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 DomainSherpa Interview
- VIDEO: Joint Ventures for Domain Name Development – With Zak Muscovitch
“I’ve got the brains, you’ve got the looks / Let’s make lots of money” – lyrics to a song released in 1985 by UK-based Pet Shop Boys.
That’s the same situation that many developers and domain name owners hope to achieve by forming a joint venture – combining their respective strengths to make lots of money.
But how do you progress from the “we just met” phase to the “we’re partners and wildly successful” phase? What if the domain name owner receives an offer to sell the domain that they can’t refuse? Or what if the developer fails to deliver on the timeline and thresholds that were agreed to prior to the joint venture?
All these questions – and more – are answered in this interview.
Watch The Full Show Now »
Additional Resources
- DomainSherpa Portfolio Review – Oct 17, 2013
Educational domains from 35 investors, domains from the OutcomeBrokerage.com newsletter are reviewed, and we crown a new “Registered or Available” king.
This is the show where we get into the minds of successful domain name investors – people we call Sherpas – and talk about the value of specific domain names. By listening to the Sherpas, we expand our thought process so we can become more successful investors ourselves.
We’re joined by four Domain Sherpas: Adam Dicker, Michael Berkens, Page Howe and Rick Schwartz.
Read/Watch »
This Week’s News in Review
Face Value: Digging Through Google’s Clumsy New Terms of Service – 17-Oct-13
On Friday, anyone signed into a Google account was greeted with a banner across the top of the page announcing the company’s terms of service had changed. Google was clearing the path for Facebook-style advertising, announcing any “shared endorsement” would be fair game to be used in promoted content.
Google Reports Paid Clicks Up 26%; Cost Per Click Down: Has $56 Billion in The Bank: Shares Up + 7% – 17-Oct-13
Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2013. The market loved the news sending Google shares up over 7% to an all time high in after hours trading of $957 a share, up $68…
Another Domain Sale We Never Heard About: Buyer of Personal.com Gets $4.5 Million in Funding – 17-Oct-13
According to the Term Sheet today “Personal, a Washington, D.C.-based digital vault and private network for people to store and manage important information and documents, has raised $4.5 million in new VC funding led by Bill Miller of Legg Mason.” The company owns the domain name Personal.com…
Apple Wins Control of 11 Domains: Macbook7.com; Findmyipad.com; Jailbreakmyipad.com – 17-Oct-13
A WIPO UDRP panel awarded Apple Computers 11 domain names. Some of the domains awarded today deal with products of Apple and some are just typos…
Buyer Beware: New Alternative Root Domain Name Registration Service Launches Promise Any Domain Name for Free – 17-Oct-13
In an apparent attempt to grab a market share with the new gTLD s coming out, “AnyExtension.com launched today according to a press release that promissing the users can “submit any domain name and extension that one wishes and that too for free.”…
ICANN: Implementing The New gTLD Collision Occurrence Management Plan – 16-Oct-13
On 7 October 2013 the ICANN Board’s New gTLD Program Committee approved resolutions directing staff to implement the New gTLD Collision Occurrence Management Plan (“The Plan”). Tonight ICANN released details on how it will be implementing the New gTLD Collision Occurrence Management Plan…
Over 7,000 .LA Domains Registered at GoDaddy Since June – 16-Oct-13
GoDaddy registers over 7,000 .LA domain names since promoting the domain for Los Angeles. A reader who invested in .la domain names asked me this week if I knew how the domain name was doing since GoDaddy put some of its marketing weight behind the domain. Here’s your answer: GoDaddy customers have registered over 7,000…
Donuts’ .shopping Found Too Similar to .shop, Will Be Placed in Contention Set – 16-Oct-13
Once again, who the string confusion panelist is determines the outcome of an objection. A string confusion objection panelist has ruled that having both .shop and .shopping as top level domain names will confuse the average internet user, and thus both should not both be delegated as TLDs. It’s the latest string confusion objection that…
Polo Sport Beats Polo Brand in .polo Top Level Domain Name Dispute – 16-Oct-13
.Polo brand top level domain name application killed off by polo sport association. A panel has upheld a community objection (pdf) filed by The United States Polo Association against Ralph Lauren Corporation’s application to run the .polo top level domain name. Polo is, of course, Ralph Lauren’s flagship brand. While the result of the case…
Moniker.com Sends Out Emails Promoting .biz Registrations; You Have to See This One (If Your Over 18) – 16-Oct-13
Moniker.com is sending out emails to customer promoting .Biz domain name registrations.
Fair enough. The ad is promoting a 35% savings off the list price of $10.59 and selling registrations for $6.79. Of course the extension .Biz is meant to represent “Business” so as we always talk about, the words to the left of the dot, should be ones that matches the extension and this one is about business…
Del Monte Responds to Strange New Top Level Domain Lawsuit – 16-Oct-13
Del Monte Corporation has responded to Del Monte International’s lawsuit over the .delmonte top level domain name. Calling the lawsuit “ill-conceived”, Del Monte Corporation (DMC) has asked the court to dismiss the case. Indeed, the way Del Monte International (DMI) went about disputing a World Intellectual Property Organization ruling was rather silly. DMI applied for…
.CO Registry Announces the Global Launch of European Internationalized Domain Names – 15-Oct-13
Today, .CO Internet, the company behind one of today’s fastest growing global domain extensions has announced the launch of European Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) in the .CO namespace. Over the past three years, .CO has become the domain name of choice for individuals around the world – including an increasing number of non-English speakers. For this reason, .CO has begun offering .CO domain names in alternate languages including Chinese, Russian, German, French, Japanese, among others. Throughout 2013, .CO has implemented 15 different languages into its namespace with the goal of increasing local interest and use in a multilingual Internet.
Last Sold in 2005 for $1.4 Million, Vip.com is Sold to Publicly Held VipShop.com – 15-Oct-13
Publicly traded VipShop.com (NYSE: VIPS) whose site is VipShop.com has quietly acquired the domain name VIP.com. The company has a market cap of $3.77 billion dollars. It appears according to DomainTools.com the company acquired the domain just a few weeks ago at or around September 24th, 2013…
15 Year Old Domain Lost in UDRP Because “Renewed in Bad Faith” – 15-Oct-13
Panel uses 2012 renewal date as basis for transferring domain name. A National Arbitration Forum panel has ordered the domain name Big5.com be transferred 15 years after it was registered, basing UDRP principles on the last date the domain name was renewed. The respondent in this case, Roy Fang, registered the domain name shortly after…
Demand Media Shares Hit 52 Week Low After Rosenblatt Resigns – 15-Oct-13
Shares of Demand Media, Inc. (DMD) hit a 52 week low today closing at $5.34 down almost 9% in the first day of trading since Richard Rosenblatt resigned as CEO and Chairman. Share hit inter-day low of $5.31…
Survey Finds Only One in Four Australians Own a Domain Name – 15-Oct-13
A survey of more than 10,000 Australians has found the .au domain name remains Australia’s home on the Internet with 95% of respondents identifying it as being uniquely representative of Australia compared to competing namespaces such as .com, .nz or .asia.
GoDaddy Acquires Webhosting Company (Mt) Media Temple – 15-Oct-13
GoDaddy gets foothold in more technical customer segment with latest acquisition. GoDaddy has acquired Los Angeles-based webhosting company (mt) Media Temple, known simply as (mt), for an undisclosed price. (mt) targets a more technical customer base than GoDaddy, and the two companies will remain distinctly separate. (mt) will continue to focus on a more technical/developer…
Trademark+50 Costs $75 to $200 a Pop – 15-Oct-13
The Trademark Clearinghouse has started accepting submissions under the new “Trademark+50″ service, with prices starting at about $76. It’s now called the Abused DNL (for Domain Name Label) service. It allows trademark owners to add up to 50 additional strings — which must have been cybersquatted according to a court or a UDRP panel –…
CEO Rosenblatt Quits Demand Media – 15-Oct-13
Demand Media CEO and co-founder Richard Rosenblatt has resigned and will be replaced by co-founder Shawn Colo, the company has announced. In a statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission today, no reason was given for his departure. Colo will take the CEO spot at the end of the month, while director James Quandt…
CADNA Calls On Congress to Address Cybersquatting Issues in New gTLD Program & Under Acpa – 15-Oct-13
The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) in a press release today quoting Rep. Tom Marino, R-Pa said “Congress has an obligation to take a hard look at ICANN’s new generic top-level domain (gTLD) program”…
Elliot’s Blog Rebrands As Domaininvesting.com – 15-Oct-13
Popular domain investing blog moves to a new domain name. If you visit Elliot Silver’s popular domaining blog today, don’t be alarmed by the redirect to DomainInvesting.com. Silver has rebranded the site from ElliotsBlog.com to DomainInvesting.com. The move will certainly help expand the audience of the blog and build credibility for new users. The new…
For Internet Rulers, the Vatican is Officially .catholic – 15-Oct-13
As top-level Internet domain names are being rolled out and up for grabs, the Vatican has scored control of .catholic. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which coordinates the assignment of Internet domain names and addresses around the world, has been allowing entities to apply for ownership of hundreds, and soon thousands, of new domain names such as .london, .insurance and .xbox, among others.
Pope Francis and the Vatican Are at the Helm of an Internet Name Revolution – 15-Oct-13
The Vatican bags “.Catholic” in four languages, as the industry opens the doors to tens of thousands of personalized websites.
BGC Rejects Reconsideration Requests: 2 Panels Can Come to Different Decisions On Same Strings – 14-Oct-13
The Board Governance Committee (BGC) of ICANN rejected two request for reconsideration (“Request”) over two decisions by the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (“ICDR”). One request was brought by Amazon over the decision sustaining Commercial Connect LLC’s (“Commercial Connect”) objection to Amazon’s new gTLD application for the Japanese translation of “online shopping” (“Amazon’s Applied-for String”) as being confusingly similar to Commercial Connect’s application for .SHOP (“Commercial Connect’s Applied-for String”).is an applicant for the Japanese translation of “online shopping.”…
Domain Broker Media Options Acquires Exclusive MO.co Premium Domain From .CO Registry – 14-Oct-13
Media Options announced they have struck a deal with .CO Internet, the company that operates the .CO domain registry, to purchase the MO.co domain name. While the terms of the deal are confidential, Media Options intends to launch the two letter domain into a complimentary brokerage business and website dedicated to premium domain names of alternative extensions, both ccTLD’s (like .CO, .TV & .ME) and select premium domains from some of the new gTLD’s which will soon be available. Media Options also stated that they had further plans for the unique domain name down the road to expand their companies’ service offerings.
Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt Resigns – 14-Oct-13
Richard Rosenblatt resigns as Chairman & CEO of Demand Media. There’s been a change at the top of one of the domain name industry’s biggest companies. Demand Media announced today that Richard Rosenblatt has stepped down as Chairman and CEO of the company. Shawn Colo has been named interim President and will be the interim…
NameBright.com Launches Its Next Generation Domain Name Registration Platform – 14-Oct-13
NameBright.com recently announced the public launch of its next generation domain registration platform. This domain registration platform helps people buy and manage Internet domain names. NameBright.com’s new platform has been in development for over five years and provides advanced features and functionality not offered by other domain name registrars; including domain history, free e-mail forwarding, category-based e-mail accounts, free privacy protection, cutting edge security settings, and a whole lot more.
ITU Says Numeric .tel Domains “May Be Confusing” – 14-Oct-13
The International Telecommunication Union has warned ICANN that numeric .tel domain names, due to be released by Telnic tomorrow, “may confuse customers or cause undue conflicts”. In a letter to ICANN, Malcolm Johnson, director of the ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, said that there’s a risk that numbers-only .tel name could be confused with the E.164…
Uniregistry Beats Back Google’s Objection to .cars: Different Decisions On The Same String is ICANN’s Problem – 14-Oct-13
Uniregistry, Corp just beat back an objection from Google’s Charleston Road Registry (CRR) Inc. on the new gTLD .cars in a decision handed down by the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (“ICDR”). CRR objected to Unregistry application for .cars as on the basis of String Confusion to its own application for .car and wanted the two applications to be placed into the same contention set which would have forced Uniregsitry into an auction with Google…
ICANN Publishes New TLD Applicant Videos – 14-Oct-13
All new TLD applicants invited to participate in recorded videos. As part of ICANN’s global awareness campaign for new top level domain names, the group invited all applicants for new top level domain names to participate in a recorded interview. ICANN hopes these videos will “provide insight into the individual story of a TLD, or…
NationwideLifts.com Saved in UDRP Which Should Have Been a RDNH – 14-Oct-13
S & H Enterprises, Inc. DBA Nationwide Lifts of New York, New York, just lost a UDRP on the very generic domain name nationwidelifts.com. S & H’s site is at elevette.com which they registered in 2003 and which I’m sure all domain investors would agree is a horrible domain…
After Acquiring TenMarks, Amazon.com’s Domain Name Team Went to Work – 14-Oct-13
Company registers over 75 domain names after making acquisition. Whenever Amazon.com announces a new product or acquires a company, it goes a bit nuts defensively registering related domain names. Last week Amazon acquired online match education company TenMarks, and its domain name team went to work. I count at least 75 defensive registrations, and I’m…
Freelancer.com – Six Figure Name in 2009 – $14 Million Dollar IPO in 2013 – 14-Oct-13
The domain name FreeLancer.com was acquired in 2009 for a Six Figure Sum as reported by TheDomains.com, The domain was previously parked before the company acquired and developed the domain name into the leading marketplace for Job Outsourcing.
.org Launches Website Makeover Contest – 14-Oct-13
Public Interest Registry, the not-for-profit operator of the .ORG domain, today announced the launch of its . as part of an ongoing effort to empower nonprofit organizations and groups to effectively advance their causes online…
Facing Competition From .kiwi, New Zeland ccTLD to Allow .nz Registrations – 11-Oct-13
The Council of InternetNZ (Internet New Zealand Inc) which operates the ccTLD for New Zealand approved today to allow domain names to be registered at the second level in the .nz domain name space…
.shop Applicant Has Really Lost It This Time – 11-Oct-13
Commercial Connect thinks applicant guidebook states only one TLD should be allocated for the entire “ecommerce namespace”. Commercial Connect LLC wants the .shop top level domain…badly. It also doesn’t want anyone else to be able to offer a top level domain that could in any way take away .shop’s marketshare. That’s why it filed string…
More Extended Evaluation Passes This Week – 11-Oct-13
Four new gTLD applications passed Extended Evaluation this week, and two that were stuck in Initial Evaluation finally made it through, ICANN just revealed. The Extended Evaluation successes were DotPay’s application for .pay, Commercial Connect’s application for .shop, CompassRose.life’s application for .life and GED Domains’ application for .ged. The dot-brands .adac (Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club) and…
No Wonder UDRP’s are a Mess; 13 Years Later & Panelist Can’t Agree On 1 of The 3 Elements – 11-Oct-13
A UDRP decision handed down today shows why the UDRP system is still a mess and why we get some many bad decisions. The UDRP system has been handing down decisions for over 13 years and today’s case points out panelist still disagree on the meaning of 1 of the 3 elements required to prove a UDRP claim bad faith and what the language of the rule means…
Google’s Registry for New gTLD’s; Charleston Road Registry Launches Its Site – 11-Oct-13
Google’s Registry for that will be the back end operator for Google’s new gTLD strings, CharlestonRoadRegistry.com officially launched their site today: “Welcome to Charleston Road Registry, Google’s domain registry. We’re really excited about the domains we’ll soon be able to offer. The Internet has always been first and foremost about self-expression, and the dawn of this era of hundreds of new domains marks one of the most unpredictable moments in the history of a highly unpredictable medium…
Google Acquires CRR.com Domain Name From Telepathy for New TLDs – 11-Oct-13
Google buys CRR.com domain from Telepathy. It would seem that good .com domains are still highly prized, even by new top level domain name applicants. Google has acquired the domain name CRR.com, and I have no doubt it was acquired for the company’s new TLD subsidiary Charleston Road Registry. Google currently uses the long domain…
True Religion Loses Domain Dispute, But You Need to Read The Dissent – 11-Oct-13
True Religion can’t get TrueReligion.com domain name through UDRP. In July I wrote about how True Religion (NASDAQ: TRLG), maker of premium denim products, had filed a UDRP against the owner of TrueReligion.com to try to get the domain name. Pretty much everything I predicted in my post was correct: The owner owned the domain…
.wed Becomes One of The First New TLDs to Submit a New Registry Service Request – 11-Oct-13
Company wants to let second level domain registrants transition to third level domain names. The ink is barely dry on Atgron, Inc.’s contract with ICANN to run the .wed top level domain name, and the company has already submitted a Registry Service request for a new service. The company is asking (pdf) to be able…
Donuts’ First gTLD Sunrise Slated for October 29 – 11-Oct-13
Donuts has reportedly become the first new gTLD registry to announce its first sunrise periods. According to BrandShelter, part of the KeyDrive registrar group, nine of Donuts gTLDs will enter sunrise on October 29. The nine are: .camera, .clothing, .equipment, .guru, .holdings, .lighting, .singles, .ventures and .voyage. The sunrise periods will last 60 days, BrandShelter…
Spy Optic, Inc. Guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking On SpyopticsOutlet.com – 11-Oct-13
In A one member UDRP decision Spy Optic, Inc. of Carlsbad, California, United States of America, represented by the law firm Stetina Brunda Garred & Brucker has been found guilty Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) on SpyOpticsOutlet.com…
Third Bulgarian New gTLDs Conference Planned – 11-Oct-13
Domain Forum, the Bulgarian new gTLDs conference, will run for a third time on November 1 in Sofia. The one-day event, which will be free to attend and conducted in English, will have a focus this year on Cyrillic internationalized domain names, according to organizers. Much of the agenda has yet to be finalized but…
Domain Name Association Opens Membership – 11-Oct-13
The new Domain Name Association, which hopes to represent the interests of the domain name industry as a whole, has opened its doors to new members. The DNA formed in January, named an interim board in April, and has spent the last several months conducting outreach and establishing its corporate structure, goals and membership rules…
Some gTLD Applicants Welcome ICANN’s Clash Plan – 11-Oct-13
Some new gTLD applicants, including two of the bigger portfolio applicants, have grudgingly accepted ICANN’s latest name collisions remediation plan as a generally positive development. ICANN this week scrapped its three-tier categorization of applications, implicitly accepting that it was based on a flawed risk analysis, and instead said new gTLDs can be delegated without delay…
ICANN Sends Out 1st Community Priority Evaluation Invitations; .immo & .taxi – 10-Oct-13
ICANN has invited eligible community applicants to elect Community Priority Evaluation (CPE) as a potential method to resolve string contention. Today, the first two invitations were sent via ICANN’s Customer Portal to STARTING DOT on its .IMMO application, and Taxi Pay GmbH application for .Taxi..
Signed New TLD Registry Contracts Have a Wide Range of Priority Numbers – 10-Oct-13
Priority numbers helped companies at the beginning of the process but do not correlate closely with signed registry contracts. Yesterday ICANN executed its contract with dotCareer, LLC for the .career top level domain names. The application had a priority draw number of 119. A full week before, on October 2, Donuts executed its contract with…
Google and Amazon.com Backpeddle On Closed Top Level Domain Names – 10-Oct-13
Google to make one more domain open, Amazon relents on 25. Google and Amazon.com have changed their minds about operating some of their applied-for generic top level domain names as “closed” domain names. For many domains, the companies had planned to not offer second level domain name registrations, such as myname.blog, to the public. Instead,…
After 12 Years & Over 70 UDRP’s Sony Finally Gets Around to Filing a UDRP On Sonystore.com – 10-Oct-13
Sony has over 35 retail stores in the United States which sell just Sony Products and they are called Sony Stores. The official website for the stores is store.sony.com…
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