PALM BEACH, FL – Sometime back in 1996 someone had a pretty decent idea down in Florida; to register the Internet domain name “Sheriff.org” for the Broward County Sheriff's Office. I’m often reminded of this ‘solid decision’ as I live one county North and often see these URL branded police vehicles Wizz by me with “Sheriff.org” branded on the back bumper. Photo credit: https://www.allpar.com I always think, there’s probably a lot of Sheriff’s offices around the entire … [Read more...]
.NET Year in Review (2018): Top 100 Highest Reported .NET Domain Sales (NameBio)
PALM BEACH, FL – This is another follow-up from last years list; .NET Year in Review (2017): (It's been a busy year and it looks as though I got to it late this year) According to NameBio, as of now there are 2,430 total domain sales are on the books for the .net domain name in 2018. (Compared to the 4,325 .ORGs) The value of these top 100 totals just $946,689 - much worse than the .org domains did ($1,698,630.00) last year - looks bad for .net. We can add this … [Read more...]
Top 100 Domain Sales of First Three Quarters of 2019 via NameBio.com
PALM BEACH, FL - Two very notable sales which took place this year (2019) include Voice.com, for a record-breaking $30 million (largest domain sale in history) and GEO domain name California.com, which sold for $3 million, the largest U.S. GEO domain sale in history. Here is how the rest of the batch looked for the first three quarters. The domains sales are those listed at NameBio.com, a site which keeps track of, and records publicly reported sales. Keep in mind that … [Read more...]
VeriSign Quarterly Reports Indicate Legacy “.net” and “.org” Future Not So Wonderful
PALM BEACH, FL – Each quarter, VeriSign, Inc. (VRSN), releases its “THE DOMAIN NAME INDUSTRY BRIEF” market report, highlighting the growth of the domain name system as well as the individual growth of name registration, in numbers, for various extensions including their own “.com”, and “.net” domain names. These reports also include other legacy extensions such as Public Interest Registry's “.org” and leading country-code “ccTLDs.” Not surprisingly, ccTLDs continue to grow … [Read more...]
Forbes Cites Survey Saying 70.5% Don’t Trust Alternatives Domain Names
PALM BEACH – According to Forbes, 70.5% of consumers don’t trust newer alternative Internet domain names over legacy names. These figures, used in their recent article titled, “Strategies for Getting The Most Out Of Your New Domain Name” were cited from a survey of 1,000 people across the UK who represented a range of ages. Those surveyed were asked, “Do you trust companies with .co.uk and .com domains more than those with other newer domains like .eu, .biz, .net, .fashion, … [Read more...]
Might Be Good Time to Revisit That .Org Portfolio; Which to Hold, Which to Grab
NEW YORK, NY – According to industry news website DNJournal.com, the registry behind .org domain names, Public Interest Registry, or otherwise known as PIR, has got itself a new CEO. Although personally I had never come across the name before, DNJournal describes incoming Chief Executive Officer Jon Nevett as a well-known and widely respected domain industry veteran - and this domain enthusiast has no reason to doubt it, especially since Nevett is one of the founders of … [Read more...]
Two New Alternative URLs Hit Superhighway
NEW YORK, NY – If you’re looking around for a few good ways to confuse new prospective customers, you’ve got two new great opportunities to completely derail even your best marketing efforts; .LUXE and .PAGE new gTLDs have just worked their way into the mix. Minds + Machines, the company behind .LUXE domain names, which are intended to serve the Ethereum, blockchain and security industry, has released the .LUXE domain which opens for general availability on November 6, … [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...]
The Birth of ICANN: “The Green Paper”
NEW YORK - In 1997, the United States government under then President Clinton began processes to remove its control over the Domain Name System by creating research and dialog on how control of domain names and IP addresses should be handled in the future - by a non-profit organization in the private sector. This resulted in a document which has become known as "The Green Paper" originally named "A Proposal to Improve the Technical Management of Internet Names and … [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...]
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...]
.NET Year in Review (2017): Top 100 Highest Reported .NET Domain Sales (NameBio)
NEW YORK, NY – According to NameBio, 3,664 .net domain sales were reported last year (compared to 66,159 .com). The value of these top 100 is just $1,291,335.00 (about 1/25th of the $25M in .coms). The majority of these .net domain sales took place at venue Sedo.com, taking 35% of the top 100. Below are the top 100 highest valued .net sales for 2017. Domain Price Date Venue co.net $ 100,000 10/22/2017 Aishwin.com app.net $ … [Read more...]
Sedo.com Releases Weekly Domain Name Sales List 12/18/2017 – 12/31/2017
NEW YORK, NY – Just released is Sedo’s weekly sales list, a weekly list of public transactions above $2,000. This weeks highlights included the top .com sold as JinJin.com at $45,000.00 USD, the top ccTLD as Nobis.it at 9,760 EUR ($11,772.90 US Dollars) and the top other as App.net at $70,000.00 US. Here is the entire list for Sedo.com sales from 12/18/2017 – 12/31/2017. Domain … [Read more...]
Examining Past Alternative Dots Helps Predict Future Adoption of New Ones?
NEW YORK, NY – Sometimes to predict the future, it is as easy as simply examining the past. Based on a comment from one of my readers, this simple graph shows movements and numbers of registrations for some of the ‘original’ alternative dots and what is happening with them. Alternatives such as .BIZ, .INFO, .MOBI, .PRO, .NAME, .XXX for example, verse the originals. What good are or were these alternative URLs availability and how have newcomers adopted these into branding … [Read more...]