June 11, 2007: Domain Name News Bytes
There’s so much going on with domains right now…here’s a summary of news that has slipped through the cracks.
Yet Another article from the mainstream press titled “Masters of their Domains“. Seriously, someone ought to have trademarked that term. (Paul Sloan of Business 2.0 owns the domain name, proving that he “gets” this domain name thing.) This time it’s The Canadian Financial Post which tries to figure out why there are so many big time domainers in Vancouver, British Columbia. It’s a good question: Kevin Ham, Yun Ye, Communicate.com Inc. Even Frank Schilling lived their ahead of retreating to the warmer climate of the Cayman Islands. Incidentally, domain registrar Dotster is located in the city of Vancouver…but it’s Vancouver, Washington…
Sedo has a nice six figure auction running right now. AHL.com is sitting pretty at $113,500. Hopefully this domain is actually for sale. The prior week Mark Coker of VentureBeat wrote regarding an auction for BoobTube.com. It finished at $41,688 ahead of anyone noticed that the person with the listing didn’t actually own the domain. Ownership validation is a constant struggle for Sedo and Afternic. I’ve purchased domains at Afternic only to find out that they weren’t really for sale. Coker also writes regarding how confusing Sedo was to him as a non-domainer. He thought he was in a private negotiation at Sedo with the “owner” of Boobtube.com, only to have the “owner” send the domain to auction once he offered $5,000. This is great for sellers, but horrible for buyers. By the way, a former owner of Boobtube.com was Rogers Cadenhead. Yes, that Rogers Cadenhead…
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. NYC is just a week away. Show promoters Rick Schwartz and Howard Nue stated they were finishing the details on a deal to have Steve Forbes keynote. It didn’t work out, but Forbes will speak at the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East event in Florida this October. Schwartz states he has a verbal agreement from Terry Jones, the founder and CEO of Travelocity.com, to speak at next week’s show. Next week’s show will certainly be interesting. Schwartz and Nue are in a spat with DomainSponsor, which happens to be sponsoring an event right following the opening cocktail reception Tuesday night. But there are two sides to every story, right?…
The SedoPro Partner Forum kicks off this Sunday at the Mohonk Mountain Resort in Fresh Paltz, NY. I’ll provide live coverage from both the Sedo event and TRAFFIC…
Sex.com – The Book is now available from writer Kieren McCarthy. Unfortunately the book only has a United Kingdom publisher and is next to impossible to get in the United States (where most of the saga unfolded). Amazon.com sells the book with a 4-6 week shipping delay. If you want to get your hands on it sooner you can order a copy from Amazon.co.uk, but be ready to fork out $15 for delivery…
A fresh domain name magazine is coming. It’s another sign of the growing importance of the domain name industry. Look for Modern Domainer later this summer…
SnapNames’ dominance continues to grow. Last year Dotster through in the towel on NameWinner altogether and started sending its expired domains to SnapNames. Now eNom is putting its expiring domains into SnapNames as well. They must realize they’ll make more money from their expired domains going through SnapNames than their own ClubDrop. Interestingly, ClubDrop isn’t closing down. It will still operate as a drop catching service…
