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 6th November 2014
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Web.com Is Down Over 22% & Hits a 52 Week Low After Earning Report - Shares Of Web.com (WWWW) hit a 52 week low of $14.89 today after reporting its earnings which missed expectations. The company reported a loss of $3.4 million, or 7 cents a share. Adjusted earnings came to 66 cents a share. Revenue totaled $137.4 million. The consensus estimate called for adjusted earnings of 63 cents a share on revenue of $147.42 million. More than 2.4 million shares had changed hands as of 10:51 a.m., compared to the average volume of 678,903. Shares are currently trading at ... read more ...
 
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1st Day New gTLD Totals: .Capetown 1,772; .Joburg 1,458; .Market 1,229; .Durban 985; .Mortgage 635 - 5 new gTLD extensions had their first day of general availability(GA)  yesterday including three Geo’s of cities in Africa (Tuesday Africa time) and two by Rightside (NAME) Including Sunrise registrations by trademark holders, those that paid an extra fee for earlier access through Landrush or the Early Access Program (EAP) here are the totals after the first day of GA: .Capetown 1,772 .Joburg 1,458 .Market 1,229 .Durban 985 .Mortgage 635 As far as Geo new gTLD domain names these are pretty disappointing ... read more ...
 
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cyclingtips.com.au Guilty Of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking On Cyclingtips.com - Wallace Media Pty Ltd of Balaclava, Victoria, Australia, which owns the domain cyclingtips.com.au, and was represented by Holding Redlich, Australia has been found guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) on the domain name cyclingtips.com The domain holder is CyclingTips CA of Quebec, Canada, was represented by ESQwire.com PC The three member panel of Luca Barbero, Andrew F. Christie and The Hon Neil Brown Q.C. The domain name cyclingtips.com.au was registered on April 19, 2009 The disputed ... read more ...
 
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.xyz Is The First New gTLD to Surpass 700,000 Registrations - .xyz Is The First New gTLD to Surpass 700,000 Registrations .xyz is the first new gTLD to surpass 700,000 registrations with 701,495 today, according to nTLDstats.com. Last week, new gTLDs topped 3 million registrations, which .xyz accounts for nearly 23%. Even when subtracting the Network Solutions registrations, .xyz is still the largest with 324,000 domains. .xyz is doing especially well in China, pulling in 145k from Xin Net and 23k from Todaynic.com. On average, 2,000 registrations each day ... read more ...
Wed 5th November 2014
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Nets.com hits $71,300 on Ebay But Does Not Meet Reserve Price - Nets.com was on auction at Ebay, Yes Ebay, the auction hit $71,300 but did not meet reserve. There were 9 bidders and 52 bids made. here is a look at the bidding. Link to the listing page Bidder Bid Amount Bid Time Member Id: h***f( 944)    US $71,300.00 Member Id: u***s( 2811)    US $71,200.00 Member Id: h***f( 944)    US $70,000.00 Member Id: u***s( 2811)    US $66,100.00 Member Id: h***f( 944)    US $60,000.00 Member Id: a***t( 25)    US $50,000.00 Member ... read more ...
 
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Marchex Reports & Sells $1.6 Million In Domain Names - Marchex, Inc. (MCHX), announced its financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2014. Archeo its domain name division sold $1.6 Million dollars during the quarter. Q3 2014 Financial Highlights1 GAAP revenue was $49.2 million for the third quarter of 2014, compared to $40.6 million for the third quarter of 2013. Non-GAAP revenue, which excludes domain sales recorded in revenue, was $47.6 million for the third quarter of 2014. GAAP net loss from continuing operations was $21.8 million ... read more ...
 
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Bloomberg Gives Back His .NYC Domain Name Registrations - According to Reuters, the former Mayor of new York City, Michael Bloomberg has “called off the purchase of a slew of website domain names that insult and belittle him and his work” “The move came a day after reports that two law firms working for Bloomberg had purchased about 400 such online domains. The domains included bloombergfail.nyc, mikethespoiler.nyc and kingmike.nyc, according to an online registry. Others were more insulting, such as mikeistoorich.nyc and michaelbloombergistooshort.nyc. The ... read more ...
Tue 4th November 2014
Written by The Domains in EN
CSC Digital Brand Services Acquires IP Mirror - CSC Digital Brand Services announced today that it has acquired IP Mirror, a Singapore-based provider of corporate domain name registration and online brand protection services. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed. Recognized as “Asia’s Online Brand Expert,” IP Mirror was formed in 2000 and has grown into a regional leader on the strength of its corporate domain management and brand protection services. CSC provides a wide range of digital brand services to a majority of ... read more ...
 
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Sedo’s Domain Name Transactions Total $1.4 Million - Over the past week, 542 transactions took place on Sedo’s marketplace and via SedoMLS, totaling $1.4 Million Dollars 49% of total sales were the result of Buy Now listings. Highlights of public sales are: · Top .coms: pager.com at 45,000 USD · Top ccTLD: koffer.ch at 17,822 EUR · Top “other” TLD: 6.biz at 12,637 USD Here are the public sales; RookiePoker.com which sold for $20,000 was our domain:     ... read more ...
 
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TitCoin Wants To Be Your CryptoCurrency For All Things Risque - Well we got Bitcoin, so it only makes sense that an adult version be called “TitCoin” A crypto solution for those in the adult business and those that want privacy when purchasing their adult material. When I mentioned this article to a friend today, his first response was, “Who the F*** pays for porn ?” TitCoin has been getting a lot of coverage lately, Cosmopolitan did an interview with the creators of the adult cryptocurrency. From the Cosmo article: How is it different from Bitcoin? Patrick: ... read more ...
 
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Endurance International (EIGI) Acquires The Assets of BuyDomains.com - Endurance International Group Holdings, Inc. (EIGI), which bought Directi for $110 million ealier this year, has purchased the assets of BuyDomains.com in the according to its financial results for its third quarter ended September 30, 2014. Endurance also owns a number of domain name registrars and hosting companies. Under “Third Quarter Operating Highlights” the company announced they acquired three company’s for a total of $77 Million: “During the quarter, the company acquired Webzai, ... read more ...
 
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Minds + Machines Says They Are Pleased With New gTLD Results; Investors Not So Much - Minds + Machines (LON:MMX) in a story published by proactiveinvestors.co.uk today saying “it is pleased with the revenues from its emerging portfolio of generic top level domains.” “Around US$4 Million has been generated by the new domains M+M is involved with and, according to analysts, the AIM group’s share is around £300,000 for the first half of 2014, driven mostly from .London domain name registrations M+M operates .London on behalf of London Partners, the city’s promotional body. “Industry ... read more ...
 
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Its Official: ICANN 52 Is Relocated To Singapore - ICANN has relocated its 52nd meeting scheduled to take place in Marrakech, Morocco in February 2015, to Singapore In the official announcement made tonight by ICANN said: “Community concerns that would prevent maximum participation at its next global meeting (ICANN 52, 8-12 February 2015), a critical one given the ongoing discussions around the IANA Stewardship Transition and ICANN Accountability, has prompted ICANN to postpone the meeting in Marrakech, Morocco and to relocate to Singapore on ... read more ...
 
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Anyone Remember Pagers? Someone Does & Bought Pager.com For $42K On Sedo - The domain name Pager.com just sold for $42,000 on Sedo.com Back in the day before Smartphones, Tablets, Facebook and Twitter and even the lowly cell phone, people had pagers for those trying to get a hold of them. Yes boys and girls we are going way back to the time that is pretty much after smoke signals. Today the domain name Pager.com sold on Sedo.com for $42,000 According to Estibot.com the domain has a value of $122,000. There are no ads on Google under the term or on the side (at least for ... read more ...
Mon 3rd November 2014
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GoDaddy Opens European Customer Care Centre - Go Daddy put out a press release today with regards to them opening a European customer care centre to serve their EMEA clients. The centre will be in Belfast, Northern Ireland. GoDaddy, the world’s largest technology provider dedicated to small businesses, today announced it has opened a new customer care centre in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The new centre will provide localised customer care to the company’s EMEA customer base. Belfast was chosen as the location for the centre due to the availability ... read more ...
 
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Facebook Is Becoming A Bigger Rival To Google In The Mobile Ad Space - Jennifer Booton of MarketWatch reported that when it comes to mobile advertising Facebook is unrivaled according to Morgan Stanley analyst Ben Swinburne. Google and Facebook are duking it out in the mobile advertising space and mobile has been an area that has been challenging for Google. Morgan Stanley analyst Ben Swinburne predicted Monday, after initiating coverage of Facebook at overweight. This comes as Facebook continues to nab a larger share of the global display market, with impressions ... read more ...
 
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URS Examiner Hands Over PPR.Wang Without Even Citing Complainant’s Trademark - KERING of Paris, France just won a proceeding under the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) policy to get the domain name PPR.Wang Suspended Mr. Sebastian Matthew White Hughes, was the Examiner who found that KERING owned a trademark on the term “PPR” The problem I have with this decision is that the Examiner didn’t take the time to mention where the trademark was granted, what is was granted for or when the trademark was granted and obviously PPR is a very generic term. In The US alone there are ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Founder of Shazam Got His Inspirations From 900 Numbers & Premium Texts & Hasn’t Made A Dime - Chris Barton is the founder of the wildly popular app Shazam. Shazam basically can detect the name of any song you hear (other than live music) whether it was on the radio, and without having to know the name of a radio station. It would work anywhere, a bar, a club, a cafe, a movie theater, a retail store, anywhere you heard music. and tell you the name of the song as well as the artist and link to where you can buy it on iTunes as well as to other music services. Mixergy.com, published an interview ... read more ...
 
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Registrant Of Playboy.London Wants To Keep The Domain For His unborn Child Hoping Its A Boy - Standard.co.uk just published a blog post entitled “Property boss at war with Playboy over Dot London domain name” Michael Ross, director of CNM estates, registered the domain name Playboy.London after the publishing company failed to register the domain name in the Sunrise period that was opened to trademark holders According to Mr. Ross, he received a strongly worded letter from its Los Angeles lawyers demanding he transfers the domain immediately. However Mr Ross, “who once visited the Playboy ... read more ...
 
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.NYC Now Has More Registrations Than .London - .NYC has passed .London in the number of domain registrations. According to nTLDstats.com, .NYC now has 48,671 domain names registered compare to .London which has 48,479. .NYC has moved into the 8th spot for the most registered new gTLD and .London is number 9. Both .NYC and .London, passed .Photography which now has 47,439 domain names. According to RegistrarStats.com, .NYC passed .London in terms of domain registrations last week. RegistrarStats.com shows .NYC with 47,741 domain names registered ... read more ...
Sun 2nd November 2014
Written by The Domains in EN
Telegraph India: “What’s in a domain name? A Zillion things, and Prakhar Bindal is branch them into billions!” - Telegraph India did a story on Prakhar Bindal of Axsiom and his domaining empire. The story entitled, “What’s in a domain name? A Zillion things, and Prakhar Bindal is turning them into billions!” In August Prakhar organised World Domain Day 2014 in Mumbai. The article goes into how he got started and includes an interview. From the article: Prakhar Bindal, the 26-year-old CEO of Axsiom, can only get richer. After all, the value of domain names can only increase. The Mumbai-based entrepreneur’s ... read more ...
 
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Fidor and Kraken Looking To Launch The First Ever Crypto Currency Bank - Fidor and Kraken looking to team up to form the first Crypto Currency bank Stan Higgins published an article on Coin Desk looking at the formation of the first bank that will specialize in crypto currencies. On the project’s official website, visitors are being asked to vote on a name for the proposed cryptocurrency bank. The three names are: BICONDO, BYSE Bank and Cryptocurrency Bank. From the article: German Internet direct bank Fidor and digital currency exchange Kraken are teaming up on what ... read more ...
Sat 1st November 2014
Written by The Domains in EN
Our Oct Readers’ Poll Shows The Majority Are More Optimistic About Their Personal Portfolio - For our October poll we asked readers how they felt about their own portfolio compared to the beginning of the year. 2014 has introduced several new gtlds and so the namespace has gotten a bit more crowded. It seems the majority of our readers feel more optimistic today than they did on January 1. There were 158 votes in total. As always thank you for taking the time to vote. How Optimistic Are You About Your Current Domain Portfolio Compared To The Start of The Year ? ... read more ...
 
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Minds + Machines Has More Outstanding Shares Than Google & Verisign Combined - I noticed this statement that was released by Minds + Machines (AIM:MMX) this week about the amount of shares it has issued and outstanding: “The Board of Minds + Machines Group Limited (AIM:MMX) announces that as at the date of this announcement, the total number of shares in issue with voting rights is 831,969,485. “ So almost  832 Million shares. That is a of of shares I checked out how many shares Verisign  (VRSN) the company that runs the .com and .net registry had issued and outstanding ... read more ...
Fri 31st October 2014
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ICANN Pays Over $2 Million Dollars For Its Directors + CEO Fadi Gets Almost $1.4 Million - ICANN published its compensation paid to or on behalf of 23 people who servered on its Board of Directors ending June 30, 2014. In all 23 people received over $2,000,000 combined in “any payments made by ICANN to Directors (including reimbursements of expenses).” During the  Fiscal Year ending June 30, 2014, there were seven face-to-face meetings for Board members, including four regular ICANN Meetings (Durban in July 2013, Buenos Aires in November 2013, Singapore in March 2014, and London ... read more ...