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.

Tue 27th May 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Godaddy Didn’t Wind Up Selling The $13.5K Luxury.Villas To Me For $169.99 After Taking My Money - Last week  ago I put a pre-order for the domain name Luxury.Villas for the 5th day of the Early Access program for a total of $220, $150 for EAP 5 and a registration fee of $70.17. I know that other registrars at the time where showing this domain name Luxury.Villas as a very expensive premium domain. Hexonet for example had the domain for around $9,500  however when I check Godaddy the price was only $169.99, so I went ahead with the registration and Godaddy took my money. Onlinedomain.com chatted ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
UDRP Panel Spilts On 20 Domains; Domain Holder Keeps Developed Domains Loses Parked Domains - A UDRP panel just awarded several domains to the trademark holder while denying the transfer of others. The only difference to the panel is what the domain owner was doing with the domains. The domain holder got to keep those domains that had “developed websites” on them but but the panel ordered all the parked domains transferred to the trademark holder The Complainant is Blue Diamond Hotels and Resorts Inc and the domain holder is Media Insight of Miami Beach, Florida otherwise known as Vacation ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
.Club Overtake .Guru To Become The Most Registered New gTLD -       .Club has passed .Guru to become the new gTLD with the most registrations. According to ntldstats.com, .CLub now has 59,400 domain names registered beating .Guru by just 120 registrations which is sitting at 59,240. .Club also the fastest growing extension according to namestat.org, given the extension a rating of 100 on the scale of 100, while .Guru is still number three on the top 10 fastest growing list but only has a rating of 21. In other new gTLD number news there are now more than ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
PIR Registry (.Org) Launches 3 New gTLD IDN’s Of Organization Into General Availability Today - “The Public Interest Registry – the not-for-profit operator of the .org domain, launches General Availability for its three new Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) which translate to “organization” or “institution” in non-Latin-based scripts – one in Devanagari (.संगठन), one in Cyrillic (.орг), and one in simplified Chinese (.机构). “The launch of these international domain names allows us to continue expanding upon our ongoing mission of making the Internet a global, ... read more ...
Mon 26th May 2014
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USA Today Covers New gTLDs: “Start-ups See Gold Mine in Burst of Net Domains” - USA Today just covered new gTLD’s in a story entitled “Start-ups see gold mine in burst of Net Domains” “Visit GoDaddy for a new Internet domain name and you’ll be greeted with an advertisement for one of at least 16 new domain alternatives to .com, .gov or .edu, descriptive of whatever it is you’re trying to do”. “Are you an expert? There’s .guru. Starting an organization? Try .club. Opening a restaurant in New York City? Consider .nyc. Running a daily news site? How about .today?” “After ... read more ...
 
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Frank Schilling’s North Sound Names Wins Its 1st URS On Finn.Sexy - Finn.no AS of Oslo, Norway just lost a Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) on the the domain name Finn.sexy. The domain name is owned by North Sound Names which is a company associated with Frank Schilling, who also owns Uniregistry and of course John Berryhill, Esq represented the domain holder. This is the first URS case decided that involved North Sound Names and the 1st URS represented by John Berryhill. North Sound Names is the company that was set up to register New gTLD’s of Uniregistry. North ... read more ...
 
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Bitcoin Set to Overtake Paypal - The IB Times did a piece on Bitcoin surpassing Paypal in terms of USD transactions. From the article: Popular digital currency bitcoin is expected to overtake e-commerce giant eBay’s payment processor PayPal in terms of US dollar transactions in the near future. California-based hedge fund Laureate Trust says that bitcoin is fast establishing itself as the currency to use globally and instantly to make purchases or payments over the internet recording nearly $300m (£178m, €220m) daily in transactions. “Whenever ... read more ...
Sun 25th May 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
If You Want a Great .Vacations Domain Bring Your Wallet & These Are Gone - .Vacations which went into the 5th day of the Early Access Program today, goes into General Availability on Wednesday with a host of other domain extensions. In my opinion its the best of the Donuts domains this week. I was taking a look at some great .Vacation domains and found that if you want one,  your going to pay up as many of them carry high premium registration and renewal rates. From what I can see there are 4 price points on premium .Vacations domain names, $5,500, $1,500, $400 and $200 ... read more ...
Sat 24th May 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
1st .Ninja Domains Including Car.Ninja; Brand.Ninja, SEO.Ninja; Wine.Ninja & Fart.Ninja - I just review the .Ninja zone file which includes domain names registered in Sunrise and Landrush (with only 1 application). Note that some of these  domain names carry a premium annual renewal and registration fee. Long time domain industry veteran  Jothan Frakes scored with Brand.ninja and Conference.ninja. The University of Michigan registered Personal.Ninja The strangest registration in our opinion goes to a Matthew Mahler of California who is now officially the Fart.Ninja Here are the .Ninja ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
PVP.com sells for $70,000, A demeanour behind during a story of a domain - PVP.com sold for $70,000 on Afternic.  PVP commonly referred to as Player Vs Player in gaming circles. The domain currently is under Afternic escrow for whois, and does not propagate properly and timing out. The domain has a registration date of 12/14/08 which seemed odd to me. It looks like the history of the domain started in the Cayman Islands, if we go back to the earliest records Domain Tools has on the name, we see: Modern Limited - Cayman Web Development PO Box 908 Suite #147 George Town, ... read more ...
Fri 23rd May 2014
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Interpol Takes Down Over 10,000 Websites and Targets Rogue Registrars - Interpol takes down over 10,000 websites and targets rogue domain name registrars. In what was the largest global operation ever for taking down bad pharmacies, Interpol included rogue registrars as one of the main areas used by those involved in illegal pharmaceuticals. Here is the full release: LYON, France – Nearly 200 enforcement agencies across 111 countries have taken part in Operation Pangea VII targeting criminal networks behind the sale of fake medicines via illicit online pharmacies. ... read more ...
 
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Mail.Ru Quietly Buys My.com - Internet giant Mail.Ru Group bought the domain name My.com very quietly sometime between October 2012 and April 2013. The domain was registered under privacy at Moniker.com for many years until it changed to Tip Powers of My Acquisition Corporation in September 2012. In October 2012, the whois changed again to the the brand protection company Marksmen. It wasn’t until April 2013 until Mail.Ru Group showed up as the owner of the domain. Its not exactly clear if Marksmen acquired the domain immediately ... read more ...
 
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DomainIndex Is Holding Virtual WebFair 2014, a 1st Virtual Show of Its Kind & Expect 5K People - Virtual WebFair 2014 is the first conference of its kind for the domain, hosting, and SEO industries which offers participation in an event without the delegates or exhibitors having to leave their home or office. The concept is the brainchild of Michael Marcovici of Domainindex.com, who is one of the main sponsors and organizers of the happening. The virtual event takes place on a sophisticated 3D platform provided by Hyperfair.com and expects 5,000 plus visitors with about a hundred of exhibitors ... read more ...
 
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RetailMeNot Sees it Stock Get Whacked By Google Algorithm Update - RetailMeNot is see its stock get hit hard by the recent Google algorithm change. Barry Schwartz wrote on Search Engine Land: On Tuesday, Google pushed out their revised Panda Algorithm code-named Panda 4.0. Panda is designed to remove low-quality content from Google’s search results. Yesterday, we published an early Winners Losers report on which large sites were impacted the most both in a positive and negative way. RetailMeNot was one of the larger sites on the losers list, where Searchmetrics ... read more ...
Thu 22nd May 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
50 Cent Is Officially In The .Club As His Site, 50inDa.Club Goes Live - 50 Cent’s .Club Fan site just went live minutes ago. The Site, 50inDa.Club, now combines all of his fan sites, a store where you can buy merchandise, watch videos, listen to music engage in all of his social networks. Basically any and things 50 are a part of the site. The site went live just a few hours before the big .Club Launch party that is being held in New York tonight and 50 will be in attendance. The venue is already decked out and its all about .Club As we sit today .Club has the 2nd ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Bitcoin Bigger Than Facebook ? Bitcoin Integration with Paypal ? - There have a few interesting Bitcoin related stories over the last couple days. These include,  The Winklevoss Twins telling the Guardian that Bitcoin has the potential to be bigger than Facebook, talk of Paypal accepting Bitcoin as a payment option and a number of resignations at the Bitcoin Foundation. William Channer did a piece on The Guardian that took a look at how the Winklevoss came to get involved with Bitcoin and what they see as the future for the most popular crypto currency on the ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.Foundation Gets 1,393 Registrations On Day-1; .Dance 881; .Exposed 746 .Democrat 535 Best-79 - The new gTLD stats just updated for the 5 new gTLD that went into general availability yesterday and the numbers were pretty low. 5 new gTLD went into general availability yesterday and numbers are less than impressive. Including Sunrise domain registrations here are the numbers according to ntldstats.com: . Foundation 1,393; .Dance 881; .Exposed 746 .Democrat 535 and Best just 79 domain names. .Exposed and .Foundation were Donuts extensions, while Rightside has their first two new gTLD’s rollout, ... read more ...
Wed 21st May 2014
Written by The Domains in EN
JD.com Prices Offering Above Expectations At $19 - JD.com Inc.’s IPO priced above expectations Wednesday selling 93.7 million American depositary shares for $19 a piece, raising $1.8 billion. JD.com is set to open on the Nasdaq Stock Market Thursday under the symbol “JD.” JD.com starts off life as U.S. stock amid strong investor skepticism when it comes to shares of fast-growing technology companies. The Nasdaq Internet Index has tumbled 8% this year, on the heels of a 65% rally in 2013. Amazon.com Inc., JD.com’s U.S.-based peer, has seen ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Directi Rolls out Ringo.co - Directi has rolled out a new service called Ringo described as a new international calling app for iOS, Android and Windows Phone device. Ringo is an international calling app that uses a unique call flow to provide best-in-class call quality at costs lower than other popular calling apps. Ringo calls do not use the Internet, wifi or data and are instead use regular phone lines. Ringo is unlike any international calling apps available today and is unparalleled in cost, convenience, simplicity and ... read more ...
 
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DarkCoin jumps 10 overlay in a month - Andy Greenberg from Wired did a story today looking at DarkCoin, a crypto-currency that is supposedly more private than Bitcoin. The coin has seen its value jump from .75 to close to $7 in a month. From the article: Someone out there likes anonymous money. In only a month, the little-known bitcoin alternative known as Darkcoin has rocketed nearly tenfold in value–from around 75 cents a coin to almost seven dollars. Its selling point: Darkcoin offers far greater anonymity than bitcoin, mixing up ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
Famous Four: “Why Domain Investors Should Embrace New gTLD’s Today” we Have Some Thoughts - Famous Four Media (FFM) an application for more than 50 new gTLD’s just published a blog post entitled “Why domain name investors should embrace new gTLDs today” The post was written by Rob McCrea Head of Account Management at Famous Four Media I will publish a part of it here and have some comments after: “Much of what those who “know what they are doing” in the domain name industry are actually doing is very similar. “We (.CLUB, Donuts, FFM and the other experienced registries) have ... read more ...
 
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.Club Passes .Berlin & Is Now 2nd Most Registered new Domain Extension -       .Club just passed .Berlin on ntldstats.com, to become the 2nd most registered new domain extension (New gTLD). .Club is just short of 50,000 registrations while .Berlin is sitting just past 48,000 .Guru continues to led all new gTLD’s with over 57,000 registrations. .Photography has topped 35,000 registrations. .Email has topped 30,000 registrations There are now over 794,000 new gTLD domain names registered and with the launch of several new gTLD’s today when the root zone file next ... read more ...
Tue 20th May 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Sedo Domain Name Transactions Total $1MM For The Week -

Over a past week, 491 exchange took place on Sedo’s marketplace and around SedoMLS, totaling $1 Million dollars.

46% of sum sales were a outcome of Buy Now listings.

Highlights of open sales are:

· Top .coms: vitaminc.com during 104,000 USD
· Top ccTLD: sling.me during 9,600 USD
· Top “other” TLD: highspeed.net during 5,000 EUR

 

Via: thedomains.com

 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Go Daddy/Afternic sells $2.28 million in domains for a week -

GoDaddy and Afternic’s reportable weekly domain sales for a week of 5/12/14 – 5/18/14

The tip sale was steamengine.com during $38,000

Veg.net was a tip non – com sale during $9,800

Total domain sales for a week summed to $2,280,511

 

 

Via: thedomains.com

 
Written by The Domains in EN
Reports Say Apple & Google Maybe Entering 3d Printer Business - Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), and possibly Apple (APPL), maybe both are planning to launch an all in one 3D printer according to Trip Chowdry of Global Equities Research Chowdry wrote recently that “Google is secretly working on building the next generation of 3-D printers called Google Project Tango.” There is similar speculation that Apple is doing the same thing utilizing its PrimeSense technology. Google previously announced they are working with 3D Systems to develop new high-speed continuous ... read more ...