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.

Fri 16th January 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
China to set adult $6.5 Billion Government Venture Capital Fund - China is looking to set up a $6.5 Billion venture capital fund. The Financial Times mentioned that, the launch of the government-sponsored VC fund will be apart of China’s efforts at financial reform. China will set up a government venture capital fund worth 40 billion yuan ($6.5 billion) to support start-ups in emerging industries, in its latest move to support the private sector and foster innovation. “The establishment of the state venture capital investment guidance fund, with the focus to ... read more ...
Thu 15th January 2015
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Donuts Beats Google, Amazon, Dish Network, Radix, Famous Four To .Movie New gTLD - Donuts has won the rights to operate the new gTLD .Movie beating out 7 other applicants including publicly traded Google, Amazon, and  Dish Network. .Movie was the last new gTLD scheduled to go to the ICANN last resort auction in January and was apparently settled by private auction. The other applicants that have now withdrawn their applications for .Movie were Radix, Famous Four, ARI Registry Services, and NU Dot Co LLC,  the company that sold the .Co registry to Neustar for $109 million dollars. As ... read more ...
 
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New gTLD Domain Name Registrations Top 4 Million - The number of domain names registered using a gTLD new domain name extension has topped over 4 million domain names according to ntldstats.com. The official total according to ntldstats.com is 4,010,951. Not too much has changed since our post when the number of new gTLD domain name registrations passed 3.5 million million mark. Over 350,000 of the 500,000 additional domain registrations have been added by the registry that is operating the IDN of .网址 which Translates to “website/net address” ... read more ...
 
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1st Day New gTLD Totals: .World 5,081; .Degree 160; .Gives 158 - Three new gTLD’s entered General Availability (GA) yesterday and after the first day,  including all registration in the Sunrise period by trademark holders and including those domain names registered for an extra fee in the Early Access Program (EAP) here are the total number of registrations: .World 5,081 .Degree 160 .Gives 158 We have already written twice about .World as we saw that .World was going to be a pretty hot extension coming out of the gate. Donuts made quite a bit of money on .World ... read more ...
 
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New gTLD Statistics and Business Implications -

Dot TBA and TLD Watch put on a display during NamesCon that took a demeanour behind during 2014 and what insights were gained. The 29 page PDF is filled with stats and graphs and is positively value reading and saving if we have any seductiveness in a new extensions. Download a PDF here

Via: thedomains.com

 
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View The Space Gets $3.3 M Investment From Blackstone & Buys/Rebrands As VTS.com - VTS (formerly View The Space) announced today that they received a $3.3M strategic investment from real estate private equity funds managed by Blackstone (NYSE:BX). The company also announced they have re-branded View The Space as VTS.  The company acquired the domain name VTS.com around January 8th. The previous owner of the domain was the Del Mar Electronics Show of La Jolla, California. I did not see the domain sale for VTS.com reported anywhere. ViewTheSpace.com still resolves but to the same ... read more ...
 
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Sofia Vergara Wins Rights To SofiaVergara.org - Sofia Vergara has won control of the domain name SofiaVergara.org which the domain owner alleged was a fan site for the Golden Globe, Primetime Emmy Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award nominated actress who currently stars in the Emmy Award winning television series, Modern Family. Ms. Vergara appears to own SofiaVergara.com which is registered to the World Entertainment Agency of Miami. Here are the  relevant facts and findings from the one person UDRP panel decision issued by WIPO Arbitration ... read more ...
 
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Quiksilver Ready To Surf The New gTLD Wave - Brand Channel published an article today about Quiksilver, the largest surfwear brand in the world, adding a .surf into the mix. The company released a press release that they were going to use the new gtld for social media (they have millions of followers) and to differentiate their business segments. This is how I have envisioned new gtlds being used, the .com or cctld being the hub and then using new gtlds as satellites for campaigns or certain business segments. Roxy is a sister brand of Quiksilver ... read more ...
Wed 14th January 2015
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Bitcoin Drops Below $200 - Bitcoin slipped below $200 today and traded down as low as $179 and change. Ruth Reader covered it for Venture Beat: Very early this morning the coin’s price fell below the $200 mark to $179.13, before somewhat rebounding. As of this writing the coin is worth $194.29. Yesterday, the value of Bitcoin started descending quickly. Its value depreciated from its opening price of $267 to a low of $224 by 4 a.m. PT, according to Coindesk’s chart. Those who watch the market have long said that ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Domain Diction joins army with UK group C8 Consulting - According to a press release we revived, DomainDiction, “a marketing agency dedicated to the domain industry, announce that it is merging with UK based PR and marketing consultancy C8 Consulting, significantly strengthening its capability to service more clients in the domain space. Over the past three years DomainDiction has worked with a great number of the industry’s players from Neustar, Nominet, ICANN, Minds+Machines, Uniregistry, .Global, .Luxury, .Uno and many more. Now DomainDiction vastly ... read more ...
 
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NamesCon Official Auction Results $990,851 Led by HomeCare.com and Wine.Club - NamesCon Official Auction Results $990,851 – Some have asked me was Wine.Club like Coffee and Vegas ? A 10 year payment plan, Michael has told me no it was a straight cash buyer. Extended will have names on Thursday morning. Buyers and Sellers from Live will begin getting communication before the weekend. 87 out of the 134 lots sold for an impressive sell through rate.   ... read more ...
 
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Sedo’s Transactions Total $1.6 million led by PutzFrau.de during 32,000 Euros - Over the past week, 593 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling $1.6 Million 58% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings. Highlights of public sales are: Top .coms: jupl.com at 12,500 USD Top ccTLD: putzfrau.de at 32,000 EUR which translates to cleaning lady in German. Top “other” TLD: italian.club at 5,000 USD   Here are the reportable sales:   ... read more ...
Tue 13th January 2015
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Auction Day At NamesCon: All You Need to Know + How To Bid If You’re In Vegas Or Not - Today is the live domain name auction at Namescon.com that will be conducted by RightoftheDot.com with online bidding and viewing on SnapNames.com So here is all of the information you need to know: If you’re in Vegas the Event starts at 4:30 PST with drinks and food and social networking. The actual auction should start around 5:15-5:30 PST which is 8:15-8:30pm EST 1:30 am GMT (Wednesday),  but can start a few minutes earlier or later so if you’re not in Vegas log into SnapNames by 5:15 and ... read more ...
 
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Google Domains Now Open to All in The U.S. – Over 60 new gtlds now accessible for registration - Google Domains is now opened to anyone in the U.S. they are also offering over 60 new gtlds for registration. TechCrunch is reporting that Google Domains is now available to anyone who wants an account From the article: Google said at the time its service also includes phone support, indicating Google’s intention to market it more to business customers. To date, thousands of testers have signed up and registered domains during the private testing, but Google didn’t release exact numbers. Additionally, ... read more ...
 
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The New gTLDs and SEO - Roland LaPlante wrote a piece on Circle ID about new gtlds and SEO. Roland works at Afilias and it is safe to say he is an advocate of the new gtlds with Afilias having a vested interest. There are readers who are trying their hand at developing a new gtld or two so this article may be helpful for those who have questions and concerns with regards to SEO. From the article: With the arrival of hundreds of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), many marketers are excited that they can now get a web ... read more ...
Mon 12th January 2015
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Worst URS Decision of 2015: Telethon.Club Ordered Suspended On Complaint Of French TM Holder - The Association Francaise Contre Les Myopathies of Evry, France has won a Uniform Rapid Suspension on the seemingly very generic domain name Telethon.Club The Examiner Ahmet Akguloglu, who received the Complaint on January 6th issued the decision today January 12th although the domain was just registered on December 9th. Here are the finding of Facts: The Complainant claimed that TELETHON is a French fund-raising event which takes place the first week-end of December every year with the help of hundreds ... read more ...
 
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B2B Digital Marketing Trends for 2015 - In a post on BDB.co.uk the author Rachael took a look at digital marketing trends for the upcoming year, the changing or possible extinction of the homepage was number two on that list. The premise behind the end of the homepage stems from our mulit device universe. How sites act and react with smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc… Personally I think the homepage will stay in tact, I do agree about using certain naming conventions or new gtlds for specific campaigns. I think this is how the new gtlds ... read more ...
 
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.World Gets 285 Registrations On Day 5 OF Early Access Making Donuts $45K In Just EAP Fees - At least 285 domain names were registered on day 5 of the Early Access Program for the new gTLD .World. At Godaddy.com a day 5 EAP registration for a .World domain has a rack rate of $179.99 That’s around  $45,000 just in Early Access Fees that Donuts collected on Sunday based off of Godaddy’s price. The regular price to register a .World domain name is $23.99 at Godaddy.com once it opens up for general availability on Wednesday. Of course many of the domain name registered on day five were ... read more ...
 
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Google Sees Its Search Share Slip and Yahoo Sees A Rise On Mozilla Deal - StatCounter reports that Google has seen its search share slip to its lowest level ever in the U.S. In the meantime Yahoo is being buoyed by their new deall with Mozilla that makes them the default search engine. NewsEveryday reported: Google search share has slipped to lowest ever in U.S. – 75.2 percent from 79.3 percent last year, according to an independent analytics firm. On the other hand, Yahoo Search has managed to score its highest share in five years – 10.4 percent, up by 3 percent ... read more ...
Sun 11th January 2015
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Our Top 10 Picks From The ROTD Auction At NamesCon For .Vegas; .Wiki, .XYZ & .ink Domains - Here are my top 10 picks from the RightoftheDot.com domain name auction to be held at Namescon on Tuesday for a few new gTLD’s; .Vegas, .Wiki/.Ink, and .XYZ. Of course .XYZ has more domain names registered than any other new gTLD. .Wiki and .ink are owned by the same registry so we combined them and .Vegas speaks for itself Most of the domains are at no reserve although some do already have pre-bids on Snapnames.com .Vegas .Wiki/.ink .XYZ   ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
After 10 UDRP Wins On “Tractor Supply” Domains, This Co. Now Wants To Own The Word “Traveller” Too - Tractor Supply Co. of Texas, has filed and won 10 UDRP’s on domain names that include the term “Tractor Supply” which is  a pretty generic term by nature, but clearly in the domain world they control that term. Now the company has their eye’s set on the word Traveller which is the alternative to the word Traveler. I say alternative because if you search for traveller in Google it returns about 122,000,000 results. The Texas company filed a UDRP on the domain name traveller.tools I have no ... read more ...
 
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Amazon Wow’s Us & Beats Google and Rightside To Win The .Wow New gTLD - Amazon (AMZN) is the proud owner of the new gTLD .WOW as both Google (GOOG) and Rightside (NAME) have withdrawn their applications. .Wow was scheduled to go to the ICANN Last Resort Auction later this month. Remember that  Amazon originally applied to operate all the new gTLD’s they applied for, all 74 of them, on a closed basis which the Governmental Advisory Counsel to ICANN,  otherwise known as the GAC put the breaks on. I’m not sure how Amazon plans to .Wow us but I’m sure they have something ... read more ...
 
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Donuts Beats Google (Again) & Wins a New gTLD .Plus - Donuts has won another new gTLD, .Plus that was scheduled to go to an ICANN Last Resort auction later this month. Google in the form of Charleston Road Registry Inc. has withdrawn their application for .plus leaving Donuts as the sole applicant. Honestly I have no idea of why anyone applied for .Plus, much less two companies. Not sure why anyone in a world of 1,000+ domain extensions would choice to use a .Plus Computers.plus Cars.plus Sports.Plus Plus what? Sorry just don’t get this one guys. Having ... read more ...
 
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Radix Asks “Whats Your Bid for Bets.WEBSITE?”? XXX.Website is during No Reserve - Radix the registry for .Website, .Press and .Host announced today that it  is releasing some of its most valuable reserved names up for auction in the upcoming RightOfTheDot Live and Online Domain Auction at NamesCon powered by leading domain name auction platform SnapNames.com. More than $175,000 worth of premium names (with annual renewals) have been sold by Radix already, however the domain names that are being auctioned off by Radix at Namescon will not carry any premium renewal fee. Sandeep ... read more ...
Sat 10th January 2015
Written by The Domains in EN
Life Lesson: Here is How NOT to Do Business - So I was minding my own business yesterday and getting ready for namescon, working on the auction, packing, answering emails, pretty much what you would expect when I got this email: “”It’s Mark Bradford, hope you’re doing well. I’m emailing to see if you’d be interested in buying: DOMAINBLOG.CO www.DomainBlog.co The cool thing is that whoever develops this domain will be the first one to “own” the brand DOMAIN BLOG, and they may own it for quite a while, because… DomainNameSales ... read more ...