Every Friday, DomainSherpa.com provides you with a hand-selected, editorially-based review of the weekly news. In this summary, you will find the latest articles and videos produced by DomainSherpa staff and contributors. You will also find links to the best news articles in the domain name industry – so you don’t have to spend your time searching for news or reading something that was not worth your time.
This Week’s Articles in Review
This Week’s News in Review
Occupy Wall Street Pays $8,000 for a Home On The Web – 04-Nov-11
Occupy Wall Street, seeking a more formal Web presence for the coterie of protesters who have set up camp in downtown Manhattan, is acquiring the domain name occupywallstreet.net for $8,000, according to parties on both sides of the transaction.
Hindi Domain Name to Bridge Digital Divide – 03-Nov-11
India is preparing to launch the dot-Bharat domain name in Hindi in May with the aim of bridging the digital divide in the country. The move will enable organizations and individuals to register their website addresses in Hindi – and later more local languages – making them more accessible to a large proportion of Indians who aren’t familiar with English.
When You Mean Facebook but Type Faecbook – 02-Nov-11
Any company that achieves a sizable online presence faces the threat of typosquatters. They’re the ones who buy up domain names spelled similarly to those of real companies and take advantage of fat-fingered users. In October, the National Arbitration Forum dismissed a complaint filed by Google (GOOG) seeking control of three typosquatting sites, goggle.com,goggle.net, and goggle.org. The arbitration panel said it lacked jurisdiction. The sites, registered to a Barbados-based businessman named David Csumrik—that’s not a typo—divert users to a visitor survey that promises a chance to win prizes such as iPads. According to several watchdog groups, it’s a scam: Victims don’t win any prizes, and their e-mail addresses are blitzed with spam. Csumrik did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Left Of The Dot Media Adds Two Industry Leaders – 02-Nov-11
Left of the Dot Media Inc. announced today the appointment of Xavier Buck and Slavik Viner to the company’s Board of Directors. Both are well known in the Domain Industry and have extremely successful track records.
Speedo Wins Fight to Shut Down Porn Websites – 02-Nov-11
The Federal Court of Australia has ordered a central coast blogger to shut down a number of salacious and pornographic websites because they featured Speedo swimming costumes and domain names using the company’s trademark.
Marchex Reports Third Quarter 2011 Financial Results – 02-Nov-11
Revenue was $39.9 million for the third quarter of 2011, compared to $24.2 million for the same period of 2010…
Domain Start-up Winged Media Gets $3 Million Carnegie Innovation Fund Backing – 02-Nov-11
Winged Media, a domain name trading start-up, has pulled off a $3 million investment deal with the Carnegie Innovation Fund, for a minority stake in the business, said to be \”less than 10%.\”
CADNA Goes From Opposing New gTLD Program to Demanding a Time Frame for … – 02-Nov-11
The Collation Against Domain Abuse (CADNA) has appearently gone from being a vocal opponent of the new gTLD program to demanding a timeline for opening of the second round.
CADNA Hosts ‘What’s at Stake’ Conference to Discuss New gTLDs with Brands, will Submit Proposal to ICANN – 02-Nov-11
Over 85 representatives from global brands joined The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) for its “What’s at Stake: The Reality of ICANN’s New gTLD Program for Brands” conference at the Institute of International Education’s Edgar J. Kaufman Conference Center in New York City yesterday. Presented in coordination with engageSimply and HUM: Human Unlimited Media, “What’s at Stake” provided brand representatives with a forum to discuss their concerns about new gTLDs, and to gain insight into the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) from veterans of the ICANN community, including ICANN’s founding Chairman Esther Dyson.
TravelShark Acquires 80 Premium Travel Websites in Asia, Europe – 02-Nov-11
Leading online global travel network TravelShark continues to enhance its position in popular destinations across Asia Pacific and Europe with the acquisition of 80 new major-market, destination-specific websites. TravelShark’s newest domain acquisitions – all now live sites with new and enhanced TravelShark content – include heavily trafficked sites in premium travel locales, including BeijingHotels.com, SingaporeHotels.com, BangkokHotels.com and KualaLumpurHotels.com.
New Google Webmaster Tools Notification for Cross-domain URL Decisions – 02-Nov-11
A post on Google’s Webmaster Central Blog offers information on preventing cross-domain URL issues and announces a new notifications feature for webmasters.
Occupy Wall Street Won’t Be Spending $150000 On Occupy.com – 02-Nov-11
The organizers at Occupy Wall Street are struggling with a pretty ironic money problem: they have too much of it and there are plenty of people looking to cash in, including cybersquatters.
Sedo Distributes Q3 2011 Domain Market Study – 01-Nov-11
Among all these changes, Q3 2011 saw a total of 9,778 sales globally, amounting to more than $19,000,000 in sales volume, and an average price of $1,974. Globally, Sedo’s biggest public sale was aktien.de for €500,000, but 80% of sales revenue for the quarter consisted of confidential sales. The highest .com sales were grid.com for $275,000, and republic.com at $200,000. Given the Q2 2011 sale of gambling.com for $2,500,000—Sedo’s third-highest sale ever—sales volume remained relatively consistent with the previous quarter. Take a closer look at the performance of the domain market and Sedo’s Domain Marketplace by reviewing our Q3 2011 Domain Market Study
Winged Media, Makers of Protrada, Secures $3 Million Investment from the Carnegie Innovation Fund – 01-Nov-11
Winged Media, a market leader in domain technology and monetisation, today confirmed it has secured $3 million in additional investment from Carnegie Innovation Fund, LP (Carnegie Fund). The Winged Media portfolio spans a number of internet products and services focused on digital media, online advertising, domain assets and online publishing. However at its core, Winged Media is a professional domain trading organisation – buying domain names, building websites and selling them for a profit in the emerging asset class of Domaining.
Four Promises ICANN Must Meet With New Top-level Domains – 01-Nov-11
Just back from a week of ICANN meetings in Dakar. Is it just me, or is the new top-level domain program starting to feel like a TLD triathlon, where everyone’s now jockeying for position in the final stage — a grueling marathon? When ICANN’s board approved the new gTLD plan in Singapore, it came with the promise of small but substantive changes to improve the program. I hope that wasn’t empty rhetoric…
Qatar’s Arabic Domain Names .qatar Now Available to The Public – 31-Oct-11
The Qatar Domains Registry (QDR), which is managed by ictQatar, has officially made the Qatar-specific Arabic Internet domain names (.Qatar) available to members of the general public through…
Business Minister Edwina Hart Insists No Funding Will Be Given for Welsh Internet Domain Name – 31-Oct-11
Minister Edwina Hart has said she is not considering any funding to give Wales its own internet domain name. In answer to a question posed on the issue of funding for a Welsh domain name by Conservative AM Darren Millar, Mrs Hart said: On the issue of public cash, I can confirm that that is not an option that I am currently considering.
Domain Name Land Grab Poses Risks for SMBs – 31-Oct-11
Small and midsize businesses may lose out as ICANN begins to create new top-level Web domains. But you can take steps to protect yourself and your brand.
Google Webmaster Tools Provides Details On Duplicate Content Across Domains – 31-Oct-11
Today, Google webmaster tools has launched a new message alert to let site owners know when a particular URL doesn’t appear because Google sees it as duplicate of a URL on a different domain. In the blog post announcing the feature and in an in-depth help topic, they provide details on how they identify duplicate clusters of content and choose a “canonical” version of that cluster to display in search results.
Premium .CO Domain Auction Starts – 31-Oct-11
I mentioned this briefly yesterday, but today I have more information about the premium .CO auction on Pool that begins today at noon and runs through November 7.
How Klout Got Klout.com – 29-Oct-11
Fernandez started following the owner of klout.com on Twitter, waiting for him to reveal his location. When the guy at one point tweeted that he was at a restaurant in San Francisco, Fernandez went there, threw an envelope with $5,000 in cash on the table and told him that he would stop bothering him if he finally agreed to sell the domain name in exchange for the money.
Web.com Announces Completion of Network Solutions Acquisition – 28-Oct-11
Web.com Group, Inc., a leading provider of internet services and online marketing solutions for small businesses, today announced the successful completion of the acquisition of Network Solutions from NetSol Holdings LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, under the terms of the Acquisition Agreement previously announced on August 3, 2011.
Big Demand for .XXX Online Adult Entertainment Addresses Extends Domain Names – 28-Oct-11
Nearly 50,000 applications for .XXX domain names have been received by the Internet domain registrar, far outstripping the anticipated number when the dedicated adult entertainment domain was announced.
Bids Open for .Africa Internet Domain Name – 28-Oct-11
The international organization that governs top-level Internet domain names is taking bids on the creation of ‘.africa’ domain name. Supporters say it will promote African businesses better than individual country names such as “dot-ke” for Kenya or “dot-za” for South Africa.
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