Xinnet, Afternic Fast Transfer Network, its DLS product now boosts 18 of the top 20 domain name registrars in the world. “Afternic has seen tremendous success in China, which is currently the company’s ... read more ...
Mon 6th January 2014
Written by The Domains in EN
Not Shocking: More People Sign Up For Online Gambling Than Healthcare - New Jersey just released some stats for those signing up for Internet gambling accounts and they seem to be pound for pound doing a lot better than those signing up for Obama Care. I know its shocking. Not. According to Chron.com, around 150,000 people signed up since late November for an online gambling accounts in New Jersey. “As of Monday, there were 148,487 accounts that had been created. But the state’s Gaming Enforcement Division notes that individuals often create separate accounts on ... read more ...
 
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ICANN Is Hiring For Positions In The United States to Belgium to Singapore to Turkey - Looking for a Job? ICANN Is hiring From the United States to Belgium to Singapore to Turkey, if your in need of a Job ICANN is hiring. Current Listings Accounting and Finance Staff Accountant-Receivables (213706-025) Los Angeles, California, United States Board Support Board Support Assistant (213695-025) Los Angeles, California, United States Board Support Content Manager (213696-025) Los Angeles, California, United States Executive Assistant (213712-025) Washington, District of Columbia, United ... read more ...
 
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Leveraging New Opportunities in Emerging Markets For Domains Seminar Set For In London On Jan 29 - The Multilingual Internet Group and Burson-Marsteller are holding a “high level seminar investigating the opportunities and challenges presented by the ‘New Internet’.” Leveraging New Opportunities in Emerging Markets Due to Seismic Change to Global Internet Maximizing Potential of Their Current and Next Multi-Billion Internet Users will be held on Wednesday, January 29, 2014 from 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM (GMT) in London England. The theme of the conference will include how domain names including ... read more ...
 
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Gucci Wins 184 .Org Domains In a UDRP & Not One Is Worth The Registration Fee - Brand holders god love them. Gucci just won the rights to 184 .Org domain names in a single UDRP. I can safety say there is not one of these .org domain names that is even worth the registration fee. Later today I will publish a list of 50 domain names recently dropped that brandholders didn’t even spend $10 to register and I guarantee you everyone of those are worth 1,000 time more than all of these put together.   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...
 
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CNN Covers The Selfie Olympics On Twitter While ICANN Bans Registrations In New gTLD’s - In the domain name space The Olympics have been given the strongest protections including  ICANN prohibiting the registration any new gTLD containing the word Olympics in it. However in the rest of cyberspace the Olympics enjoys no such protection. CNN just covered the “Selfie Olympics” that has been trending on  Twitter. Not only is the word Olympics being used in a way on Twitter and with Twitter handle in a way not permitted in new gTLD land, the Twitter account uses the  logo includes ... read more ...
 
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Washington Post’s 2014 In and Out List: .Com’s are Out, .EverythingElse is in - The Washington Post published its 2014 In and Out list for 2014 a few days ago and one entry hit the domain industry right in the heart. On the In and Out list along with over  60 items, people and products; .Com is out and “.EverythingElse” is in. Other tech related in and outs for 2014 include Out                                        In Bitcoin                               Coin SnapChat                           ... read more ...
Sun 5th January 2014
Written by The Domains in EN
Can A Three Letter Domain Really Be Worth $2.8 Million; Maybe ioT.com (Internet of Things) Is - After reading a lot of article in the tech world,  2013 was the year of Big Data, 2014 is looking to be the year of the Internet of Things (iot). The Internet of Things as short and concise as I have seen it described in  VentureBeat.com, is: “”A new era of ubiquitous computing is taking root and is a game changer. ” “Clearly, the Internet of Things (IoT) is no longer a buzzword but now starts at our fingertips and extends to our shoes, cars, and homes. The promise of this disruptive trend ... read more ...
Fri 3rd January 2014
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Fallout From New gTLD’s: What If Everyone Loses? - After years of debating the topic of how successful the new gTLD program will be and what the effect of new gTLD’s will have on the value of existing extensions including .com. Mostly every post has wound up with people arguing whether .com’s will win or the new gTLD’s will win. Other including myself has voiced the opinion that many new gTLD’s can become quite profitable without any hugely negative effect on the value of existing domain extensions. One possible outcome that I haven’t heard ... read more ...
Thu 2nd January 2014
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Bitcoin.me Sells For $10,000 - Just crossing the Sedo sales wire is the domain name Bitcoin.me which just sold for $10,000 The domain was registered in July 2010. The buyer is Help.org and the domain is being forwarded to Millybitcoin.com Bitcoin.biz sold for $2,800 in March 2013, Bitcoin.im sold for $1,500 in February 2013, Bitcoin.be sold for $1,950 in January 2013. On the other hand Bitcoin.us sold for $17,500 in December 2012 and BitCoin.de sold back in June 2011 when a lot few people had every heard of it and it was trading ... read more ...
 
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SeekingAlpha: “New gTLD’s Pose No Threat To Verisign” - Stock site SeekingAlpha.com just published a blog post entitled New gTLD’s Pose No Threat To Verisign. Verisign (VRSN) is the registry for the .com and .net registry The author of the post is stock analyst Zeus Kerravala, is the founder and principal analyst with ZK Research.  Prior to ZK Research, Zeus Kerravala spent 10 years as an analyst at Yankee Group. Here is part of his post which should brighten the new year for all .com investors: “”I’ve seen a number of news stories over the past ... read more ...