NEW YORK, NY - Here is a list of single word English dictionary nGTLD domain names that have dropped (expired) within the last 24 hours (according to ExpiredDomains.net). One thing I do not understand is why a new domain registry would charge premium fees on domains that someone has already decided to let expire. For instance, love.xyz is $1,299.00 at Godaddy. If registries want to off-set their registry losses as much as possible, they would allow buyers to register these … [Read more...]
Donuts Acquisition of BudURL Makes Good Use of New Top Level Domain Names
NEW YORK, NY – Donuts Inc, the company behind hundreds of new domain name extensions has acquired a link shortening service formally known as BudURL, and rebranded it as BL.INK. The service had been around for ten years and was founded by Andy Meadows. The acquisition took place sometime in 2017 according to a company press release, yet Donuts had been operating it in “stealth mode” quietly building in key features which will enhance the services ability to customize URLs … [Read more...]
Uh Oh: 400,000 Less gTLD Registrations First Quarter of 2018, Vs Previous Quarter
NEW YORK – New gTLD proponents will be less than excited to learn that according to the latest Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief, new gTLD domain registrations, despite there being more awareness :) and more names available for registration, such extensions experienced a decline of 400,000 registrations or loss of 2% within the first Quarter of 2018 (Q1) when compared to the last Quarter of 2017 (Q4). Verisign creates these industry briefs to include quarter-over-quarter … [Read more...]
gTLD Madness: Five Years Later and Where Are We Now? T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Panel Debate
NEW YORK - By the time I started visiting domain conferences in person, unfortunately, what I feel was the greatest domain conference of all time, Howard Neu and Rick Schwartz’s T.R.A.F.F.I.C., had seen its last days. I wish it weren’t so. I think the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conferences were the best respected domain conferences in history; I can only wish that Howard and Rick, for whatever reason, will team up again and bring it back one day, because everything else, in my opinion, … [Read more...]
Founding Chair of ICANN: New gTLDs Will Make Lawyers, Registrars, Registries Rich
NEW YORK – This past week, another new gTLD domain name bit-the-dust when Richemont, the company behind Cartier jewelry and Mont Blanc pens, terminated its fifth dot-brand gTLD. Reading over some backscatter comments on the issue I was enlightened with the below video, from Esther Dyson, former Chairman of the ICANN Board and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who held back very little while she reminded people that she is clearly on record with her negative thoughts and … [Read more...]
Why I Purchased a New .Digital gTLD Domain
NEW YORK - Earlier this year I created a new company called Cars Digital Inc., a marketing company which specializes in advertising for used car dealers. As soon as I had realized that a new gTLD “.digital” domain name was available, I checked to see if “Cars.Digital” was already taken - and saw that it indeed was, so there was really nothing I could do about that and moved on with my daily routine. I had already registered the corporation and secured the .com domain name … [Read more...]
Call for Donuts to Release Proof of Original “Record Breaking” gTLD Sale in Late 2017
NEW YORK – With another ‘out of the ordinary’ new Generic Domain Name sale publicly announced by Donuts Inc. for Vacation.Rentals (reportedly acquired for $500,300.00 in an all-cash deal) this becomes their second earth-shattering alternative-dot transaction in the last twelve months of which many will agree, appears to be sent straight from the heavens above. In fact, all of their employees should vacate the Kirkland, Washington premises immediately and purchase lottery … [Read more...]
Is Dominion Registries Having Trouble Selling Their New Alternative Dots?
NEW YORK - According to a press release by Dominion Registries, a division of Dominion Enterprises, the company is removing a long list of previously implemented registrant eligibility verification restrictions for its new gTLD industry-specific domain extensions which consist of .AUTOS, .BOATS, .HOMES, .MOTORCYCLES and .YACHTS. The changes will be made this year, beginning first with .BOATS, which is now available to anyone at all, for just about any reason, defined … [Read more...]
Clever: Radix Bolsters New gTLD Adoption Through Sponsored Startups, Buzz, Goodies
NEW YORK - They say that 'money talks and bullshit walks' (at least that is what my father used to say) and no-one likely knows this better than domain registry Radix, who maintains and operates several new catchy gTLD domain endings such as .tech and .online. Since 2016, Radix has been helping startup companies by putting a little money where their mouth is and providing new startups sponsorship covering sometimes as much as 100% of their expenses for exhibit booth fees and … [Read more...]
An Unbiased New gTLD Case Study is Coming; Not Sponsored, Supported or in Anyway Influenced by Any Registry
NEW YORK - I'll have an interesting new gTLD case study coming in the next few days to a week or so. It’s going to be great, because I think it’s going to work. I think the position of the website in Google is going to improve greatly by doing nothing else but changing the URL to a new keyword rich gTLD. If I'm wrong I will have wasted another $150 on gTLDs, but either way I will learn and so will you. Now if you follow my updates you will be aware that I am usually more … [Read more...]
Who Is and Who Isn’t: ICANN’s Registry Agreement Termination Information List
NEW YORK - In light of another three to be cut, let's take a look at Who's pulling out, of the WhoIs, entirely. The following is a list of new gTLD operators who have decided that running their own dots is not something they wish to pursue and have notified ICANN, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, of their intent to cancel and withdraw their Registry Operator Agreements. For supporting documentation you can visit ICANN's Registry Agreement … [Read more...]
A “PRIME” Example That .COM Leads in Necessity; nGTLDs Registered Defensively
NEW YORK, NY – It has been recently discovered, that the single word domain name Prime.com, which had been reportedly for sale in the seven figure range (Between $1M and $5M), at least since 2011, is now intellectual property of tech-giant Amazon. The name, which was originally registered in 1987, shows being parked since 2004 via archive. An exact ‘price’ of the domain is not currently known (although I am sure someone out there is working diligently to try and dig … [Read more...]
Donuts’ .Dating Registry to Benefit from Niche Dating Site Using Trump Politics
NEW YORK, NY - A niche dating website business is out there promoting the .dating URL (https://trump.dating) while suggesting trump supporters make ideal candidates for long lasting relationships. The site belongs to a group called Friends Worldwide, Inc. which has utilized niche sites such as singlesoldiers.org, countrymatch.com and this new one https://trump.dating to build its membership. From what I could find online the network could use the temporary additional … [Read more...]
This Take Action Social Movement Platform Just Might Launch gTLDs into “Dot Space”
NEW YORK, NY – Every once in a while I see a real stand-out domain in the new gTLD space and that's what happened last night when I came across an organization called HARNESS, with its address (Harness.space) being utilized in a great way, and to an audience likely to not care much what-in-the-world the ending dot is; it’s the organization that matters, and its purpose. While passionate lovers of this organizations' mission won’t care either way what the new dot address … [Read more...]
CBS News Offers Readers ‘Bad Advice’ in 6 Best Practices for Choosing a Domain
NEW YORK, NY – Usually when you read an article in Google News, you expect it to give you some good advice, especially when it is a reputable news website. That’s not what happened today when Google News led me to question whether or not I was even on a real news website. Rather than focusing so much on cleaning up Facebook and Twitter, maybe Google should check their own inclusion practices. The article is on CBS News Detroit and it is called “6 Best Practices for Choosing … [Read more...]
Final Day for NameJet, Right of the Dot, NamesCon 2018 Online Auction
NEW YORK, NY – Good deals and little time is left for the NamesCon, NameJet, and Right of the Dot live auction which began in Las Vegas. Most if not all auctions end within a few hours from now which puts both the East and West coast of the United States in the game to grab some deals by this afternoon. There are a good number of domains that are still showing no reserve and have no bids, so this is an opportunity to grab some names which there will be little fighting … [Read more...]
Quick Look Inside NamesCon in Las Vegas
NEW YORK - Here are a few shots from inside NamesCon Global 2018 which is in its second day. Tomorrow will be the big event when the live auction takes place from 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM Pacific. The live auction is hosted by NameJet and Monte Cahn's RightOfTheDot, with a long list of names consisting of both legacy domains such as .com, .net, .org as well as many new gTLDs such as .club, .tickets and others. To look over the domains being sold visit the NameJet list; there are … [Read more...]
It’s Here: NamesCon Officially Starts Tomorrow at the Tropicana in Las Vegas
LAS VEGAS, NV – The long anticipated NamesCon event begins tomorrow with its 11:00 am - 11:45 am "Welcome to NamesCon" photo and session. Domain enthusiasts from around the world have begun rolling in since this morning, myself included. The event is taking place at the Tropicana, which is one of the first hotels on the Las Vegas strip located on the east corner of Tropicana Boulevard. Known as the largest Domain Name Conference in the United States (maybe the world), … [Read more...]
Does the Domain Industry Suffer From Own Versions of Trumpted “Fake News” Stories?
NEW YORK, NY – You may have heard the news that a tremendous transaction recently took place. According to TNT Names, Donuts recently sold www.home.loans for $500,000.00. Wow, I missed the boat for sure. I just let Find.cars drop, crash and burn and lost $10,000.00 to count my chips and walk-away. I probably could have sold it for half-a-million dollars in CASH, or could I? What a mistake that was. Or was it? Considering the fact that this deal reflects the largest … [Read more...]
RegistrarStats.com to Shut Down Due to Dwindling Interest? What Say You?
NEW YORK, NY – I received an email the other day about RegistrarStats.com being shut down next month in February (the 19th) and I took special interest in that email notification as I had just used the site the day before to point out some gTLD stats. I never realized that the site was owned by Donuts Inc., but seeing the email notification, it’s pretty obvious. Donuts is a company that has applied for hundreds of new gTLDs and is somehow affording to pay-for and renew at … [Read more...]
Why I Told My “New gTLD” Project to “Suck It” – Will Rebrand with King of all URLs
NEW YORK, NY - It takes a lot for a guy like me to give-up on a project or otherwise throw-in-the-towel, especially when I am not even sure how hard I really tried to begin with, but I like to be two steps ahead, and I like to work smart, not hard. That’s why I told Uniregistry to keep the Find.cars URL domain - forget it, let it expire, I’ll just re-brand as FindCarsforSale.com. Here’s my thought process and how it all went down; hill. Two years ago, when .cars domains … [Read more...]
New gTLD Domain Sales from Major Marketplaces; What’s Developed?
NEW YORK, NY – Another list is being published today; this one is for new gTLD domain names which have been recorded at NameBio. All off these transactions have taken place over the last five years and this list ONLY contains the sales which are listed at NameBio - there are many hand registered and private or unrecorded domain sales which will not be here. Note: I only examined 100 domains max from each extension, highest dollar amounts first. Here is what I looked … [Read more...]
