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 6th May 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Swatch Plans to Fight Apple on Trademark for “iWatch” - Mark Gurman of 9 to 5 Mac did a piece on Swiss watch maker Swatch stating that they will look to fight Apple on trademarking “iWatch”. Now Apple already has trademarked the term in Japan, Mexico and Turkey according to the article. From the article: The company is seeking to block Apple trademarks for the name “iWatch” because of its own line of watches called “ISwatch.” A representative for Swatch told Watson: We assess the likelihood of confusion as given, the marks are confusingly ... read more ...
Mon 5th May 2014
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NameJet.com Reports Over $460K In Domain Sales In April -

namejet

Namejet.com only published a list of domain name sales that sealed in Apr that totaled over $463,000

All sales were lead by 472.com that sole for $43,700

Only sales of $2,000 0r some-more are reported:

 

Via: thedomains.com

 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.Vegas Hits The Big Apple With Times Square Billboard - The .Vegas registry has a very nice sized ad that is in New York’s Time Square Thanks to a reader of the domains that spotted it and sent it over. We should expect to see more of the new gTLD’s marketed in a big way especially the Geo’s.   ... read more ...
 
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Qwalify Loses Bid To Grab Qualify.com In UDRP But Panel Fails To Find RDNH - Qwalify, Inc. of Ontario, Canada, lost its bid to grab the domain name qualify.com from Gregory Ricks the domain holder who represented himself. The Complainant based its claim to the domain based on its trademark on the term QWALIFY which is of course a mis-spelling of the proper word, which was the subject of the complaint. The domain name was registered September 27, 1999 by Mr. Ricks. The one member panel,Andrew D. S. Lothian however, refused to find Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) based ... read more ...
 
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Acquired In 2009 As Part of $96 Million Purchase, Getty Images Launches Photos.com -   Getty Images officially launched Photos.com, more than five years after they acquired the domain as part of its acquisition of Jupitermedia Corporation (“Jupitermedia”) (NASDAQ: JUPM) We reported back in February of 2009 that Jupitermedia Corporation (“Jupitermedia”) (NASDAQ: JUPM) sold  Jupiter Images Corporation (“Jupiterimages”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jupitermedia, to Getty Images, Inc. for $96 million in cash. Included in the purchase was the domain name Photos.com which ... read more ...
 
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Does Google Glass Really Cost Just $80 to Produce ? - There seems to be some discrepancy on just how much money it costs for Google to make their Google Glass product. Sci Tech Today wrote about it Sunday, Given the current price of $1,500 for Google Glass, how much could the tech giant make? A new analysis estimates that the actual materials cost just under $80, indicating the tech giant could really be raking in the cash. However, the powers that be at Google are contesting that as a low-ball figure, saying it simply isn’t accurate. The analysis ... read more ...
 
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What Do PitBull & Juan Calle & John Ferber Have In Common? They Will All Be Speaking At eMerge In Miami - What do Pitbull and Juan Calle of .Co and John Ferber of DomainHoldings.com have in Common? They will all be speaking this week at the eMerge Americas Techweek being held in Miami otherwise known as the Magic City. eMerge Americas Techweek is described as “where entrepreneurs and tech tycoons alike meet for a week long celebration of all things tech, our approach is to bring together the entire South Florida and Latin American tech community under a BIG TENT and then shine a global SPOTLIGHT on ... read more ...
Sun 4th May 2014
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Decoding The Secret Messages in Chinese Domain Names - Why the preference for digits over letters? It mostly has to do with ease of memorization. To a native English-speaker, remembering a long string of digits might seem harder than memorizing a word. But that’s if you understand the word. For many Chinese, numbers are easier to remember than Latin characters. Sure, Chinese children learn the pinyin system that uses the Roman alphabet to spell out Mandarin words (for example, the word for “Internet,” 网络, is spelled wangluo in pinyin). And ... read more ...
 
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Ebay’s Top Affiliate Gets Busted - In what is really an odd case, Shawn Hogan who was the top Ebay affiliate marketer, along with being a top Google Adsense earner got nailed for defrauding Ebay. Business Insider the story, Shawn Hogan, the CEO of a successful online marketing company called Digital Point Solutions, was sentenced to five months in federal prison for his role in defrauding eBay of an alleged $28 million in online marketing fees. eBay had secretly cooperated with the FBI since June 2006 to root out affiliate marketers ... read more ...
 
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Google May Have To Pay French Government $1.3 Billion - Forbes reported that Google could have to pay the French government up to $1.3 billion. The Silicon Valley Journal wrote: Mountain View-based Google said it has been hit with a tax assessment from French authorities that could cost between $693 million and $1.3 billion,  according to Forbes. In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Google Inc. maintains that it has paid the taxes it owes, and expects to appeal the assessment. It is unclear, however, how successful such an appeal would ... read more ...
Sat 3rd May 2014
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Heritage Auctions Sends Out Call For Next Domain Auction To Be Held mid-July - Heritage Auctions has just sent out an email asking for submission to its next Domain Auction  which will take place mid-July and will be limited to 70 Domain names and “IP Assets” Here is the announcement: “”We are now taking consignments for our Summer domain name and IP auction which will take place mid-July. This event will be limited to 70 domain names and IP assets. Heritage is committed to making greater strides with our marketing and promotional efforts, and we are excited about ... read more ...
 
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Guest Post: An Insider’s Guide to .Wiki Landrush - This is a Guest Post written by Andrew Merriam who is the Business Development Coordinator for Top Level Design LLC, the new TLD registry for .wiki, .ink, and an applicant for an additional 7 TLDs. Andrew has been involved in Top Level Design’s applications from their start and has a background working with CEO Raymond King on a separate project, ICANNWiki, where he first entered the world of domain names, TLD expansion, and wikis. Here is the post which appears unedited: There are a LOT of names ... read more ...
Fri 2nd May 2014
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Publicly Held eHealth Purchases Medicare.com For $4.8 Million - eHealth, Inc. (NASDAQ: EHTH) announced they acquired the Medicare.com for $4.8 Million Dollars in the first Quarter of 2014. Although Medicare.com wasn’t just a simple domain name its pretty clear from the conference call the company bought Medicare.com just for the domain. During the earnings call, there was some interesting clarifications: Tobey Sommer of SunTrust asked this question during the earnings call: “”How is eHealth ranking in search for Medicare now and what would you expect the ... read more ...
 
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Dnpric.es: Average Reported Domain Sale Soars Back To 2010 Levels After Declining For 3 Years - According to stats release by Dnpric.es today, “After falling for three years in a row, the average price of reported domain sales soared back to 2010 levels” Here are the last eight years of reported sales according to Dnpric.es:   So as you can see according to the stats the Average sale price of reported domain sales fell in 2011, 2012 and 2013 from the previous year. 2014 so far,  marks a substantial increase.  Of course this year is only 1/3 over and but so far the numbers are promising. Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
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Namejet.com To Auction Of Premium .Buzz Domains - NameJet just opened bidding on “35 premium .Buzz domain names. “One of the first pure generic strings to be launched, .BUZZ is short, edgy, fun, and globally recognized. “ “The term “buzz” typically refers to what people are talking about. This premium domain list represents some of the hottest topics being discussed on the web.  Reserve yours today! “” All the domains appear to in auction at no reserve with the normal $69 Namejet.com starting bid. Here is the list: aircraft.buzz artist.buzz aviation.buzz biking.buzz boating.buzz celebrity.buzz domain.buzz election.buzz employment.buzz famous.buzz festival.buzz gadget.buzz gamer.buzz gaming.buzz girl.buzz investing.buzz laptop.buzz miamibeach.buzz mobilephone.buzz neighborhood.buzz nightclub.buzz onlineshopping.buzz parenting.buzz psychology.buzz research.buzz resort.buzz scifi.buzz single.buzz smartphone.buzz snowboarding.buzz stockmarket.buzz surfer.buzz tourism.buzz washingtondc.buzz wrestling.buzz     Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
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NewsRepublic.com Saved In UDRP As Complainant Doesn’t Even Allege Bad Faith - Mobile’s Republic (MR) of Bordeaux France, just lost its attempt to grab the domain name NewsRepublic.com in a UDRP The domain holder was represented by ESQwire.com MR was represented by in-house council. The domain holder offered to sell the domain for $45,000 to MR who then filed this UDRP. The domain was purchased by the domain holder on October 3, 2012 from a third party, and domain name was going to a parked page as it was by the previous owner Basically the three member panel found that News ... read more ...
Thu 1st May 2014
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Dot.CEO Puts Out Some Stats – $170,000 in Retail Revenue – 1023 Registrations - The people behind Dot.Ceo put out some stats to show how things are going so far. They claim $170,000 in retail revenue.         Hot dotCEO Domains Sold ... read more ...
 
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Marchex Reports & Archeo Sells $1.9 Million In Domains In 1st Quarter of 2014 - Marchex, Inc. (NASDAQ:MCHX), today announced its financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2014. Shares of Marchex traded up over 5% during regular trading today up $.47 and is up another $.65 in after hours trading to $10.37 Shares of Marchex closed yesterday at $9.25, so its up over $1 today. Q1 2014 Financial Highlights GAAP revenue was $50.5 million for the first quarter of 2014, compared to $34.7 million for the first quarter of 2013. Non-GAAP revenue2, which excludes domain sales ... read more ...
 
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Google Testing A Version of Chrome that hides a URL - Venture Beat covered a story today that will peak the interest of domain investors. Do we still need the URL — that gangly collection of slashes and gobbledygook? A new experimental version of the Google Chrome browser says no. Chrome Canary, like the legendary canary lowered into mines to early-detect dangerous gases, is a leading-edge version of the Chrome browser. Google uses it to test out ideas, and one idea in the new Chrome 36 version of Canary is to bury the full URL into the top-level ... read more ...
 
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Politico: House Appropriations Proposes To Cut NTIA Funding To Prevent ICANN Transition - According to Politico.com the House Appropriations Committee is proposing to slash NTIA spending by 20% to defund the IANA transition. “The House Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations subcommittee report on its FY15 funding bill unveiled this week expresses wariness about NTIA’s plan to relinquish oversight of ICANN.” “The language won’t be official until the full committee approves it – but it’s not a huge surprise, given the House committee is led by Republicans, who have generally ... read more ...
 
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Which New gTLD will be a initial to strike 100K Registrations – Our Poll Results Say .Club - Results from our April Poll show that most people think .Club will be the first to reach 100,000 registrations, .Web came in second and None came in third. In total 373 readers voted. Thank you for taking the time to participate and vote. Which New gTLD Will Be The 1st To Hit 100K Registrations? .CLUB (15%, 57 Votes) .Web (14%, 53 Votes) None Will (9%, 33 Votes) .NYC (8%, 30 Votes) Another New gTLD Not Mentioned (7%, 27 Votes) .App (7%, 27 Votes) .Guru (6%, 24 Votes) .London (6%, 22 Votes) .Berlin ... read more ...
 
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Rightside Signs With Architelos For NameSentry Service Used By 44% Of All New gTLD’s - Architelos, Inc., the premier provider of automated domain name abuse detection and mitigation services, announced it has reached 44% market share for its SaaS based NameSentry abuse detection and mitigation service. Architelos has implemented, or is in the process of implementing NameSentry abuse detection and mitigation service for 172 or 44% of the new gTLDs. Architelos recently concluded an agreement with Rightside™ for providing NameSentry abuse detection and mitigation service for all gTLDs ... read more ...
 
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Namecheap Debuts “State-of-the-Art Domain Search Functionality” - Namecheap, announced today the launch of our new, more efficient, more responsive search functionality. The new “tailored” search capabilities is described in a Press Release from the comapny t as being “leading-edge technology.” “Designed to streamline the process of finding, tracking and purchasing internet domain names; Namecheap’s updated domain search is clean, user-friendly and intuitive. With the new search, users can customize their display with simple drag-and-drop options and ... read more ...
 
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Go Daddy Auctions Sells 41,812 in Apr 2014 - Go Daddy Auctions Market Report April 2014 Go Daddy sold 41,812 domains in April vs 42,122 in March. Go Daddy adjusted the March 2014 number, it is not uncommon to see adjustments from the previous month. In this report March was increased from 41,242 to 42,122. The other new piece of data was that ecigarettes.com sold for $49,999. The top sale for April was LCT.com at $41,000. Online was the most sold keyword, this continues a trend of being number one for many months in a row. (click to enlarge) ... read more ...
Wed 30th April 2014
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Alleged Ex- Employee Of Google Says Google Engaged in Theft Of Money From Publishers - The only thing I can say is from my own portfolio the revenue has gone down substantially over the year while Google continues to report ever increasing revenue: I am a former Google employee and I am writing this to leak information to the public of what I witnessed and took part in while being an employee. My position was to deal with AdSense accounts, more specifically the accounts of publishers (not advertisers). I was employed at Google for a period of several years in this capacity. Having ... read more ...