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 15th May 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Tucows Reports Earnings & New gTLD’s Accounted For 6.5% of Total New Sales - Tucows Inc. (NASDAQ:TCX, TSX:TC), a global provider of domain names and other Internet services, today reported its financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2014 Beginning in the first quarter of 2014, Tucows has reclassified its revenue streams into Domain Services and Network Access Services. Domain Services includes Wholesale OpenSRS (Domain Service and Value Added Services), Retail (Hover) and Portfolio. Network Access Services includes Ting. “Our performance in the first ... read more ...
 
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.Expert Winds Up With Just Over 9K Registrations After 1st Day Of General Availability - .Expert has just over 9,000 registrations after the first day of general availability (GA) The new domain extension had over 2,000 registrations going into the 1st day of GA which is far less than the start that .Guru got off to. We have chatted about .Expert and how it would compare to .Guru, for a while and think the lower number of registrations con .Expert could be a result of what we think were high premium registration and renewal fees than for .Guru. We saw domain names as high as $5,500 registration/renewal ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
BitPay Raises $30 Million in Largest Financing Round for a BitCoin Company - CoinDesk reported that BitPay completed a $30 million financing round, this is the largest ever financing round for a bitcoin related company. The round was led by Index Ventures, and included Yahoo founder Jerry Yang’s AME Cloud Ventures, Felicis Ventures, PayPal founder Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Horizons Ventures, RRE Ventures, Virgin Galactic’s Sir Richard Branson and TTV Capital. As part of the deal, Index Ventures’ Jan Hammer and noted bitcoin ecosystem investor Jimmy Furland will ... read more ...
Wed 14th May 2014
Written by The Domains in EN
4 Year Old Mobile.co Hit With UDRP -                     The domain name Mobile.co has just been hit with a UDRP. The domain was registered in February,  2010 but was just transferred to the current holder  in March 2014. The domain is not currently resolving. The domain was a comparison shopping site back 2012 but became a parked domain according to Screenshots.com in 2013.       ... read more ...
 
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“.NYC is The Best Real Estate Opportunity Since The Dutch Bought Manhattan” - BetaBeat did a story today on an early video done by former Mayor of New York City, the late Ed Koch. The headline for our story here was a quote that Mr.Koch used when doing his .NYC pitch. You can watch the video below. From the article: “Back in 2008, city officials were leaning against creating a ‘.nyc’ web address,” Davidson Goldin, the public relations superstar hired by DotNYC, told Betabeat. “Entrepreneurs who’d been behind the .tv address embarked on a long journey to convince ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
New gTLD Advertising Hits The London Tube (Subway) - Thanks to a reader of TheDomains.com who spotted an ad in the London Tube (otherwise known as the subway ) for new gTLD’s The Ad looks like a pretty big billboard (unfortunately it looks like the picture got chopped off slightly on the right) sponsored by the domain name registrar, 123-reg.co.uk Looks like the ad is featuring the new gTLD’s of .Club, .Ninja and .XYZ as well as .London, .Guru, .Plumbing, and .Webcam ... read more ...
 
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New gTLD’s Take 1st Toll On Existing String? .Mobi Falls Below 1 Million Registrations -   According to RegistrarStats.com the Top Level Domain (TLD) .Mobi  fell below 1 Million domain name registrations. .Mobi hit a high of 1.2 Million registrations in January 2014 before the new gTLD were released. .Mobi increased registration from late 2011,  from below 1 Million hitting  1.2 Million on January. We can’t peg the losses of 200,000 domain registrations since January just to the new gTLD’s, but it certainly could be a factor which is why the headline has a question mark. What ... read more ...
Tue 13th May 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Afternic.com/Godaddy Sells $1.8 Million In Domain Led By EverydayCounts.com For $40K -

GoDaddy and Afternic only reported a weekly reportable domain sales for a week of 5/5/14 – 5/11/14.

Total domain sales for a week summed to $1,814,616.

All sales were led by a good call to movement domain name EverydayCounts.com $40,000

GreatIdeas.com sole for $19K

Weedshops.com sole for $18K

Light.Co sole for $25,000 and Seattle.Co sole for $9,999

Via: thedomains.com

 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Canada’s MuchMusic Quietly Acquires Much.com - Canada’s Much Music quietly acquired the domain name Much.com in what appears to be around October 2013. The domain Much.com is now being forwarded to MuchMusic.com Much Music is a television network owned by Bell Media subsidiary of BCE It looks like the domain was acquired sometime in October 2013 by brandcertified.com a company related to MarkMonitor Prior to the acquisition in October,  the domain name was owned by for approximately  two years under privacy at Moniker.com. Prior to that ... read more ...
 
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Sedo Domain Name Transactions Total $1.4 Million For The Week - Over the past week, 473 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: intensity.com at 57,000 USD · Top ccTLD: groups.io at 10,000 USD · Top “other” TLD: bussgeldkatalog.net at 6,000 EUR (“schedule of fines” in German)   ... read more ...
 
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LogicBoxes Delivers Vertical Integration Solution For .WIEN Retail Operation, Netzadresse.at - According to a press release we just received “LogicBoxes, the Vertical Integration solutions provider for New gTLD Registries today announced that it has successfully executed a comprehensive Vertical Integration project in the .WIEN namespace. .WIEN is a new gTLD extension that caters to businesses, organizations, individuals and any other entities associated with Vienna, the Austrian capital. The vertically integrated retail operation for .WIEN, netzadresse.at GmbH, focuses specifically on the ... read more ...
 
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People Have A Right to be Forgotten - In a landmark case that is being covered by every news outlet around the world, a European Court has said ordinary people can request to have their info pulled from the search results. This will certainly open the door to a multitude of scenarios, first this is a European ruling, will North American courts demand the same rights for their citizens ? The ruling does not give any open and shut method for removing the info and of course Google is likely to fight this and appeal the ruling. AMSTERDAN ... read more ...
 
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Rapper 50 Cent Picks A .Club Domain To Launch His Fan Site: 50inDa.Club - According to a press release just out, Rapper 50 Cent, announced today the upcoming launch of the 50InDa.Club web site in association with .CLUB Domains, the company formed to own and operate the new “.CLUB” generic top-level domain (gTLD). 50 Cent will be officially launching the page and appearing live at the invitation-only launch party for the new .CLUB domain name extension in Manhattan on May 22, 2014. 50 Cent maybe best known for his No. 1 Billboard hit “In Da Club” and on the brink ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN
No Wonder People Are Confused About .Expert; Check Out These Emails From Registrars - Many insiders the domain industry are confused about the roll out of the new gTLD’s So what about the consumer? One thing is for certain the registrars are not helping. Here is an email I got yesterday from EuroDns.com:   Hi Michael, So you think you’re an expert? It’s not too late to place a pre-order for the new .EXPERT domain extension, priced at €40 each. It’s first come, first served and we only accept one pre-order per domain name; but hurry there’re only 2 days left ... read more ...
 
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Twitter To Roll Out Mute Button - Twitter is finally coming out with a mute button. So this way someone can still follow someone but not be subjected to something like a Twitter blast. For example, there are people I follow on Twitter who every once in awhile decide to do 30 domain for sale tweets in row. I think one or two tweets about a name for sale, especially if it is at wholesale pricing or a bargain deal makes sense. When it is a sales blast, it can get annoying when someone does 30 in a row, some of these people I have good ... read more ...
Mon 12th May 2014
Written by The Domains in EN
South Florida Domain Pro’s “Rock The Dot” With Bree Is Wednesday, Join Us -   On Wednesday May 14th the South Florida Domain Professionals launch event, Rock The Dot will be held with cocktails and dinner at Callaro’s Streak House in downtown Lake Worth, followed by “Propaganda” music venue, with live performances from Hi-Fi Gemini, featuring Delray Beach domain pro Rick Waters; and rising Nashville rock star Bree, featuring David Castello on drums. Bree and David’s Lake Worth performance, caps the first week of their five-month national tour. This Lake Worth charter ... read more ...
 
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.Club Landrush Auctions Have Started On Sedo - I just got notice that the Landrush auctions have started on Sedo for .Club domain names. An auction occurs when 2 or more landrush applications are submitted regardless of registrar. I can tell you that the starting bid is $100. Unlike other landrush auctions I have participated Sedo is not showing me how many other bidders there are. The auction are slated to run for 4 days. It appears that Sedo normal closing rules will apply since I don’t see any special rules on their site for Landrush auctions. In ... read more ...
 
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.Expert Gets Over 1,300 Registrations Just In Early Access Program - .Expert which goes into general availability on Wednesday, already has over 1,300 registrations through the Early Access Program (EAP) with most of them coming on days 4 and 5. I personally haven’t kept any records on how many domain names have been registered in any of Donuts previous new gTLD strings, but I’m pretty sure this is a record for domains registered in EAP When I went through the zone file two days ago there were about 150 domain names including Sunrise registrations and day 1 and ... read more ...
 
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16 Year Old DealHunter.com Hit With UDRP -             The domain name DealHunter,com just got his with a UDRP. The domain has an original regeneration date of April 23, 1998 which makes it over 14 years old. The domain has been owned by the current domain holder since at least 2001 or some 13 years. The domain currently shows a website which has not launched and some ad sense on each side of the page However according to screenshots.com the page as you see it today was just put up a couple of weeks ago on April 27. The previous screenshots.com ... read more ...
Sun 11th May 2014
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.Club Jumps Into 3rd Place Of The Most Registered New Domain Extensions (New gTLD’s) - Just days after launching, .Club passed .Photography into third place of the new domain extensions, (gTLD’s) with the most registrations. .Club now has according to ntldstats.com over 36,700 registrations with only .Berlin and .Guru having more. .Photography has broken through 35,000 registrations. There are now 9 new gTLD’s with over 20,000 registrations. 21 with more than 10,000 registrations. 40 with more than 5,000 registrations. The only new gTLD’s that have launched into general availability ... read more ...
 
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The DotCom Act and Why Democrats Think It is Unnecessary - The DotCom Act is starting to get a little more steam behind it, over the past week Grover  G. Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform, sent a letter urging support and in that letter picked out .SUCKS. The ability to establish domain names does indeed come with its own powerand responsibility. ICANN has the ability to “extract defensive registration payments,” which blackmail businesses and threaten intellectual property. Senator Rockefeller was correct when he spoke out a gainst the ... read more ...
Sat 10th May 2014
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China Censoring The Conversation Around Global Bitcoin Summit - Back in December the central bank of China put a stop to all Bitcoin transactions. This caused certain exchanges to shut down and created a stir among many crypto currency enthusiasts in the country. The IB Times is now reporting that China has told the media they cannot write about a Global Bitcoin summit that is coming up in Beijing. From the article: The Chinese authorities have ordered local media not to cover the upcoming Global Bitcoin Summit in Beijing and not to promote the digital currency, ... read more ...
 
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Sónar Purchases SonarFestival.com - We always cover stories when a trademark holder over reaches and tries to stake claim to a domain through UDRP instead of entering into a transaction with the registrant. In this post we are taking a look at a company that went out and purchased the name instead of going the UDRP route. Now whether or not a UDRP would have been a victory remains to be seen. Sonar is a music festival that was founded in 1994 in Barcelona by Advanced Music Sl. They put on festivals all around the world and operate ... read more ...
 
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Trademark Hysteria On New gTLD’s Unfounded? 725K Domains/ 53 URS/17 UDRP - Since the new gTLD’s launched there are approximately 725,000 new gTLD registrations. By my count, URS have been filed against 53 domain names and UDRP’s have been filed against 17 domain names (counts by domain names not cases) So basically 70 domain names out of 725,000 or a 1,000th of 1% of all new gTLD domain names registered have been hit with a URS or UDRP. It should be pointed out that not all of the filed cases went in the favor of the complainant and decisions are still pending. Of course ... read more ...
Fri 9th May 2014
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How Low Will It Go? Demand Media, Inc. Closes At All Time Low Of $3.70 A Share - Shares of Demand Media, Inc. took a beating today closing at what we believe is an all time low of $3.70 a share. The company which reported earnings last night after the closed finished down almost 10% on the day. Shares hit an intra-day low  in trading of $3.62. Shares of Demand Media have a 52 week high of $9.75 well below its IPO price of $17 a share. Volume was about two and a half times as much as their 3 month daily average. The market cap of Demand Media is now $335 million, which is now ... read more ...