News
Interesting idea: auctioning a domain name on twitter
A domain broker auctioned a domain name on Twitter.
Twitter is a great medium to share news, interact with friends and gripe about airline delays. Could it also be a good way to auction a domain name?
Domain broker Darryl Lopes gave it a shot this week with the domain name ITQL.com. The starting bid was $50. Here’s his tweet that kicked off the auction:
I will auction https://t.co/tJqAsVJygW on @Twitter right now. Starting at $50.
To be the first person to bid reply on Twitter in comments with
“ITQL $50” Auction ends 28th August #domainauction #domains
— Darryl Lopes [D-LO] (@DarrylLopes) August 25, 2018
The domain sold for $121. You can see the responses and bidding here.
There are a couple of things about this idea that I like. One is that you can easily reach thousands of people that follow you and pull them into the auction. Another is that the bidding is very transparent (assuming the bidder’s accounts look legit). On the downside, it’s not very scaleable.
What do you think?
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Afilias moves HQ to United States
Tax law changes influence decision to move headquarters to U.S.
Domain name registry Afilias has made the United States its legal headquarters, moving it from Ireland.
The company created a new Delaware company, Afilias, Inc. and made its previous parent company, Afilias plc, a subsidiary of the Delaware company.
Afilias was one of many domain name companies that set up operations in Ireland, ostensibly to take advantage of favorable tax policies. With the recent change in U.S. tax laws, the benefits of running a headquarters through Ireland are not as great.
Nothing should change day-to-day. The U.S. headquarters, which already existed, is in the Philadelphia suburb of Horsham, Pennsylvania.
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Open Whois advocates push for U.S. legislation to counter GDPR
Groups hurt by lack of public Whois data would like to push back against EU legislation that has shut off most access.
Advocates for open Whois records are shopping a bill in the U.S. that would force domain name registrars to publish Whois information, countering the impact of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Milton Mueller of Internet Governance Project has a copy of the proposed legislation titled “Transparent, Open and Secure Internet Act of 2018”.
For a while, it has been apparent that the only way for GDPR’s impact on Whois to be counteracted is for legislation in the United States. Without it, registrars have an incentive to over-comply with the nebulous requirements of GDPR. Their biggest fear is heavy fines from the EU.
But if there’s a law in the U.S. that forces them to publish Whois information, they’ll have to think twice before taking the major step of blocking all Whois contact information from public viewing.
The proposed bill goes further than previous Whois policy and even demands that domain names used in any sort of commerce (including a parked page with ads) do not use a Whois proxy service.
It’s not clear that the bill’s authors have found any sort of audience on Capitol Hill. Even if they do, the final bill is likely to be watered down in many respects.
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Here’s why NAR can trademark “.Realtor”
.Realtor should qualify under updated USPTO guidelines for trademarking top level domain names.
The .Realtor website. They might want to add a TM to .REALTOR, but they should be able to trademark it.
The National Association of REALTORS (NAR) has filed a trademark application for “.REALTOR”.
I’ve harped about how the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office doesn’t allow trademarks for top level domain names, but this case is different.
The USPTO has updated its guidelines because brands were applying for top level domain names. It changed the guidelines to allow trademarks for “dot-brands” in certain circumstances. Four guidelines must be met.
1. The brand owner has to have a prior registration of the same mark in the same field of use. NAR already has a trademark for “Realtor”.
The guidelines also state that the field of use in the trademark application will need to be limited to the same fields in the existing trademark. It can’t be for different fields of use. So in this case, it can’t be to provide domain registry services to restaurants instead of real estate agents.
The guidelines specifically disallow generic services such as “domain-name registry operator and registrar services”. NAR’s application does just that, identifying the services as “domain registry services”. The application examiner will likely require this to be amended.
2. Applicants must provide “Additional Proof that the Mark Used as a gTLD Will Be Perceived as a Mark”. I suspect this will be fairly easy to prove, although NAR continually fights the notion that Realtor is a generic term.
3. It must have a contract with ICANN for the TLD. Check.
4. It must be a legitimate service for the benefit of others.
If a brand only uses the top level domain for its own marketing activities, the trademark will generally be disallowed. But if registrations are allowed by other people such as distributors, it qualifies for the trademark. That’s the case here as NAR members (aka Realtors) can register the domains. Realtors are akin to distributors in many ways.
It seems that NAR will qualify, although it will need to amend its identification of services and will probably need to provide additional documentation to the examining attorney.
NAR is also behind the forthcoming .realestate domain name. It will not be able to tradmeark “.realestate” for registry services.
You can read the USPTO guidelines for .brands-as-trademarks here.
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13 more end user domain names sales
An AI company, a cryptocurrency business and a drone news publisher bought domain names last week.
It was a high tech end user sales kind of week at Sedo. An artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and even a portable military communications company bought domains. In addition, a German high-end pen manufacturer and a vaping delivery service bought new domains.
Two three-letter domains sold for nice prices, too: FXT.com for $150,000 and ILA.com for $125,00. Both domains are under Whois privacy and haven’t been developed yet, so it’s not clear who bought them.
AIFor.com €7,000 – AI For Commerce, an artificial intelligence-powered pricing system, bought this domain and forwards it to its main site AIForCommerce.com.
JungleVentures.com $6,000 – Jungle Ventures, a tech investor in growth markets, bought the unhyphenated version of its domain name. The domain forwards to the existing site Jungle-ventures.com.
KDG.info $5,655 – This domain forwards to the German site svb-muelot.de, which appears to be a data protection company. It’s unclear what the domain means to them, but it’s a nice sale for a three letter .info domain.
BlueSkyInnovations.com $5,580 – The domain name forwards to BlueSkyMast.com, which sells portable military network/communications equipment.
VapeBox.com $5,500 – Zamplebox, a company with a subscription e-liquid service for vaping. The domain forwards to zamplebox.com.
StilForm.com €5,236 – StilForm is a German pen manufacturer producing high-end writing utensils.
OneICO.com $5,200 – A cryptocurrency business.
FacingAddiction.com $5,000 – Facing Addiction and The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD) recently merged. They use the domain FacingAddiction.org, and this .com domain forwards to the .org.
DroneIndustry.com $2,950 – Drone Network has already created a site on this domain about the drone industry.
Love-Doll.com €2,900 – The domain name was purchased by LD Europe Ltd, which might be short for “love doll”.
RestPeace.com $2,299 – The buyer is generating leads for funeral homes in the Los Angeles area.
CloudInfra.com $2,000 – IT company Super Micro out of California.
ILoveMusic.de €2,000 – The domain forwards to ILoveRadio.de, a streaming music site.
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Sedo to hold crypto domain name auction
Auction will show the investor appetite for crypto domains.
Sedo announced that it will hold an auction September 13-20 that will exclusively feature cryptocurrency and blockchain-related domain names.
It’s a bit surprising that no other major marketplace has held a similar auction given that this market has driven the domain market over the past year. Since the beginning of 2017, Sedo has recorded $1.7 million in sales of names containing crypto and blockchain terms.
That undercounts the overall impact significantly. Crypto and blockchain companies are also buying generic and short domains that lack these keywords. For example, many are buying three letter domain names that end in “x”, standing for exchange.
Here are Sedo’s top 10 public sales of crypto and blockchain domains:
cryptoworld.com 194,888
cryptonews.com 50,284
payether.com 45,000
blockchain.ventures 42,000
securechain.com 30,000
block-chain.com 30,000
bitcoin.casino 28,000
paybit.de 27,915
cryptogold.com 19,000
blockchainwallet.com 15,750
Sellers can submit domain names for free if they meet the qualifications. Details are here.
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Community-driven new TLDs have a tricky balancing act
.Radio’s rules against generic domains seem counterproductive.
At what point does a new top level domain name created for a community move from protecting its community to stifling innovation?
Many community top level domain name applicants have restrictions in place to keep out domain investors and speculators. The case of .radio makes me wonder if you can take this too far.
.Radio is operated by the European Broadcasting Union. It severely restricts the registration of generic names. Here’s the relevant language from its registrations policy:
A. Generic names
Generic names (understood in this context as any word that contains a class or group of things) can only be registered by registrants whose company name, commercial name, or any of its commercial activities associated with that registrant broadcasting business do have a connection with said generic name.
B. Generic names with specific significance for the .radio community
Certain generic names with specific meaning for the .radio community (categories of radio stations of services, news, info, musical styles or genres, radio-related technologies, etc.) may not be registered. Such names should be reserved for community oriented usages. Registry Operator may consider specific requests for said names once the appropriate procedure is adopted
and published in https://nic.radio/policies.
Names registered bypassing this provision may be suspended or even cancelled by the Registry Operator.
Here’s an example of how this works in practice.
Victory 91.5 is a Christian radio station in Atlanta. It participated in the .radio Pioneers program and got Victory.Radio before the domains were made available to the public. It uses that domain for its website.
When .radio went into general availability late last year, the station saw a unique opportunity. It provides an on-demand streaming music platform so it registered ondemand.radio. A few weeks later it received a cancellation notice:
I’d argue this falls more afoul of the clause regarding “Generic names with specific significance for the .radio community”.
But taking the domain away and not allowing anyone else to register it seems like a missed opportunity.
Although I wasn’t a fan of the idea of community top level domain names, the rules are what they are. As long as the restrictions are handled in a transparent and consistent manner, it’s up to the operator.
Still, I think .radio could be much more. Think about it. You have registrants who are in the media business and will constantly promote your domain extension. If the DJ says “stream our station at something.radio”, that is an ad for .radio. That’s a great thing and should be encouraged. It’s one of the reasons I recommend that new TLD operators do what they can to get first or last name domains into the hands of users without big premiums. If a person uses a domain with a new TLD for email, then every email they send is an advertisement for that TLD!
.Radio’s restrictions are part of the reason it only has 2,500 registered names in the zone file. It could do much more to make .radio useful for its community.
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Review: building a website on Weebly
My experience building a website on Weebly.
So far I’ve built websites on Squarespace and Wix. Today I’m going to walk through my experience building a site on Weebly.
I’m familiar with Weebly because of its Weebly Cloud platform that domain name registrars and hosts use, but this was my first time developing a site on the platform.
Weebly was purchased by payments company Square (NYSE:SQ) (not to be confused with Squarespace) earlier this year, and it’s clear why the deal made sense for Square: Weebly is all about ecommerce.
Building
When you start to use Weebly, you’re asked if you want to sell online:
You’re asked if you want to add ecommerce functionality again during the process. It’s a big push for the company.
I chose the first option (no selling functionality) and began building a simple website to connect to my personal name, AndrewAllemann.com. I haven’t used this domain yet and it wouldn’t hurt to have an additional site high in the search results for my name. Currently, searching my name gives results for social media profiles and Domain Name Wire.
Weebly seems to be light on templates compared to the other site builders, but I found one that would work for my goals.
The user interface was very intuitive with drag-and-drop elements that can be dragged anywhere on the page:
Within about 30 minutes I created a simple three-page site, complete with a contact page and form.
It’s easy to expand the functionality with optional apps, too. But this wasn’t necessary for my site. Here’s what the finished home page looks like:
The Weebly theme I used is responsive for mobile browsers. Unlike my experience editing with Wix (but similar to Squarespace) I couldn’t tweak the mobile layout. This is probably a best practice, but it did leave me with extra whitespace on the mobile version that I’d like to remove even though I like the amount of whitespace on the desktop version. While reviewing the mobile layout, I also discovered that I had misplaced some titles on the home page. While they looked fine when viewing the desktop version, the titles “Domain Name Wire” and “Stacey on IoT” were not attached to the text below them. This made them out-of-order on the mobile version. It took a few minutes to figure out how to edit this and attach them.
Packages
Weebly offers a fairly robust free option that doesn’t come with a domain and includes Weebly branding. Even though some people opt for this, most users will want to select a paid plan.
For $48 a year you can connect to a domain name. This package includes a free domain.
I opted for the Starter plan at $96 a year. This includes a free domain and removes Weebly branding from the site. You can also add ecommerce functionality at this level. Businesses needing more functionality, such as memberships and more ecommerce capabilities, will want to choose the $144-a-year Pro plan or $300-a-year Business plan. Given the company’s recent acquisition by Square, I expect it to continue to grow its ecommerce capabilities.
Publishing and Promoting
Customers have two options for connecting their domain to a Weebly site. Once is to transfer the domain to Weebly (or register it there). The other is to change the DNS records at the existing registrar.
Rather than providing nameservers, Weebly asks customers to add A records in their DNS settings. Although this is slightly more technical than changing nameservers, it makes it easier to connect your domain to third-party services such as another email provider.
Unlike Wix and Squarespace, Weebly doesn’t have a direct connection with Google Search Console for adding your site to Google. It’s easy to add a site manually, but I suspect some first-time site creators will find this a bit challenging.
Overall
Weebly performs as advertised. The simple, drag-and-drop interface should work well for people without any website building skills. After all, it took me only about 30 minutes to familiarize myself with the builder and create a simple website.
Although I didn’t build an ecommerce site, Weebly might be a compelling choice for store owners given its focus on ecommerce, which should only expand now that it’s owned by payments company Square.
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Nintendo goes on defensive domain registration binge after hacks
Company registers domain names including ModSwitch.com, SwitchHackGuide.com and SwitchJailbreakMod.com.
“Hey look Mom, it’s porn on my Switch.” Nintendo is battling against recent hacks and registering domains to prevent their spread. (Photo from Nintendo.com)
Hackers have managed to hack the Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo is in full-out repair mode.
In addition to finding ways to keep porn out of Nintendo games as a result of the hacks, Nintendo is snapping up domain names that might be used to teach people how to jailbreak or hack the devices.
Nintendo registered at least 75 domain names yesterday. Most of them are directly related to the recent hacks. Here’s a complete list:
adapterforswitch.com
authenticswitchmods.com
cfwforswitch.com
cfwswitch.com
dongleforswitch.com
dongleswitch.com
freecfwforswitch.com
hackaswitch.com
hackmynswitch.com
hacknintendoswitch.com
hacknswitch.com
hackthenswitch.com
jailbreakmyswitch.com
jailbreaknintendoswitch.com
jailbreakswitch.com
jailbreaktheswitch.com
modaswitch.com
modnintendoswitch.com
modswitch.com
modtheswitch.com
newcfwforswitch.com
newswitchdongle.com
newswitchhack.com
newswitchjig.com
newswitchmod.com
nintendodongle.com
nintendoswitchadapter.com
nintendoswitchdongle.com
nintendoswitchhack.com
nintendoswitchhacked.com
nintendoswitchhackguide.com
nintendoswitchjailbreak.com
nintendoswitchmod.com
nintendoswitchusbdongle.com
nswitchadapter.com
nswitchdongle.com
nswitchdongles.com
nswitchexploits.com
nswitchhack.com
nswitchhackguide.com
nswitchhacks.com
nswitchjig.com
nswitchjigs.com
nswitchmodchip.com
nswitchrcm.com
nswitchsx.com
nswitchusb.com
payloadswitch.com
piracyswitch.com
r4sswitch.com
rcmnswitch.com
switchcfw.com
switchcfwguide.com
switchdongle.com
switchdongles.com
switchhacked.com
switchhackguide.com
switchhacksguide.com
switchjailbreakmod.com
switchmodguide.com
switchnx.com
switchpayload.com
switchpayloadloader.com
switchpiracy.com
switchr4s.com
switchrcmjig.com
switchrcmjigs.com
switchrcmmode.com
switchsoftmods.com
switchsxfamily.com
switchsxos.com
switchusb.com
switchusbdongle.com
sxnswitch.com
usbnswitch.com
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Larry.Page coming soon as Google launches .Page domain names
Larry.Page and other domains ending in .page are coming soon.
Google released the .Page top level domain name today in Sunrise, meaning trademark owners who have registered their marks with the Trademark Clearinghouse can register domains ending in .page.
And no, Google didn’t select .page because it’s the surname of its co-founder Larry Page. On its website, Google says “.page is for anyone who wants to create a new website online, including entrepreneurs, publishers, developers, businesses, and students.”
The Sunrise period will end on October 2, at which point an Early Access Dutch auction runs for seven days. This is similar to the model used to launch the .App domain earlier this year.
After Early Access, the domain will be open to everyone at regular prices on October 9.
The domain name will be affordably priced. The registrars I checked are offering the domain for $13 once general availability begins.
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Crowdsourcing (domain) name selection – DNW Podcast #199
This crowdsourced name selection service could be the missing link between companies and the domain aftermarket.
I have a fascinating discussion this week with Darpan Munjal, founder and CEO of SquadHelp.com. This company helps businesses select new company and product names with the help of a crowd of name suggesters. It’s been quite successful; it was #247 on this year’s Inc 5000 list and generated $2.5 million in revenue, mostly from naming contest fees.
Late last year the company added a domain name element to its business that could be very interesting to domain name investors, especially those that invest in brandable domains.
Before chatting with Darpan I have a brief interview with Abner Duarte, who is organizing the Domaining Americas conference in Brazil in October.
Also: California.com sells, .Co premiums, Whois info via API and more.
Subscribe via iTunes to listen to the Domain Name Wire podcast on your iPhone or iPad, view on Google Play Music, or click play below or download to begin listening. (Listen to previous podcasts here.)
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Former NFL player Shawne Merriman wanted LightsOut.com, but panelist disagreed
Cybersquatting complaint denied.
Former NFL Pro-Bowler
Shawne Merriman wears a “Lights Out” shirt.
Former NFL player Shawne Merriman started a clothing company last decade called “Lights Out” name after his sports nickname. The business operates as “Lights Out Brand” and uses the domain name LightsOutBrand.com.
Lights Out Holdings, LLC, the holding company for the brand, filed a cybersquatting complaint in July against the owner of LightsOut.com in an effort to upgrade its domain name, but National Arbitration Forum panelist Debrett G. Lyons called offsides.
In the complaint, Lights Out Holdings wrote of the current owner:
…He is and always has been a blatant squatter, whose intent has become more obvious with each passing year of squatting. While the website is a more elaborate place-holder than usual (because of the circumstances), the website content has become exceedingly stale.
There were several problems with the case and Lyons determined that Lights Out Holdings did not prove the domain was registered and used in bad faith.
It would have been very tough for Lights Out Holdings to prove bad faith, especially since the domain name is rather generic and is not used to promote clothing or anything related to sports. It takes a while to find the clothing company on Google when you search for “Lights Out”. There was a dispute about the registration date, but even setting it aside it would have been difficult for the clothing company to win this case.
Lyons stopped short of finding reverse domain name hijacking, writing:
The Panel does not find bad faith. Whilst the Complaint failed because there was no evidence of registration in bad faith in the circumstances of the case, the Panel finds that Complainant might have had a legitimate, albeit misconceived, belief that it had superior trademark rights and that its claim was sustainable.
Merriman and Lights Out Holdings have been trying to defend the term Lights Out. This seems like it will be quite difficult to do. In the photo (published to the right) attached press release about action against Under Armour, you might notice a lack of trademark symbol and that “Lights Out” is part of a longer phrase. I’ve also frequently heard the term “lights out” used in sports.
Ben Wagner of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C., represented Lights Out Holdings. The respondent was represented by Marc E. Hankin of Hankin Patent Law, APC.
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Categories: Domains
Playboy gets Centerfolds.com domain name in cybersquatting dispute
Iconic adult entertainment brand gets control of Centerfolds.com domain that was registered back in 1995.
Playboy has obtained the domain name Centerfolds.com in a cybersquatting dispute.
Playboy Enterprises International, Inc. has won control of the domain name Centerfolds.com after filing a cybersquatting dispute against the domain name.
A World Intellectual Property Organization panelist determined that the current owner of the domain, E-Magine, registered the domain in bad faith and didn’t have any legitimate interests or rights in the domain name.
Playboy has many trademarks for the term “Centerfold”. The oldest registered trademark it has for the term “Centerfold” by itself dates to 1996.
Centerfolds.com was registered in 1995 but historical records at DomainTools.com show that the current owner was not the original owner.
The panelist didn’t know whether the current owner was the original owner, but pointed out that Playboy already established some level of common law rights in the word centerfold many years before the domain was registered.
The Centerfolds.com domain name does not currently resolve. It will be transferred to Playboy within about 10 days, assuming the current owner doesn’t file a lawsuit to block the transfer.
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.Co to rev up premium domain model in September
More .co domains will be sold at a premium through the domain name registrar channel.
Neustar, the company that operates the .Co domain name, is drastically expanding its premium domain name program starting September 1.
.Co launched premium domain name sales through the registrar channel back in August 2015 on a very limited basis. Three years later, it is going all in on the model. An expanded tiered pricing program will go into effect September 1, and tens of thousands of domains will be added to premium tiers for domains available directly from domain registrars.
The premium domain model has become popular with new top level domain names. As of a couple of years ago, new TLD seller donuts was generating $9 million in annual revenue from premium domains, representing 15% of sales. Another new TLD company, Radix, made 10% of its revenue last year just from the renewal of premium domains.
While companies like Donuts and Radix typically charge the premium fee each year, premium .co domain names renew at standard prices.
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How to import your Whois data into Watch My Domains
Even with Port 43 limits and GDPR, you can still download your Whois info from select registrars.
A lot of domain name investors use Watch My Domains Pro to manage their domain name portfolio. But as domain name registrars limit access to Whois in the GDPR era, it has become difficult for domain owners to download their own Whois data into the program.
There’s now a way to download all of your Whois data into the program without running into rate limits and other issues. It’s accomplished using registrar APIs. And before you dismiss this because you aren’t technical, I was able to set this up in 5 minutes with no technical skills.
Here’s the process:
1. Get your API key and secret from your registrar.
Watch My Domains currently supports ResellerClub, GoDaddy, Namecheap, Internet.bs and Dynadot. I got my GoDaddy API information by logging in and going to developer.godaddy.com/keys.
2. Input your API info in Watch My Domains.
Click on the API configuration icon and enter your info in the box that pops up.
3. Import your data.
The first step is to import your domains by clicking the Import button in Watch My Domains.
After downloading all of your domains you’ll be able to do Whois lookups on them that pull data through GoDaddy’s API rather than Port 43 (which doesn’t return valuable information).
Presto.
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Did someone register a new TLD domain you let drop? Don’t despair
They likely paid a lot less money than your renewal fee would have been.
If you track domain names in your portfolio even after you let domains expire, you probably notice that people register the domains you let go.
That can be an emotional feeling, especially if the next registrant is an end user. Would they have bought the domain if you’d held onto it just a bit longer?
You might get the same feeling even if another domain investor picks the domain up on a drop.
But when it comes to new TLDs, keep in mind that the calculus is very different. I’m speaking specifically about domain names that have cheap first-year prices that escalate upon renewal.
I’ve taken a flyer on many cheap domains that have first-year prices of $5 or less. They sometimes renew for $50 or more.
In these cases, when someone registers the domain after I let it expire, I have to remind myself that they are paying the low first-year price. They might be just like me, taking a chance with plans to let the domain expire after a year.
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California.com sells as part of big domain name transaction
Seven-figure deal includes big geo domain name.
A California company has made a big domain name purchase, scooping up California.com as part of a ten-domain deal for “mid-seven figures”, according to the buyer.
One Planet Ops, which was founded by Autoweb co-founder Payam Zamani, has a number of web properties in the lead gen space. Its most notable domain name is Contractors.com.
Zamani has been a big buyer of domains and web businesses over the past two decades. In 2002 he bought the domains of dot-com bubble victims iMotors.com and CarClub.com.
The company promises that California.com will not be just another web directory, so it will be interesting to see how it develops this geo domain for one of the world’s largest economies.
It’s targeting an early 2019 launch date.
California.com has been under Whois privacy since 2007, at which time the Whois record showed Xedoc Holdings as the registrant.
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How early should domain name registrars auto renew domains?
My domain registrars auto-renew anywhere from the expiration time to 60 days in advance.
It’s smart for domain name registrants to place their domain names on auto-renew. This means your domain name registrar will renew your domain name each year without action on your part. It prevents domains from accidentally deleting when you overlook a notice or forget to log in and renew.
I think it’s interesting how far in advance domain registrars renew domain names.
- GoDaddy waits until the domain name is expired before renewing the domain.
- Hexonet renews about 5 days before the expiration.
- Uniregistry and Enom auto-renew one month before the domain expires.
- At the extreme (at least of registrars I use) is 101Domain, which renews 60 days in advance.
There are benefits to early renewals and benefits to last-minute renewals. If you have a large portfolio, you might appreciate not being charged until the domain expires to minimize your cash outflows.
At the same time, an earlier renewal provides more time to rectify any billing issues (such as an outdated credit card number) before a domain enters the deletion cycle.
60 days? That’s a bit much. (I should note that some ccTLDs on 101Domain require early renewal from the ccTLD administrator, but this isn’t the case with .com). But I’m curious what other people believe is a good timeframe for registrars to auto-renew domains.
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What’s behind these Harry Potter and Jimmy Kimmel domain name registrations?
Harry Potter and Jimmy Kimmel domain names were registered yesterday.
New domain name registrations often precede new announcements, so both Harry Potter and Jimmy Kimmel fans might have something to look forward to.
The following domains were registered yesterday at brand protection registrar MarkMonitor:
harrypottermagicawakened.com
harrypottermagicchronicles.com
harrypottermagicforever.com
harrypotterspellbound.com
harrypotterultimatespells.com
The domain names were registered with Whois privacy, but MarkMonitor works exclusively with corporations and brand owners so these are not a case of a cybersquatting registering domains.
I searched on Google for the terms in these Harry Potter domains and didn’t come up with much, other than some occasional fan fiction.
Moving on to Jimmy Kimmel…
If you’re a comedy fan, it appears you soon might be able to get more of Jimmy Kimmel. Here are the domains registered yesterday:
clubkimel.com
clubkimell.com
clubkimmel.com
clubkimmell.com
comedykimel.com
comedykimell.com
comedykimmel.com
comedykimmell.com
jimmykimelclub.com
jimmykimelcomedy.com
jimmykimellclub.com
jimmykimellcomedy.com
jimmykimmelclub.com
jimmykimmelcomedy.com
jimmykimmellclub.com
jimmykimmellcomedy.com
kimelclub.com
kimelcomedy.com
kimellclub.com
kimellcomedy.com
kimmelclub.com
kimmelcomedy.com
kimmellclub.com
kimmellcomedy.com
These domains suggest one of two things: an online fan club or a physical comedy club.
We’ll have to wait to see.
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Categories: Domains
14 end user domain names sales up to $50,000
Blockchain companies among domain buyers this week.
Sedo’s top public sale this past week was Shakti.com. The domain name hasn’t been developed yet, but a page on the site says the business is being run by two co-founders of a company called Kx systems.
Another interesting sale is Wormholes.net for $28,600. The buyer isn’t known yet but Wormholes.com is also in escrow at Sedo.
Let’s get to the list:
(Check out previous end user posts here.)
Shakti.com $50,000 – A coming soon page says that it’s a business from Janet Lustgarten and Arthur Whitney, who are co-founders of Kx systems.
Wormholes.net $28,600 – The domain name is still in escrow at Sedo but at this price, it’s definitely an end user. Also, Wormholes.com is in transfer at Sedo but isn’t on this week’s list.
Memo.co £7,500- Content marketing company SimpleReach has a landing page saying it is working on launching a site at Memo.co.
SolutionsGroup.com $5,000 – Talk about a nice price for this upgrade – the domain name now forwards to Solutions Group’s other domain SolutionsGroup.net.
Cloudya.com €4,900 – The domain name is forwarding to NFON.com, which is a cloud-based telephony company.
Debt.co $3,900 – Debt.co resolves to a page that says it will be a site for getting out of debt.
Biota.io $3,499 – The coming soon page says it will be “A Next Generation Blockchain-based Cloud Operating System”.
RegentsPrep.org $3,477 – The domain name has a website for test prep.
Sora.org €2,999 – Soramitsu is a blockchain company in Toyko. It uses the domain name soramitsu.co.jp.
Repet.com €2,800 – The domain name forwards to a page on a beverage company’s website about recycling PET bottles.
Forality.com €2,500 – WoldLab GmbH provides online community software. The domain name now forwards to its website but they don’t appear to have a product called Forality yet.
Job2.be $2,500 – A Mark Monitor client bought this domain name.
Daitan.com $2,050 – Daitan Labs S/A is a software company in Brazil that uses the domain name DaitanGroup.com.
Chatelet.com €2,000 – Théâtre du Châtelet is a theater and opera house in Paris. It currently uses the domain name Chatelet-Theatre.com.
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