One year ago Afnic,the non-profit organization which is in charge of the administrative and technical management of the .fr ,set up a procedure (PREDEC) for obvious breaches of the stipulations of the decree of 6 th February 2007.
Posted under Domain Parking, Domain Registrars, Domain Sales, Domain Services
This post was written by Andrew on July 29, 2009
Sedo, the leading online domain marketplace and monetization provider, today announced the launch of www.Sedo.com/RealEstate, where an extensive catalog of highly valuable real estate domains are listed.
Posted under Domain Parking, Domain Registrars, Domain Sales, Domain Services
This post was written by Andrew on July 29, 2009
Disney Enterprises,the largest media and entertainment conglomerate in the world,known for its family-friendly products wants thelionking.com domain name.
Posted under Domain Parking, Domain Registrars, Domain Sales, Domain Services
This post was written by Andrew on July 29, 2009
According to AdvertisingAge.com, Yahoo is on the verge of a deal that would make Microsoft’s Bing.com, its search provider.
Yes according to the story, Yahoo would send its traffic to Bing.com and the story goes on to say the deal is likely to be announced this week.
However, unlike the reports of last week, the deal is to be based on just a revenue share, not on an upfront or guaranteed payment.
Last week the talk was Yahoo’s was going to get an upfront payment in the of hundreds of millions of dollars.
If this story is true it would mean Microsoft would walk into a deal with no money and increase its search share to almost 30%.
For Yahoo the report say its would be allowed to sell search ads on Bing.com, as well as its own site, giving it more search inventory to sell and making it a bigger player in the search sales front.
The other big benefit to Yahoo would be the millions it would save by not having to maintain its own search infrastructure.
In its most recent earnings report, Yahoo revenues were down but profits were up, based on it’s cost cutting measures previously announced
What this type of deal means to domainers or those monetizing domain names with Yahoo, is at this point unclear, but we will seek out all opinions on this issue of the deal goes down as Ad Age describes.
Posted under Domain Parking, Domain Registrars, Domain Sales, Domain Services, Uncategorized, Web Hosting
This post was written by Andrew on July 29, 2009
Time Warner bought the 5% of AOL that Google owned for $283 million dollars.
Its not a very good return for Google.
Back in 2002 its purchased their 5% interest for $1 Billion dollars.
Time Warner, plans to spin off AOL by the end of the year, into a separate public company, bought the stake from Google on July 8 according to filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The price that the company paid for Google’s stake puts the value of AOL at about $5.7 billion including the $850 million is spent to buy social networking site Bebo last year.
AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong told Reuters last week the company will focus primarily on being a Web advertising business.
Posted under Domain Parking, Domain Registrars, Domain Sales, Domain Services
This post was written by Andrew on July 29, 2009
I guess its time for everyone to expand their vocabulary with the newest term for domainers: “Domain Hacking”
Apparently the folks at smashingmagazine.com have some previously unknown advice in their story “Get Creative With Your Domain Name”
Here is some of their advice.
“Go domain hacking”.
“”No it’s not actually hacking someone’s domain name and stealing it. It’s the process of using real words but part of the word sits in the domain extension. One famous example is DesignM.ag. See the .ag? Their website is registered in Antigua and Barbuda.
Yes a non-domainer publication is telling people that domains are: “essentially priceless (tacky but true) in name, branding, ease of understanding, and catchiness”.
But since all the good ones are gone they advise people to think of using all of the 21 g’TLD as well as country codes in a creative manner:
“”Learning this will make you even more of an awesome designer or developer for clients. You need to think of a variety of domains and possibilities for new sites, as well as uniquely branding corporate websites with domain extensions””
I think its also worth noting some of the “fun facts” about domains that may have gone unnoticed:
Fun facts about domain names:
Nice going guys, keep informing the masses with what they need to know about domains.
Tell them to buy all the .ag domains they can get a hold of.
You should immediately write to the people that own airbag.com and tell them to change their domain to airb.ag
Yup that looks good.
In the meantime I’m going to buy some more nice .com’s.
Note to Smashing, maybe next time you give out pointers on domains, you might want to at least mention that people can still pay a few bucks and buy a good domain.
Posted under Domain Parking, Domain Registrars, Domain Sales, Domain Services
This post was written by Andrew on July 29, 2009
The domain biblical.com sold on NameJet.com for $17,400.
Here are a few other notable domain sales over the last couple of days at NameJet.com
I know alot.com is a big site, but $2,877 for alike.com?
I love dogs, but thedog.com for $13K, seems like “a lot”.
| thedog.com | $13,100 |
| yse.com | $5,100 |
| creamery.com | $5,050 |
| alike.com | $2,877 |
| mardigrasbeads.com | $2,766 |
| hockeytalk.com | $2,500 |
| anarchycookbook.com | $2,099 |
| dragonfruit.com | $1,709 |
| blackbeards.com | $1,200 |
| ispros.com | $1,057 |
Posted under Domain Parking, Domain Registrars, Domain Sales, Domain Services
This post was written by Andrew on July 29, 2009
The New CEO of ICANN Rod Beckstrom Posted a “Message From The CEO” on ICANN site a few days ago.
We welcome Mr Beckstrom to his new position and agree with him when he says:
“”In the end, every single name must be unique and only one party can own it.””
True.
ICANN, WIPO, trademark holders disputes, UDRP’s, The IRT, the URS all summarized perfectly in one sentence by Mr. Beckstrom.
Only one party can own it.
Now as to the two points in this message that causes me some consternation:
In discussing the new g’TLD’s, Mr. Beckstrom says:
“””The Internet has historically thrived whenever the system is opened up further to allow users to express their creativity and innovation. We are now working on opening up the top-level domains so that not only nations but also other peoples and groups can have a unique identity on the Internet.
For example, the chief of the Zulu tribe, His Majesty King Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu, recently sent a letter notifying us of his intent to register the dot-zulu domain name so that different but related businesses and other groups can be linked by their domain name to the entire Zulu community. According to His Majesty, “We believe that the .Zulu TLD, as conceived and proposed by the Dot Zulu Project Inc. represents the best interests of the Zulu community and will be able to provide a viable structure for us as an evolving community.” New York City and the city of Berlin have expressed a similar interest in their own domain names. It is impossible to imagine the possibilities that could occur when these and a multitude of other TLDs are opened.
The ICANN responsibility to support methods for securely introducing new TLDs was specified in the original White Paper that led to our formation. And our original 1998 memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Government stated one of our key responsibilities this way: “Oversight of the policy for determining the circumstances under which new top level domains would be added to the root system.” It went on to say, “The Parties will jointly design, develop, and test the mechanisms, methods, and procedures that will achieve the transition without disrupting the functional operation of the Internet.” According to Chairman of the Board Peter Dengate Thrush, “We are . . . declaring success on these points. It’s been 11 years. We have developed and tested those mechanisms, and we find that they work.””””
He’s the problem that I have with this line of reasoning.
Most importantly what the financial crisis should have taught all of us, is that just because someone want to offer a product for sale, it doesn’t make it a good idea.
Sometimes the sale of certain products can undermine the entire system.
Look at some of the products that Wall Street offered, which in large part lead to the failure of Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers, products which capitalists offered for sale but which damaged the underlying economic system.
This brings us back to the comments of Mr. Beckstrom.
The question isn’t how many companies want to offer new extensions.
The question is how many end user want to build a site using a .whatever extension.
Yes certain communities can probably show support.
.nyc, .berlin and other cities maybe able to show support by end users for the extension, yet that should be required of any new g’TLD sponsor.
Any new g’TLD application should be required to be accompanied by a showing of support for it, from real people wanting to use the extension to put up a site.
I’m not talking about a Pool.com scenario where largely domainers place their “interest” on a new extension and backorder a .whatever, for no cost and under no obligation.
I’m talking about expression of interests by community members, citizens, end users.
Mr. Beckstrom in discussing ICANN role said:
“”Oversight of the policy for determining the circumstances under which new top level domains would be added to the root system.”… design, develop, and test the mechanisms, methods, and procedures that will achieve the transition without disrupting the functional operation of the Internet”
Mr. Beckstrom goes on to say ICANN has been around for 11 years and its worked so far.
However in 11 years ICANN has only allowed 21 TLD.
Now ICANN is going to allow hundreds or maybe thousands of new extensions in a very short time span.
How does ICANN successful 11 year history with administrating 21 TLD’s going indicate it is prepare or capable of handling hundreds or thousands of new extensions “without disrupting the functional operation of the Internet”?
Certainly an sudden expansion by just doubling the number of extensions could be argued to have substantial likelihood of disruption, but an expansion by 10X the current number, or 30X or more, how can that in and of itself not have the effect of disrupting the operation of the internet, and how can the organization be certain such a plan will not disrupt the operation?
Once again I would call for a much slower roll out of no more than 10 new extensions per year, determined by ICANN to have the most demand for it fro END USERS, not sponsors.
Want to be more aggressive?
How about doubling the number of g’TLD every year?
So we have 21 now; how about 21 new one’s next year, if they go alright without an major problems and the system absorbs then without major issues, then allow 42 new extensions the follow year, and so on and so on.
The second point in Mr. Beckstrom’s message of concern for me is his statement regarding the protection of intellectual property rights:
“As with the acceptance of any innovation, there are areas of concern and friction, and a healthy debate is taking place within the many ICANN stakeholder groups on how to handle the key facets of these new TLDs smoothly. Some of the more interesting debates have centered around protection of intellectual property rights. We have been pleased with the concrete solutions being developed by experts in the intellectual property field“”
My translation is that he IRT committee and the proposed URS is going to get ICANN’s blessing.
ICANN has failed to take into consideration that domains are intellectual property as well.
The IRT, comprised of trademark groups and completely unrepresented by domain holders groups, proposed the URS, to give additional protection to trademark holders.
Well what about our intellectual property?
I can only hope that Mr. Beckstrom realizes that the abuse of intellectual property cuts both ways.
Domain name holders interest in their intellectual property should be of equal importance to ICANN as trademark holders rights to their intellectual property.
Because as Mr. Beckstrom correctly noted:
“In the end, every single name must be unique and only one party can own it”
Posted under Domain Parking, Domain Registrars, Domain Sales, Domain Services
This post was written by Andrew on July 29, 2009
There is a movement afoot to roll out a new gTLD that would be exclusively for charities and non-profit entities.
I know your asking isn’t that what .Org’s are suppose to be for.
The answer to that question is of course, but since the registry never required anyone to prove its non-profit status before obtaining or registering a .Org, its a opened extension.
What is being proposed is a .NGO:
NGO is short for “Non-Governmental Organizations, so the new extension would be for all non-profits except governmental bodies which can use .Gov.
My opinion it’s probably a good idea to have a segregated extension for non-profits if done the proper way, with proper documentation checks an annual rechecks by the registry, with the registry having the right to terminate any registration which falls into non-complaince.
What are you thoughts, does the Internet need a true non-profit extension?
Posted under Domain Parking, Domain Registrars, Domain Sales, Domain Services
This post was written by Andrew on July 29, 2009
Yesterday in a post I thought we have some fun and see if you would buy or sell these domains at the following prices:
Videospark.com $8,500
Wet.net $6,500
55R.com $6,000
LejourPlus.com $3,000
Monroe.net $3,000
The results that while some of you would have bought buy wet.net and a few others voted for Monroe.net, the rest would sell all the domain.
All these domains are currently at auction at Godaddy.com with time to go:
So the good news is, if you voted that you would buy one or more of the domains, you still can.
Here is the link to each auction:
Videospark.com $8,500
Wet.net $6,500
55R.com $6,000
LejourPlus.com $3,000
Monroe.net $3,000
Yes for the record I would pass on buying any of these domains.
wet.net is the best, but at over $6K is getting up there. The rest either don’t make sense and/or are priced well out of any reasonable price.
IMHO, people who continuous buy these kind of domains, at these prices, are the domainers that are going to get themselves into financial problems.
Thanks to those who played along (except for Sahar would said he wouldn’t come out and play, love you anyway).
For everyone, here are a couple of what I consider good buys, also on auction at Godaddy.com (current high bid reflected)
pathology.org $704
Mundo.org $315 (Mundo = “world” in spanish & Mundo.com was recently at auction, in the six figures.
Posted under Domain Parking, Domain Registrars, Domain Sales, Domain Services, Uncategorized, Web Hosting
This post was written by Andrew on July 29, 2009
