Domain Name News: Week 2 of 2011 in Review

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.ORG The Public Interest Registry Names Brian Cute As Chief Executive Officer – 14-Jan-11
.ORG, The Public Interest Registry (PIR) — manager of the world’s third largest generic top-level domain¬†– today appointed Mr. Brian Cute as chief executive officer.¬†With more than 12 years of experience in the Internet and communications industry, Mr. Cute will assume his leadership position on February 1, 2011.
Go Daddy Ready to Launch .CO Marketing Blitz – 13-Jan-11
Go Daddy ready to launch marketing blitz for .co domain registries with Super Bowl ad, new Go Daddy girl. Scottsdale-based Go Daddy was one of a few domain providers authorized to sell that domain suffix when it when it was launched in July.Now with about 250,000 .co registrations under its cap so far, the Internet-domain registrar will use its annual Super Bowl commercial next month to draw attention to it before television’s biggest annual audience, the company said this week.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 Domain Name Registered – 13-Jan-11
Corporation Service Company has registered the Finalfantasy13-2game.com domain name, according to Superannuation. The company has previously registered domains for Nier, Mindjack, and other Square Enix games, suggesting that this is also the work of Square Enix. This domain name could simply be Square Enix grabbing related names just in case, but it could also be evidence of a direct sequel to Final Fantasy XIII — possibly, like Final Fantasy X-2, one built on the engine and assets from the previous, expensive game.
Oversee.net Taps Morrow to Lead Vertical Markets Strategy – 13-Jan-11
Oversee.net® has named Scott Morrow as Senior Vice President / GM of its Vertical Markets division, the company said today. Morrow will lead Oversee’s effort to rapidly build on its contextual search and comparative results capability, expanding on its success in financial services and travel to move into new marketplaces. The company, which operates well-established comparison sites like LowFares.com™ and CreditCards.org, is focusing development efforts on creating site experiences that help consumers make purchase decisions. Oversee’s performance marketing strategy—connecting consumers and advertisers—will provide consumers with immediately relevant information and move them closer to the actions they want to take.
Internet in 2010: 107T E-mails, 255M Websites – 13-Jan-11
As technology gets cheaper and easier to use, so it follows that more and more people will start using it. For internet users and providers, 2010 was a year of unprecedented growth, reports Royal Pingdom, a tech website. There are now almost as many individual websites as there are American citizens. Summary: 255 million – The number of websites as of December 2010. 21.4 million – Added websites in 2010.
Why I Think Groupon Needs Its Domain Names Now – 13-Jan-11
You may have read that Groupon is fighting to get its Australian ccTLD domain name. It had offered to pay over a quarter of a million dollars for the domain name and a similar trademark filing. It seems a bit odd that a company would seemingly reward an alleged cybersquatter for this much money, but Groupon needs this (and similar) domain names ASAP.
Google, Facebook to Trial IPv6 Access On Key Domains – 13-Jan-11
Some of the internet’s most popular domains such as Facebook and Google will enable IPv6 on their key services for 24 hours in the summer, in preparation for the transition to the new internet protocol, the Internet Society has said. Moving from the current IPv4 system to IPv6 is necessary as the IPv4 protocol is running out of internet addresses. Vint Cerf ‚Äî co-inventor of TCP/IP ‚Äî said in November 2010 that IPv4 addresses will run out within two years, meaning no new devices can be registered using the older system.
Which Domain Name Registrar is Best? – 13-Jan-11
Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Who is the greatest registrar of them all? When it comes to top domain name registrars, Go Daddy has been a clear winner in all five years of the Domain Name Wire survey. Last year it grabbed 41% of the vote, compared to just 16% for the runner up. Now the sixth annual survey is upon us. Will Go Daddy retain…
S. Korea Blocks Websites With N. Korean Domain Names – 13-Jan-11
South Korean authorities blocked residents from accessing North Korean websites, Yonhap News Agency reported Thursday. Authorities said they blocked sites with the domain name .kp because they contained illegal information under South Korea’s anti-communism and security laws. The web censorship by the South’s state-run Communications Standards Commission came a day after it emerged that the North began reusing the domain name to expand its propaganda sites.
Will You Buy Shares in Demand Media? – 12-Jan-11
Company sets flotation price range. A large domain name company is getting ready to go public. Will you get in on the action? Demand Media, which owns eNom, has set an expected price per share of $14-$16. It plans to sell 4.5 million shares while existing shareholders hope to offload 3 million shares. The company also released…
Facebook Paid $8.5 Million for FB.com – 12-Jan-11
Facebook paid the American Farm Bureau $8.5 million for the domain name FB.com, now used internally by employees of the social network. The transaction might have included other related web addresses yet to be revealed. Today Reuters reported that the purchase price of $8.5 million.
Group Employs .jobs in Recruitment Twist – 12-Jan-11
Some big companies are trying a new avenue to find job candidates — listing openings on thousands of Web addresses that end in .jobs.
Bidder Qualification Deadline Approaches for Coveted I.co Domain Name Auction – 12-Jan-11
SnapNames® and Moniker®, both Oversee.net companies, and .CO Internet S.A.S., the official registry operator for the .CO top-level domain, confirmed today that interested bidders may qualify to participate in the upcoming auction for the valuable i.CO domain name until January 21, 2011 at 11:59 p.m. U.S. Eastern time. Only qualified bidders can participate in the private online auction, which will open Thursday, February 3, 2011 and conclude at 3:15 p.m. U.S. Eastern time on Thursday, February 10. The i.CO name will not be part of the lot at the live public auction at DOMAINfest® Global in Santa Monica, Calif.
Wowwhatsavings.com Goes After Aol’s Wow.com in Lawsuit – 12-Jan-11
Site owner says AOL’s wow.com is confusing his users. Late last year AOL converted its WOW.com domain name from a World of Warcraft site to a daily deals site similar to Groupon. Now the owner of daily deals site WowWhatSavings.com is crying foul in a lawsuit (pdf). WowWhatSavings.com owner Todd Rideman says his deals site has been known as…
Google Adwords to Lower Case Domains – 12-Jan-11
Google AdWords announced they will not longer allow capitalization of domains in the ads. Let me show you what this means. If I wanted my ad to have a display URL that looked like www.RustyBrick.com, I am out of luck. Google will automatically lowercase the display URL in my AdWords ad to www.rustybrick.com.
North Korean Domain Names Return to The Internet – 12-Jan-11
North Korean domain names have returned to the Internet over the last few days as the country continues to build its presence online. Websites, previously available only via IP addresses, are now accessible through dot-kp addresses and it appears more might be on the way.
Facebook Dropped $8.5 Million On FB.com Domain Name – 11-Jan-11
When your company is worth $50 billion and it’s pretty clear that none of it is going to the CEO’s wardrobe, you can afford to drop some cash on luxuries, like the domain name you’ve had your eye on for months. In November, Mark Zuckerberg announced that he had finally wrested control of the “fb.com” address away from the American Farm Bureau (“The Farm Bureau agreed to sell us fb.com and we in return have agreed not to sell farm subsidies”). He did not announce how much he paid for it. But Farm Bureau folks let it slip at the annual meeting in Atlanta Tuesday, saying they’d made $8.5 million “by selling a couple of domain names” but were “barred from identifying the buyer.” Zuckerberg plans to use his $8.5 million toy for internal use by Facebook employees.
Afternic Sells $550k in Domains for Week Ending January , 2011 – 11-Jan-11
Afternic.com published its weekly list of reportable domain name sales for the period ending January 9 2011. The domain Soulmate.com lead the way selling for $100K but the more interesting sale was Adss.com for $61,600.
Go Daddy to Unveil First GoDaddy.co Girl – 11-Jan-11
Go Daddy says it will unveil GoDaddy.co girl in conjunction with Super Bowl commercial. .Co already scored a major coup by partnering with Go Daddy on its 2011 Super Bowl commercial. But the publicity train rolls on. The latest announcement from Go Daddy: it will showcase its first every GoDaddy.co girl in the commercial. Well, maybe…
New Domain Extension .gr.com Launches Today With a Landrush for Premium Domain – 10-Jan-11
A new “zone” of domain names ending with the extension .GR.COM is being launched in a Landrush starting at 6pm GMT today. Domain name buyers will be able to acquire premium “keyword” domains ending .GR.COM, as unlike other domain extensions launched over recent years, no domains have been withheld from sale. Examples of available names include: business.gr.com, loans.gr.com, dating.gr.com, flights.gr.com, games.gr.com, blog.gr.com, video.gr.com, poker.gr.com, athens.gr.com, travel.gr.com, shopping.gr.com
Verizon iPhone Domain Name Suffers Same Fate As Wikileaks.com at Go Daddy – 10-Jan-11
As news spreads of a presumed iPhone announcement from Verizon Wireless tomorrow, commentators have been discussing some related domain names that are now owned by Verizon. For instance, iPhoneForVerizon.com now appears to be owned by Verizon. The company fiercely defends it’s trademarks, so this is no surprise to me. Perhaps the best iPhone / Verizon domain name would be VerizoniPhone.com, which does not appear to be owned by either Apple or Verizon Wireless. Instead, it appears to be registered to a California resident and registered with Go Daddy.
Chinese Top Level Domain Name in Hong Kong Available for Register – 10-Jan-11
Back in June 2010, the Hong Kong Internet Registration Corporation Limited (HKIRC) was granted approval by ICANN to administer Chinese equivalent of the “.hk” top level domain name, the Chinese term for Hong Kong, to eliminate language barriers. Subsequently, free and priority registration of the Chinese domain has been offered to current English domain users, with any new customers able to register both Chinese and English “.hk” domain names for the price of one. HKIRC has now announced its plan to launch [Chinese Characters] domain categories in February/March 2011 (exact dates to be confirmed).
Microsoft Spent $50 Million Dollars On Jellyfish.com in 2007 & Doesn’t Have It Set to Work Without The Www. in Front Р10-Jan-11
Years before Groupon was even in existence, back In October 2007 Microsfot shelled out a reported $50 Million Dollars for the Shopping site Jellyfish.com. Today the domain name doesn’t even resolve, unless as Mike below points out you type in the address as www.jellyfish.com. If you type in just Jellyfish.com into your browser the domain does not resolve.
Survey: What’s The Most Important Selling Point of a Domain Name Registrar? – 10-Jan-11
Give your opinion in this year’s survey. There are hundreds of domain name registrars. So how do you choose one? Good question. And I ask it every year on the Domain Name Wire Survey. Last year survey respondents said security and price were the most important factors. Has that changed? When you complete the Sixth Annual Domain Name…
.at Crosses 1 Million Domain Registrations – Domain Name News – 10-Jan-11
The Austrian Registry just crossed the 1,000,000 domain registration mark this morning as reported by DVmag.
Hundreds of .jobs Domains Now Live Under Directemployer’s Direction – 10-Jan-11
The controversial and highly debated Universe.jobs project has launched, and now hundreds of both geographical and vocational .jobs domains are live, according to DomainIncite.com. The .jobs domains are offered to registrants as a service of the DirectEmployers Association’s National Labor Exchange.
Popular .music Initiative Files Us Trademark Application – 10-Jan-11
.Music backer files application for U.S. trademark. Constantinos Roussos has been aggressive in marketing his initiative for a .music top level domain name. He’s also voice displeasure that latecomers could derail his hopes by also applying for the .music top level domain. At the June 2010 ICANN meeting Roussos voiced his displeasure about…
Cambridge Company That Brokered Sex.com’s $13m Deal Now Selling Massachusetts.com Р09-Jan-11
Once hearing that Massachusetts.com was for sale, I spent some time digging around and trying to get some numbers on what this sale might go for. Here are some examples of similar domains and their sale price…
Escondido: Ballpark Fever Prompts Man to Buy More Than 100 Related Domain Names – 09-Jan-11
They might be called the North County Friars. They could also be known as the Escondido Swingers. But no matter what Escondido’s minor league baseball team ends up being called, local resident Allen Pope is ready to cash in.
888.com Purchases Poker.com.au Domain for $100k – 08-Jan-11
Poker domain names continue to be a hot item around the world. Just this week, gambling company 888.com purchased the domain poker.com.au for $100,000, a significant price considering the current ban on gambling advertisements in Australia.