Here's
the The Lowdown from
DN Journal,
updated daily to fill you in on the
latest buzz going around the domain name
industry.
The Lowdown is
compiled by DN Journal Editor & Publisher Ron
Jackson.
Chef
Patrick Beams Out of ScienceFiction.com - Braden
Pollock Takes Over the Bridge
Patrick
Ruddell(AKA
Chef
Patrick), made a big splash with the
DNCruise
conference he launched in October
2010, but he didn't reach warp
speed until two months later when he led a
small investment group that boughtScienceFiction.com
for $175,000 and immediately set
about
developing that category defining domain. As the
project progressed some early investors sold out
and a major new one, Braden Pollock (who
was profiled in our November 2011 Cover
Story), bought in. The shuffle ended
with Ruddell and Pollock as 50/50
partners in ScienceFiction.com, LLC.
As
of today you will no longer find Ruddell on the
bridge of the starship ScienceFiction.com.
Ruddell has sold all of his shares (at an
undisclosed price) to Pollock, leaving the lead
gen whiz from Los Angeles as the sole
owner of the popular website. Monday
(July 30) was the last day on the job for
Patrick and his wife Zezura, who also
played a major role in building the site.
Ruddell,
who recently re-entered the real estate business
in Florida's Tampa Bayarea (joined
by Zezura, who recently got her own real estate
license) told us, "It came down to the time commitment needed for this project. When I initially started ScienceFiction.com, one of my partners was tasked to handle the roll of
Editor In Chief. Unfortunately, things did not work as planned, which meant my wife Zezura and I had to adapt and take over this responsibility in addition to running the business and other ventures."
"On a daily basis our editing duties included selecting content, managing 15+ writers, editing, scheduling, social media and more. News
never stops, we would work/edit when the kids get home from school, in the middle of dinner, holidays, birthdays, what seemed like all the time. It is very difficult to have any family life and run a project like this. To be successful in anything I truly believe there needs to be a fair work-life
balance."
Their
efforts paid off with traffic to
ScienceFiction.com now surpassing a half
million visitors a month. Pollock intends to
move the site into an even higher orbit.
"We're already adding lots of content every
day but I plan on increasing the number of
articles added daily to test the effect it has
on traffic. I'd also like to add original
interviews with sci-fi actors, writers, game
designers, etc.," Pollock said.
Patrick
Rudell
Braden
Pollock
Sole owner, ScienceFiction.com
"Going
forward there will be a major focus on movies,
since that's where the biggest advertising
budgets are. We're discussing the idea of
some major content partnerships as well. Beyond
that, my team will start selling advertising
space on ScienceFiction.com,"
Pollock added.
Though
Ruddell has beamed out of ScienceFiction.com he
still plans to stay involved in domain
investing and development. "Definitely!,"
Ruddell said. "I launched my first website about college professors in 1999,
so this is not my first and certainly not my last web
business. I do have a few ideas and projects in mind, and after a short break we will consider what to launch next. No matter what it is, it will never be a news website on the scale of ScienceFiction.com
though. And who knows, maybe with the extra free time we can think about a
DNCruise 3!"
Braden
Pollock and his fiancée, best selling
author Lisa Bloom, on DNCruise
2 in September 2011.
Braden
Pollock also has far flung business
interests including his flagship
operation at LegalBrandMarketing.com.
When asked how he was going to be able
to juggle the time demands of
running ScienceFiction.com along with
his other business ventures and
obligations Pollock told us,
"Patrick and Ze have already built
a team of about 15 writers, including an
assistant editor and web designer. My
team will take over steering the ship
along with ad sales. I've got a great
lady on staff, Alessandra Ferrara,
who's a self proclaimed sci-fi geek
and avid gamer. I offered her the
opportunity to take over as editor and
she jumped at the chance. She's very
excited to get started. As for me,
I
don't
do the heavy lifting anymore. I
have a great team that can take
care of our various businesses. As a
matter of fact, I'm currently writing
you from a cafe in the quaint little
seaside town of Husavik, Iceland!"
Ruddell
said he is leaving ScienceFiction.com
with a sense of pride and a great
deal of valuable experience that
will help him going forward. "ScienceFiction.com has grown to over 500,000 visits per month, been linked to by websites such as
CNN.com, HuffingtonPost.com and TechCrunch.com, featured
in comic books and quoted on numerous other publications. The experience as a whole was
great because, thankfully, we had an
amazing staff. We learned a lot from our writers, they took pride in the site and shared in our accomplishments. This has been an amazing journey
developing a web property of this size. We leave this project in
good hands with Braden and his team."
Companies
in the News: GoDaddy, Sedo, ECOP.com,
Oversee.net & DomainHoldings
The
new work week is off to a flying startwith
news on several fronts. For starters the world's
leading registrar, GoDaddy.com,
has made a big change in the executive suite. The
company announced
that CEO Warren Adelman has decided to
step down but will remain with the company and
Special Advisor for Strategy and Global Policy. Scott
Wagner
has been named interim CEO while the board
conducts a search for a permanent successor.
Wagner joins Go Daddy from KKR's
portfolio operations team, KKR Capstone (KKR
made a major
investment in December.
Sedo
released their latest quarterly Domain Market
Study(.pdf file)covering
Q2-2012 today. The report
helps identify domain industry trends based on transactions
completed on Sedo's popular aftermarket
sales platform. Sedo reported $17.5
million in total sales for the
quarter, down about 8% from the $19
million they reported in the
previous quarter.
That
is consistent with what we reported in our
latest quarterly report covering all reporting
sales venues that was released in our monthly
newsletter today. We saw a 6.7%
drop in total dollar volume reported
industry wide due primarily to fewer six and
seven figures sales at the ultra high end of the
market. the low and mid ranges continued to
perform well and we actually saw slightly higher
median sales prices in our 2Q-2012 data
compared to the previous quarter.
Sedo
reported that both their average and median
sales prices held steady with less than a
1% change compared to the previous
quarter. They reported that 48% of their
sales were .com domains and that 46% of
sales were forless than $500. One
surprising detail was that .nets drew a
higher average price on their platform in
2Q-2012 ($2,470) than .coms which
averaged $300 less.
ECOP.com,
a domain escrow service offered by Domaining.com
owner Francois Carrillo, has
extended a generous offer to people who
flip low priced domains on forums and
other venues (a path many in this
business took to get their start).
Carrillo is offering free escrow
services through ECOP for domains priced
under $500.
Looks
like a smart marketing move. If people
sample the service and like what they
see, some of those sellers will likely
turn into paying customers when they
move up the food chain and start dealing
in higher dollar transactions.
Oversee.net®
has announced
an agreement between
its DomainSponsor®
division and Team
Cymru, an Internet
security research firm and
non-profit dedicated to making
the Internet more secure by
helping organizations identify
and eradicate problems in their
network.
With
the size of
DomainSponsor's traffic
monetization network, it
is in a position to help
detect and identify
potentially malicious
communications that
can be shared via its
relationship with Team
Cymru to benefit the
wider Internet Security
Community. As part of
the Agreement,
DomainSponsor will
provide Team Cymru with
information on suspected
fraudulent traffic hitting
its network. After
analyzing this real-time
information, Team Cymru
will then facilitate the
communication of
malicious activity to
the Internet Security
Community.
It
is expected that this
real-time “early
warning
system”
will help Internet
Service Providers
(ISPs), hosting
companies and other
entities take preventative
steps to protect
their networks from
being adversely affected
by malicious activity
online. Another key
element of the agreement
involves Team Cymru
providing Oversee with
tools and data that will
help it take additional
steps to identify and
block malicious traffic
on its network.
The
company said the service was
rolled out following a 30-day
test, in which a portfolio made
up exclusively of wildcard
traffic grew from a $22.98
RPM on its previous monetization
platform to an $84.21 RPM
on DomainPower. The results of
the Wildcard traffic test are
highlighted in detail in a comprehensive
overview (.pdf file)
of DomainPower's Monetization
Decision Engine.
Scottsdale.com
Owner and GeoPublishers.com President Fred
Mercaldo Comments on the Blockbuster Sale of
Denver.com
The
seven-figure saleof
Denver.com
that we told you about yesterday
has understandably created quite a buzz
in the geo domain community. One
of those most excited by the news is Scottsdale.com
owner Fred Mercaldo who also
manages dozens of key geo websites
through another of his companies - CitiesPlanet.com.
Mercaldo also serves as President
of GeoPublishers.com,
a trade association that represents many
top geo domain owners and was the
organizer of the first GeoPublishers.com
Expo that was held last fall
in Chicago).
Mercaldo
told us, "This deal is a win-win-win
situation. It is a win for seller Dan
Pulcrano, a win for buyer Peter
Niederman (who already owned Boulder.com
and
Fred
Mercaldo
DenverRealEstate.com)
and a win for Denver.com and the
Geo Domain industry, as the domain is
now in the hands of a local (and
brilliant) businessman."
"Both
of these gentlemen are friends of mine, and I
could not be happier to hear the news,"
Mercaldo continued. "Not only the
validation of another City.com
transaction in seven figures, but the
future of Denver.com will now become much more hyper-local,
which will ensureits success.
We have been stating and speculating for years
now that City.com’s are best run in the hands
of local operators, whether they be local
newspaper, TV station, advertising agency, media
company, or in this case, the largest realty
company in the Denver market." (Editor's
note: Niederman's company sold well
over $1 billion worth of real estate last
year and is having an even better year in 2012).
Mercaldo
added, "This purchase by Peter will
support his real estate business for years
to come, and his local presence and
his commitment to excellence will no
doubt bring Denver.com to the next level.
Personally, with the 65 City.com
sites that we manage, I look for further
deals like this to happen in
the
coming
year, as major media cleans up their
balance sheets, and other local
players in each market understand and
grasp the power of the pure City.com
brand."
While
it does indeed look like a deal that benefits
everyone, Dan Pulcrano has to be especially
happy. He told me that he originally acquired
Denver.com back in the mid 1990s for a mere $6,250.
From that number to somewhere in seven figures
(the exact price was not disclosed) is enough of
an ROI to make anyone smile :-)
Geo
Domain Giant Dan Pulcrano Sells Denver.com to
Peter Niederman in 7-Figure Deal
In
a huge geodomain deal,Boulevards
New Media Inc., the Silicon
Valley-based company headed by CEO Dan
Pulcrano, has sold Denver.com
to Denver businessman Peter Niederman,
CEO of Kentwood Real Estate. Financial
details of the deal were not disclosed, though
both parties confirmed it was a seven-figure
transaction.
Peter
Niederman
new owner of Denver.com
Mr.
Niederman is also the owner of Boulder.com
and his experience with that site
convinced him of the unique traffic,
branding, marketing and sales potential
of Geographical Names (known in the
domain name industry as Geo Domains), to
expand his real estate business in the
future.
“I
viewed the purchase of Denver.com
as a unique and historic opportunity,"
Niederman said. "To acquire the
intuitive Internet brand of a
world-class city like Denver is very
rare. It fits in perfectly with
Kentwood Real Estate’s strategic
Internet vision of integrating lifestyle
and neighborhood-specific content with
real estate services.” Kentwood Real
Estate currently operates its business
at DenverRealEstate.com.
The
transaction includes a multi-year
agreement under which Boulevards will
continue to operate Denver.com.
Boulevards
Prior
to the sale, Niederman’s firm
provided MLS listings and
property search services
for Denver.com's real estate
channel. Dan Pulcrano said,
"We believe local ownership
will give Denver.com deeper
roots in the community and
further our efforts to provide a
strong commerce and information
site at Denver’s most
important web address."
Dan
was profiled in our February
2008 Cover
Story in which we
noted his status as a true Internet
visionary. He was a leader in
the traditional print media
world (and still owns three
print weeklies) but realized
that the Internet was going to
have a massively disruptive
impact on that industry.
Even though none of his
colleagues agreed, Pulcrano bet practically
everything he owned on the
Internet by purchasing top tier
geo domains. He now owns a
portfolio of enormous value and
is perfectly positioned for
decades to come while many of
his previous contemporaries have
gone out of business or are
hanging on by a thread.
Dan
Pulcrano with his daughter
on a family
vacation in Catalina July
4th - the day he
and buyer Peter Niederman
reached an
agreement on the sale of Denver.com.
quote
John McEnroe, was "You can't be
serious!" That was my second
thought as well. .CA, which is
celebrating its 25th
anniversary this month, isn't going
anywhere. Actually, let me rephrase that -
with a popular ccTLD that is
closing
in on two million registrations and the 4th
highest growth rate of any registry
over the past five years - .CA is going
places, but extinction is not one of them.
While
no one knows exactly how the hundreds of new
gTLDs that are expected to start arriving in
the next year or two will impact the various
segments of the market, there is one thing we
do know. That is that top ccTLDs
dramatically outperform non .com gTLDS
(which is what the new extensions will be) in
the domain aftermarket - a good indicator
of how buyers value the two options. In recent
years, the total $ volume of ccTLD sales
reported to us for our weekly
sales reports have been double
the amount spent on reported non .com gTLD
sales.
If
you took the long established .nets
and .orgs out of the non .com
gTLD category, leaving only the previous
"new" gTLDS that
followed them, the level of sales in
that group would barely move the
needle. Like .coms, which
have become synonymous with the Internet
itself, ccTLDs representing major
industrial countries have some unique
advantages that cannot be erased. As
intellectual property lawyer John
McKeown told The Star about
.CA, “I think they’re well
positioned: they’ve got all the
benefits of a geographical top level
domain name, because for people who want
to be associated with Canada,
that’s the domain name of choice."
Most
local businesses want to be associated with their
location and there is also a patriotic
appeal to using a national domain. That's
why new .CA registrations outnumber new .com
registrations in Canada (and why Germany's
.de, Great Britain's .co.uk and
several other ccTLDs are such powerhouses).
There will be hundreds and eventually thousands
of new gTLDs but there will continue to be only
one country code domain for each
nation.
The
current non .com gTLDs look to be in a
considerably more precarious competitive
position. They don't have the unique geographic
edge the ccTLDs do and many of the new gTLDs
will have more narrowly focused meanings
than existing gTLD alternatives, something that
may make them more attractive to small business
end users (the most likely buyers of new gTLDS
as they are the ones whose preferred terms have
usually already been taken in .com and the
bigger ccTLDs).
The
arrival of new gTLDs will certainly create some
interesting horse races, but unless you like
buying tickets on 1,000 to 1 long shots,
I wouldn't bet on any of them sending a well
established ccTLD like .CA into oblivion.
On other
note today - in case you entered The
Lowdown from somewhere other than
our Home Page you may not know
that our new July
Cover Story was released
today. It is a fascinating profile
of United Airlines pilot/domain
investor-developer Bob Olea. It's
a story filled with more ups and downs
than a hang glider in a hurricane. From
being forced out of his childhood home
by a bulldozer to having his life
upended by the 9/11 attacks to
riding domains to redemption,
Olea has lived a life that would be full
for someone twice his age. If you don't
know Bob, you should - so allow us to
introduce you in this story: Course
Correction: Why Commercial Airline Pilot
Bob Olea is Now Banking on Domains as
Well as Planes.
By the way,
in keeping with the theme of today's
post, Bob's thoughts on the arrival of new
gTLDs are among the many topics
covered in that Cover Story.
.CO
Celebrates a Happy Birthday While Skeptics
Predict a New TLD Flood Will Leave Befuddled
Consumers Seeking .Com Shelter
.CO
is celebrating its 2nd
birthdaytoday.
The re-launched extension (originally
designated as Colombia's ccTLD before
being re-purposed for general use worldwide)
opened to the public on July 20, 2010. Since
then more than 1.3 million .CO domains
have been registered in more than 200
countries. Much of the credit for that goes
to a masterful marketing job that set high water
marks future new registry operators will be hard
pressed to match.
.CO's
success has extended beyond new registrations to
the domain aftermarket according to a press
release issued by domain sales giant
Sedo
today. Sedo reported selling over $1.6 million
worth of .CO domains since the extension was
re-launched. The company said the average .CO
sale price of $1,800 was higher than any
extension other than .com on their
platform.
.CO
Internet CEO Juan Diego Calle said,
"The numbers say it all. Sedo's report
confirms that in just two short years, the .CO
domain has become a major force to be reckoned
with on the global domain market. It's exciting
to imagine how these numbers will grow in the
next five to ten years as the .CO TLD becomes
even more widely adopted, developed, monetized
and marketed by end users worldwide."
Sedo's
Chief Sales Officer, Liesbeth Mack-de Boer,
added "Sedo is in a unique position to
monitor how any new TLD performs on the
secondary market, and this performance is often
a good indicator of its future success. With
.CO's second anniversary and the pending
approval of hundreds of new extensions,
this was the perfect time to examine .CO's
performance, and to offer our insights for new
gTLD applicants. We look forward to partnering
with many new gTLD applicants to help them build
successful new extensions that can compete with
the historic heavyweights like .com."
Speaking of
new gTLDs, those who believe the
impending arrival of hundreds (and
eventually thousands) of new extensions
will create mass confusion among
web surfers are buzzing about a clever new YouTube
video (below) that illustrates
their point better than most have been able to
articulate. At 8 minutes, I think the video runs
about twice as long as was necessary to get the
message across, but even if you sample just the
first 3-4 minutes you can see why skepticism
about the new gTLD program remains
widespread.
Domain
industry pioneer Rob Grant (who
was the subject of our April
2008 Cover Story) also had a lot
to say about new gTLDS (and many
other topics) in a new
interview that Goran Duskic
published on his WhoAPI.com blog.
Grant told Duskic, "Only one extension will emerge as the winner. Its the same extension that has always emerged on top, through countless disruptions and changes in the domain space.
It’s Dot Com. It doesn’t
matter how many horses enter the
race."
Grant said,
" It’s important to remember that this is the one extension that all companies
(Fortune 500 companies on down to small businesses everywhere) have all built massive brands around – both online and offline (print, TV, radio, etc) over the last 15 years. All other extensions have basically played a defensive role. This means that
billions of dollars in advertising and marketing have been spent on the Dot Com brand itself. It’s what consumers are familiar with and understand."
Rob
Grant
Grant
continued, "The introduction of thousands of new extensions will only confuse the consumer, and serve to strengthen the Dot Com brand. What people forget is that we have already been through a
similar test case with the introduction of new
TLDs like . Biz, . Info, . Travel, .Mobi, etc."
You can
read the rest of Rob's comments on new
gTLDs and other topics in the full
interview here.
Hostingcon
2012 Concludes in Boston With Many Domain
Industry Faces In the Crowd
As
the homeofSedo's
U.S. office,NameMediaand a number of other domain industry
companies and individual entrepreneurs, Boston
has always been a beehive of domain activity.
That was truer than ever over the past three
days when many domain investors, developers and
company executives from out of town were in
Beantown for the Hostingcon
2012 conference that is winding down
today at the Hynes Convention Center.
Approximately
2,000 attendees from 30 different
countries came in for the 8th annual
Hostingcon, the premier show for the hosted
services industry. While domains are not the
central focus of the show, domains, hosting and
developed websites all go together like love and
marriage. Coupled with increasing interest in domain
development, as well as the obvious cross
pollination of business interests and
opportunities, more and more domainers have been
putting Hostingcon on their annual
calendar. These year's schedule included
sessions on topics like PPC and the new
gTLDs that have obvious domain investor
appeal.
Hynes
Convention Center - Boston
Site of Hostingcon 2012 Image
from Bigstock
As
is the case with pure domain conferences, a lot
of the most productive relationship building
activity goes on in social activities at the end
of the business day. Familiar domain industry
faces could be see at local restaurants and
iconic locations like Fenway Park (home
of the Red Sox) this week.
(L
to R): Christian Zouzas, Jim Grace
(DomainHoldings.com), Russ Goodwin (Tidewinds
Group) and Joe Alagna (CentralNic) got
together for dinner at Anthony's Pier 4
in Boston last night.
In
the photo above, two domain investors from the
Boston area, Christian Zouzas (well-known
for his stellar .US portfolio) and Russ
Goodwin got together for dinner with
visiting Californians Jim Grace and Joe
Alagna who were in town for Hostingcon2012.
Most of the domain pros who attended Hostingcon
2012 will also be on hand for our industry's
next big show - T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
2012, coming up October 7-10,
2012 at the Ritz Carlton on Florida's
Fort Lauderdale Beach.
Companies
in the News: Oversee.net, Thought Convergence,
Afternic & Dnbiz
Oversee.nethas
named a Chief Technology Officer. The job
- once held by current Oversee CEO Debra
Domeyer - went to Gene Chuang, an
experienced technology development professional
and team leader known for his expertise in
mobile, social and search marketing platforms.
Chuang
will be responsible for identifying and building
technology platforms that support the growth of
Oversee’s current and future business
initiatives. The Los Angeles based
company operates a global online performance
marketing network with over 250 million unique
visitors per month,
Chuang
was Executive Director of AT&T
Interactive, leading teams of engineers in
Data Systems and Mobile Engineering. He also
served as Director of Engineering at Yahoo
Search Marketing where he led the
development of large-scale search platforms.
Most recently, he
Gene
Chuang
New CTO at Oversee.net
was
Director of Engineering at Chegg, an
online network for college students that offers
assistance with homework, course selection and
textbook rentals, purchases and resale.
Over
CEO Debra Domeyer said, “We’re delighted to
welcome Gene to the Oversee management team.
Technology has been and will continue to be the
foundation for Oversee’s success. Gene’s
appointment reaffirms our commitment to being at
the cutting edge of technology. He is that rare
technologist with business savvy and product
vision who also excels at building teams and
recruiting the best of the best.”
Chuang,
who graduated Magna Cum Laude from UCLA,
said, "“Oversee is a company that has
tremendous growth potential. My goal is to
develop and scale technology solutions at
Oversee that add value to the company’s
businesses. I’m excited to work with the
strong tech team we have on board.”
Kevin
Vo and Ammar Kubba marked a Thought Convergence
milestone this week
Another
major domain industry company based in
Los Angeles, Thought
Convergence, is celebrating
its 10th anniversary this week.
The parent company of Trafficz, Aftermarket.com,
DomainTools.com and several other
enterprises (and the host of several Domain
Roundtable conferences), has been
guided to prominence by Kevin Vo
and Ammar Kubba who were profiled
in our October
2007 Cover Story. Kevin
& Ammar are two of the nicest people
you will meet in any business so
it is especially gratifying to see them
reach this milestone with many more
still to come.
Domain
aftermarket giant Afternic
has expanded their presence in the
Asia with the addition
of Chinese registrar Dnbiz
to the Afternic DLS network as a Premium Reseller. Dnbiz will now list Afternic's Instant Transfer domain names for sale on Dnbiz.com, adding millions of high quality premium domains to its marketplace.
Jason
Miner, the Chief Operating Officer
at Afternic, said, "We are excited to offer our customers the opportunity to have their names presented to this
growing market and for the Chinese domain buyers to have access to the high quality domains in the Afternic
network."
Charlie
Wang, COO of Dnbiz, added "We are proud to offer our customers access to the largest portfolio of Instant Transfer domains in the world. This will enrich the buying experience on our site and improve our user
experience. Our customers are thrilled with the breadth of domains available from Afternic, and the speed in which they are moved into their accounts."
Number
of Domains Registered Worldwide Jumps 23 Million
in One Year, .CA Celebrates 25th Birthday
& Developers Get Cool New Tool from
DomainsBot
The
global economy may
be in the doldrums but you would never know it
by the double digit growth in domain registrations
around the world since this time last year. Verisign
(who operates the .com and .net registries)
has released their latest quarterly Domain
Name Industry Brief (.pdf file)
encompassing results from allTLDs
at the conclusion of the 1st quarter of 2012.
Verisign reported domain registrations jumped by
23 million to a total of more than 233
million since the end of 1Q-2011 - a
very healthy 11%increase from a
year ago.
The
number of country code domains (ccTLDs)
registered grew by an even bigger annual rate - 16.2%
- soaring to 94.9 million total
registrations at the end of 1Q-2012.
Growth
numbers from the preceding quarter (4Q-2011)
followed a similar pattern. For all TLDs, the
number of registrations over the past 90 days
increased by 7.5 million, a 3.3%
quarter over quarter rise. The quarter over
quarter growth rate for ccTLDs was 4.8%
but some of the country code gains came from a 808,967
IDN ccTLDs (primarily Russian) that Verisign
began tracking for the first time. Even so, the
overall growth numbers leave no doubt that the
demand for domain names continues to a grow at a
much faster clip than most other products and
services.
(CIRA). In 1987,
responsibility for the .CA domain was
assigned to John Demco at the University
of British Columbia (UBC) by Jon
Postel, operator of the Internet
Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).
The first eight .CA domain names were
registered on January 12, 1988,
with the very first one claimed by the University
of Prince Edward Island.
Twenty-five
years later, there are nearly two
million .CA domain names making .CA
the world’s 14th-largest country code
domain registry. Even more impressive is
the fact that .CA has had
the fourth-highest growth rate
among all domain registries over
the past five years.
One other
note today - DomainsBot,
who is well-known for creating a
business boosting domain name
suggestion tool that has been
incorporated by many top registrars, has
just
launched a new self-service
API and a copy
and
paste widget that will allow any
developer and small to medium hosting or
domain re-seller to go
live with their domain suggestion
feature in a matter of just minutes.
DomainsBot claims
that more than 1.5 Million of their
suggested names have been registered during the
last 12 months. An executive from one their
major registrar partners, Adam Eisner of OpenSRS
said, “We have been using DomainsBot's domain
suggestion since 2006 and we have always
been very pleased with the quality of the
service. About 10% of our domain
registrations come from DomainsBot suggestions
and we are happy to offer their value added
service with no charge as part of our
API.”
Domainsbot CEO Emiliano
Pasqualetti added, “Being the providers of
domain suggestion services to 8 of the top 10
registrars and their resellers, we understand
the importance of bringing the same benefits
to small and medium hosting companies and domain
resellers. With our new developers API, anyone
can now increase domain registration in minutes
with little implementation and affordable
subscriptions.” The DomainsBot name
suggestion widget and API are available now at https://developers.domainsbot.com/.
A
Rare Look at What the Death of a Domain
Extension Looks Like:
Government Agency Shuts Down Kids.us
R.I.P.
Kids.us.The
rarely used extension that was created by an Act
of Congress in 2003 with the idea
of providing a safe place for kids on the
web is suspending operations effective July
27, 2012 (the domains sold were
actually sub-domains of kids.us, for
example toys.kids.us). The official
announcement,
posted
at Kids.us, came from the U.S. government agency
in charge of the project - the the National
Telecommunications and Information Agency (NTIA).
While
Kids.us was launched with good intentions most
domain pros believe it was doomed from
the start by exceptionally high registration
fees (around $250 if I recall correctly),
plus content management fees and
extremely strict rules governing content and
banning outbound links on kids.us sites. It is
believed the total number of kids.us
registrations were in the low three figures
at best.
In
their announcement the NTIA cited different
reasons for the closure, blaming it on a multitude
of new options for kids that arrived
over the past decade, leaving the
extension no longer viable (though
plainly potential developers never considered it
to be viable in the first place given the
expense and red tape that choked the
extension).
The
NTIA statement said, "Today,
there are hundreds, if not thousands, of
sites containing high quality content
aimed at children under the age of 13.
Additionally, parents have a multitude
of tools at their disposal including,
software applications, web browsers, and
parental control features from their
Internet Service Providers, hosting
providers and third party applications,
to help keep their children safe
on-line.
As
a result of the changed landscape of
the Internet and the many other tools
that parents now have available to them
to protect their children's online
experience, effective July 27, 2012, the
Department of Commerce suspended the
kids.us If you are a registrant or
holder of a kids.us name, please contact
your registrar for further information
about the suspension of this domain. You
can also find additional information
about the suspension at http://www.ntia.doc.gov."
provided
more
information for their
kids.us registrants today, saying "EnCirca has immediately
suspended the registration and renewal of all kids.us domain
names. If you have content
on your kids.us domain
names, please remove all
such content from their sites by no
later than September 30, 2012.
Although for the past several years, Neustar
(operator of the .US registry) has
waived the content management fee to
encourage the proliferation of kids.us
website, if content is not removed from
the websites by that date, Neustar
reserves the right to charge each domain
name registrant a content management
fee on a pro-rated bases starting
from October 1st, 2012.
By July 27, 2013, Neustar is
required to remove all kids.us domain
name registrations from the .us zone
regardless of the registration
expiration date."
The death of a
domain extension is something we have rarely witnessed.
It is obviously a messy spectacle but one
that is likely to be played out more often with
ICANN planning to roll out hundreds
of new TLDs starting next year.
Recommended
Reading: Escrow.com's Close Call, MHB's History
of the Domain Business & Andy Booth's Ascent
Our
readersare
unusually bright people who stay up to
date on what's going on around them (I know this
is blatant pandering to the audience - but, hey,
this is an election year you know!), so I
don't usually recommend reading because odds are
you've already read anything I might
point to. Still, I read three articles this week
that I thought were especially interesting and
relevant and will remain so for a long time to
come, so - on the off chance that you missed any
of them (and knowing that I almost missed one of
them that is several months old myself) - I
wanted to add a brief review and link to each of
them for you and for posterity's sake.
Let's
start with the newest one, a fine piece
about Escrow.com by Owen
Frager that just came out
today. Like just about every other
domain buyer and seller in the business
I have been using Escrow.com for many
years and have been acquainted with
their brilliant and personable CEO Brandon
Abbey for most of those years.
Still, Owen dug up some interesting
information I was not aware of,
including the fact that the company came
close to dumping its invaluable
category-defining name - Escrow.com - in
favor of some forgettable coined brand
name (in this case Finera, which
for some reason makes me think of a
company that bakes bread, not one that
handles money)! Fortunately (and thanks
primarily to Brandon), that never
happened and, under the Escrow.com
banner, there is no doubt about
what this popular, well run company
does.
In
addition, Owen reported on the crash
of an airliner that Brandon happened
to be riding in. With its landing
gear disabled, the plane managed to land
on its belly and everyone
Escrow.com
CEO Brandon Abbey
survived,
but, as you would imagine, it had a big
impact on Brandon's outlook on life.
The elements Owen found make this well
written story about a household name in
our industry especially illuminating.
Escrow services, like most financial
transactions, are one of those things we
just take for granted. There is
not much drama there (unless
something goes wrong) so no matter how
superlative a company in that field is,
they rarely get the kudos they deserve.
Owen rectified that, putting Escrow.com
in the spotlight, giving them their well
deserved due and giving us a
very interesting story to
boot.
Michael
Berkens
Earlier
this week, Michael
Berkens, a domain industry
pioneer who has made millions buying and
selling domains and also authors a great
blog at TheDomains.com,
wrote an excellent piece on the
history of this business (a history
he has lived through, making it a topic
he can address with authority) called It’s
Domaining 6.0 & It’s Is All About Branding.
Every
pro in the business reads Michael's
blog, so I know all of you in that
category have already read the piece.
But if you are a newcomer to the
industry who missed it, or you stumble
upon this post at some time in the
future, read Michael's article for an
excellent summary of where we have been
and where we may be headed next.
Last
but not least, last fall Nat Cohen
wrote a terrific in
depth profile of up and
coming (actually already here)
domain star Andy Booth that I
somehow missed reading until seeing a
link to it somewhere a few days ago. The
thing that makes this story at Nat's
blog, DomainArts.com,
timeless is that it proves, yet again,
that it is never too late to
succeed.
Based
in England, Andy, who is one of
the most personable young guys in the
business, started from scratch just six
years ago at the age of 22, yet he has
already reached a level of success that
most of the rest of us are still dreaming
about. The story tells you exactly how
he did it and
how domains have enriched his life in so
many different ways. You keep hearing
people say what a great business this is
with endless opportunities and
Andy's story shows you that, despite the
never ending changes in the industry,
that is still as true as it ever was.
.ORG
Reaches Major Milestone Hitting 10 Million
Registrations - Here's the Name That Put Them
Over the Top
.ORG
has soared to new heightshaving
reached more than 10 million registrations.
The official announcement came today from the Public
Interest Registry (PIR)
– the not-for-profit operator of the popular
.ORG extension. PIR said the 10 millionth .ORG
name registered was JADFORUM.ORG,
registered on June 24, 2012 with Go
Daddy. The domain was
registered
by the Jordan River and Dead Sea Basin Forum
(JAD), an organization dedicated to advancing
the sustainable and regional development of the
Jordan River and Dead Sea Basin watershed shared
by Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian
Authority.
.ORG,
one of the original domain extensions founded in
1985, has maintained consistent growth
between 9-10% annually for the past three
years. The extension's number of domains under
management has soared by more than 156%
since 2005 leaving it firmly ensconced as the
world’s third largest “generic” or
non-country specific top-level domain (behind
only .com and .net).
PIR
CEO Brian Cute
While
.ORG has long been associated with the
not-for-profit community it has always
been and remains completely open
to individuals, companies and
organizations – from non-profits
conducting fundraising campaigns and
rallying supporters to corporations
promoting social responsibility
programs. .ORGs are currently registered
in 175 countries and the
extension is offered by more than 400
registrars around the world.
Brian
Cute, the CEO of Public Interest
Registry, noted “For more than 25
years, .ORG has enabled registrants
to engage and empower their communities
both online and off. Reaching 10 million
domain registrations is a significant
achievement and highlights PIR’s
commitment to providing a trusted
place online for organizations,
companies, and individuals to tell their
stories and mobilize their communities.
As we celebrate this milestone, we look
forward to continued growth and to
giving more causes around the world a
trusted, online venue with .ORG.”
Afilias
Draws Attention to .INFO With New Contest
Offering Chance to Win a Revolutionary Lytro
Camera
The
new Lytro
camerashave
created a considerable buzz among gadget
and photography freaks and Afilias, who
operates the .INFO
registry, is taking advantage of
that by giving away two Lytros in a new Summer
2012 INFO Spotting Contest that
kicked off today and continues through August
31, 2012. The cameras retail for $399-$499
(depending on the memory configuration) but the
two contest winners will pick theirs up at no
charge.
As
you might expect, the contest involves photography
- specifically photos that capture .INFO
addresses featured in print
or outdoor advertising, such as banners,
magazine ads, or billboards. When you
spot such an ad, snap a photo and then submit
it in one of two ways: Post the
photo
to the .INFO
Facebook fan page or email
your shot to [email protected].
Each photo submitted will be judged on
the validity of the subject as an
advertisement or marketing message using
a .INFO address, the legibility and
clarity of the photograph, and how well
it captures the spirit of the
advertisement. You can review
the complete contest rules here.
For
those who haven't heard about Lytro
cameras and what makes them so special,
it boils down to the Lytro camera being
able to capture theentire
light field, which is all the light
traveling in every direction in every
point in space. That creates new
capabilities that traditional
cameras
don't have.
One of the coolest of those is the
ability to focus after the fact.
Focus and re-focus, anywhere in the
picture. You can refocus your
pictures at any time (that's why
Lytro calls them living pictures).
Focusing after the fact also means no
auto-focus motor and no auto-focus
motor means no shutter delay. So
you can capture the moment you meant to
capture - not the one a
shutter-delayed camera captured for you.
Another
plus is that friends and family can interact
with your Lytro photos on nearly
any
device, including mobile phones,
tablets within web browsers, etc. (you
can do it yourself with some sample
pictures on this page). You
can easily share your photos on Facebook,
Twitter, through email or on your
blog. Smart move for .INFO to associate
their TLD with hot new technology
like the Lytro for their summer .INFO
Spotting Contest.
SedoMLS
Network Expands Again with Addition of Rob
Monster's Epik.com
Domain
marketplace giantSedo
announced the newest addition to the
SedoMLS premium network today. U.S.
registrar and domain name developer Epik.com
has partnered with Sedo to offer new services
to their customers. End users searching for a
domain at Epik’s website can now purchase
premium domains directly from SedoMLS
network listings. In addition, current Epik
customers can can list their own domains for
sale on the SedoMLS network (a distribution
platform that now includes more than 60
partners including Godaddy and other top
registrars).
Rob
Monster
Epik Founder & CEO
Epik
Founder and CEO Rob Monster said,
"We
are thrilled to be able to offer our
clients a greater choice of premium
domains for purchase, as well as
providing dramatically more
visibility for customers who wish to
sell developed sites or domain names in
their portfolio. Our customers already
understand the value of domain names and
also the importance of increasing value
via development. The integration of
SedoMLS is a large step forward for our
vision of an integrated solution where
customers can acquire, build, manage
and sell domain name assets.”
Liesbeth
Mack-de Boer, Chief Sales Officer at
Sedo, added, “Epik’s customers will
benefit from being able to search our
inventory and make the right purchase
for their business or domain portfolio,
all without leaving Epik’s website.
And for sellers, adding domains to the
SedoMLS network will help them sell more
names, more quickly, by reaching the
largest potential audience of buyers
globally."
Protrada
Adds Over 50,000 New Members With Acquisition of
DomainFace.com Assets
The
innovative domain trading platformProtrada.comthat
debuted last
summer just took another giant
step forward. The company has acquired the
assets of UK based domain search engine
and data supplier Domainface.com,
including their 52,500 members, for an
undisclosed price. After being launched in
January 2010 by Kenny
Goodman and Nathan Ridley
Domainface built a strong following by helping
clients locate domains for sale that have
specific attributes that can help boost a site's
ranking in major search engines.
The
deal will have Domainface members migrate
to Protrada’s platform while Face
Software will retain the Domainface.com
domain and reposition the website
as an information and education
portal. This will be done after a
transitional period during which the
domain will redirect to Protrada.com.
Protrada said the
acquisition of Domainface's current
assets is another
Protrada
Founder Troy Rushton
step
in the company's plans to expand
the
domain name buying and selling market beyond
traditional domain investors. A large
percentage of the Domainface members are
internet marketers who are more
involved in developing online businesses
than flipping domains, so bringing them
into the fold fits Protrada's strategy
perfectly.
Troy
Rushton, CEO & Founder of
Protrada said, "We are excited to
offer our domain trading technology to
Domainface members. Domainface
Co-founder Kenny Goodmanand
his team have done very well to grow
market share and the time is now right
for us to substantially increase
our user base. The level of user
transactions in Protrada is growing
steadily as we continue to welcome new
domain traders daily. We are focused on
ensuring the transition is seamless for
the new members and much of what
Domainface had in its development
roadmap is already live and available
in Protrada today."
Facebook
Threat to Domains Wanes as Ad Execs Show
Diminishing Interest in Facebook vs. Rest of the
Web
During
its meteoric risea
lot of people predicted that the
popularity of Facebook would
lower the value of premium domain
names. With Facebook membership
rising into the hundreds of millions
the domain doomsayers reasoned that
companies would spend more time and
money marketing their products on
Facebook than through their own
websites. I never believed that as
it made no sense to me for a
company to want their own brands taking
a back seat to the Facebook
brand.
Now,
there's no doubt that a lot of
short-sighted marketing people have
fallen into the Facebook trap (Owen
Frager just
wrote
about it yesterday after going to the
movies and seeing a bunch of corporate
ads promoting a Facebook URL
rather than the company's own site.
That's not shooting yourself in the
foot, that is blowing both legs off
at the kneecaps!
The
good news is that most ad execs are quickly wising
up. A new survey of 2,200 brand
marketers and advertising executives conducted
by 33Across
showed that in just the past three months there
has been a major shift in sentiment
regarding how much time to spend focusing on Facebook
vs. the Rest of the Web(ROW). Joe
Mandese broke it down in an article
at Online Media Daily noting that
in the latest survey (for June 2012) 82%
said the rest of the web was more important
than Facebook- an 8% jump in just one
quarter from the 74% who felt that way in
March 2012.
The
survey asked respondents to select one
of five options that best described how
much time they devoted to Facebook vs.
the Rest of the Web - 20:80 (20%
to Facebook, 80% to the ROW), 40:60,
50:50, 60:40 or 80:20
(the latter being 80% to Facebook, 20%
to the ROW). In March 2012 58%
selected 20:80, but by June that number
had zoomed to 71% now saying the vast
majority of their time (80%)
goes to the rest of the web. In March, 16%
of the respondents said they split their
time 50/50 between Facebook and
the ROW. In June only4%
divided their time evenly.
On
the flip side, there are a few lost
sheep out there who not only haven't
figured it out, but are wandering further
off course. In March 0% (yes
ZERO) said they devoted 80% of their
time to Facebook, but in June 4%
said they have shifted 80% of their time
to Facebook. If I was in charge of
corporate advertising I would want to
find out if any of those 4% are on my
team working to build someone
else's brand (Facebook's) rather
than my own.
That's
certainly not to say a company shouldn't use
social media to promote their company - of
course they should. You want to promote your
business everywhere you can but you don't
want to lose your identity in the
process. It looks like more marketers are
embracing the obvious which bodes well for
domain names and websites continuing to play an
indispensable role in online marketing.
.CO.NO
Went Live Today After Winning Court Battle With
Norway's .NO Registry
Eleven
years agoNorwegian
company Elineweb A.S. acquired the
two-letter Norwegian country code domain CO.NO.
Last year the company decided to start selling sub-domains
of CO.NO (for example, business.co.no), a model
that has been employed successfully for many
years by UK based firm CentralNic
with a large portfolio of premier two-letter
.com domains including US.COM, UK.COM
and EU.COM (there is an extensive
interview with CentralNic CEO Ben Crawford
in our latest monthly
newsletter).
However,
Elineweb's .CO.NO
initiative, a partnership between
Elineweb and CoDNS B.V. (a company
established in 2007 by popular domain registrar EuroDNS
S.A.) ran
into a roadblock just as it was beginning to
roll out its service last year. Norid,
the operator of Norway's .NO ccTLD, erected a
series of obstacles (detailed
here) that kept .CO.NO from moving
forward. The company finally had enough and filed
a lawsuit against Norid in September
2011.
On
Tuesday (July 3, 2012) a court
decision (.pdf file) in
favor of .CO.NO was announced,
confirming that the CO.NO initiative fully
complies with the .NO registration
Policy and that Norid may not revoke
the CO.NO domain name. The decision also
required Norid to refute false
information they published on the .CO.NO
initiative and to inform the public and
more specifically all .NO accredited
registrars of the legality of the
initiative.
The
court decision cleared the way for .CO.NO
to open their doors for business today.
Sander Scholten, General Manager
at CoDNS B.V., said, “We are glad that
the Court recognizes that our business
model is in line with the .NO
registration Policy and thus, that our
customers’ registrations are
secured." Scholten said that in the
24 hours since the decision was
announced, .CO.NO, who already had
more
than 70 registrars lined up
to sell .Co.NO domains, had received
many more requests for information on
the company's register accreditation
process.
With
the opening of .CO.NO registrations to the
general public on a first come, first served
basis, all Landrush applications which were
pending are now being activated allowing their
holders to benefit from their registrations as
of today.
T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Offers $150 Ritz Carlton Gift Card to Those Who
Register Now for 2012 Show on Fort
Lauderdale Beach
If
you are planning to goto
the 2012 T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Conference October 7-10 at
the Ritz Carlton on Fort
Lauderdale Beach, Florida organizers
just gave you a good reason to register
by the end of the day Friday
(July 6). Conference Co-Founders Rick
Schwartz and Howard Neu sent
out a letter this morning offering a $150
Ritz Carlton Gift Card with the
first 25 tickets purchased between
now and the Friday evening
deadline.
You
can use the card at the Ritz Spa for a massage, facial or manicure, for food and drink at the Ritz
restaurants or anything else at the
gorgeous oceanfront hotel that hosted
its first T.R.A.F.F.I.C conference last
fall.
In
the letter Schwartz noted that the
agenda, as always, will be tuned to the
most relevant issues to domain investors
at the time the event runs, making it a
work in progress that won't be finalized
for a few more
The
Ritz Carlton Hotel on Fort
Lauderdale Beach
Site for T.R.A.F.F.I.C. 2012
coming up October 7-10
weeks.
He pointed out that the show will
reflect an industry landscape that has changed
dramatically over the past year or
two with domain investors themselves
having become some of the leading service
providers to others in the business.
Rick
Schwartz
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Co-Founder
Schwartz
wrote, "As Domainers we have put
our faith in third parties to
make us money, expand and all the rest.
That ship was sinking and domainers,
starting with Frank Schilling and
Internet
Traffic and others like Donny
Simonton with Voodoo.com
and John Ferber and Chad Folkening
of Domain
Holdings decided enough
was enough. So a year or so ago the
landscape changed. Things shook out and
the deck was shuffled. Sedo
emerged as an industry leader. Others
retreated and are less important. Ammar
Kubba (ThoughtConvergence.com)
expanded into new directions. Some like Michael
Berkens andMonte Cahn went Right
of the Dot while Chris
Jensen and John Lyotier went Left
of the Dot. You all know I
can go on and on with other companies
and domainers and their projects."
Schwartz
continued, "There are yet other
domainers working on secret projects
I am not at liberty to discuss but will
soon be coming to market and will be unveiled
at T.R.A.F.F.I.C.. Domainers are
resourceful and when all else fails, we
just do it ourselves."
"There
have also been a few constants," Schwartz
added. "At the core are the 350-500 domainers
that refuse to give up their vision. Have minds
as varied as the stars and are bonded together
by something we ourselves can't even explain. We
are explorers with varying booties of treasure.
None the same, but many alike. We have nothing
in common and everything in common. So for those
that think it is over, let me tell you a tiny
secret. It has yet to even begin,"
Schwartz declared.
He
closed by saying, "T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
MEANS B.U.S.I.N.E.S.S. and we all want to do
more business. So we do what we have done 22
times before. We bring great people together
to do great things and Howard and I just get out
of the way and allow it all to happen. It is a
recipe that works."
Summer's
Here and the Time is Right for Domainers at the
Meets (Apologies to Martha Reeves & The
Vandellas)
This
year's T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
conferenceon
Fort Lauderdale Beach is still three
months away but domainers in some parts of the U.S.
will get a chance to do some
socializing before then in local meet
ups that will be held in July and August.
Full details aren't out yet, but organizers in South
Florida and Denver have both
announced meet up dates in posts on Facebook.
Stu
Maloff of the South
Florida Domainers Group said
their next function will be on Thursday,
July 26, 2012 from 6pm to 9pm at the
Oceans 234 restaurant in Deerfield
Beach. South Florida is a hotbed of
domaining activity and many of the top
industry players who reside there take
part in this group, making it one of the
most active and rewarding ones in the
U.S.
Maloff
said an email would be going out to
those on the group's mailing list soon
with full details on this month's
event.
Next
month a Rocky Mountain Summer Meetup
will be hosted in Denver, Colorado by
Michael Law who staged the
February 2011 Rocky
Mountain Domain Conference
in the Mile High City. With the help of Mike
Awada, Law is going to a different
format this year with a pair of
meet ups planned
rather
than a single conference. The first of
those is scheduled for 7pm on Thursday,
August 23 at a downtown Denver
location to be announced soon.
The
meet up will give Denver area domain
name investors, entrepreneurs and web
developers (and those who want to come
in from out of town) a chance to network
in an informal atmosphere. Law and Awada
set up a Facebook
page for the event where you
can get additional meet up information
as it becomes available.
One
other note today - in case you missed
it, we just published a new
Cover Story over the weekend
- an in-depth profile of Scotland's
veteran domain investor/developer Tommy
Butler who runs Glasgow.com
and dozens of other well-developed
sites. Tommy has a great entrepreneurial
success story and I think you will be
inspired by how far he has come since
his first job making 50 cents a day
gutting chickens in a Glasgow poultry
market!
If
you've been out of the loop lately, catch up in the Lowdown
Archive!
We need your help to keep giving domainers The
Lowdown, so please email [email protected]with any interesting information you might have. If possible,
include the source of your information so we can check it out (for
example a URL if you read it in a forum or on a site
elsewhere).
