i@m.fm

Check out my other blog!

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 03:25:34 -0400

Please also take a look at my blog about and for the Domain-Industry:
http://DomainEditorial.com/

Coming Out: The Domainers Industry

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Wed, 03 May 2006 11:48:02 -0400

As the domain monetization and domain investing space gains more and more (negative and positive) attention, I think it's time for a reminder that I do have a separate blog about the domainer industry:

Domain Editorial: About and for Domainers

Domain Editorial - a new blog

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Sun, 04 Dec 2005 15:04:29 -0500

I have recently started a new blog, which I would still consider in Beta Status. You will see fewer posts on domain name related issues here, since those are being moved to the "Domain Editorial", which is located at http://www.domaineditorial.com/ .

economy.com sells for $27 million

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 11:10:26 -0500

Moody's Corporation Acquires Economy.com not just the domain though:

Moody's Corporation (NYSE: MCO) today announced that it has acquired Economy.com, a leading independent provider of economic research and data services, for US$27 million. The acquisition will deepen Moody's analytical capabilities to broader areas of economic and demographic research, expand the range of products and services offered to institutional customers and introduce new customers to Moody's. It will provide Economy.com with access to Moody's extensive client base, deep product marketing capabilities, and other resources needed to expand its business. The transaction was funded by cash on hand and closed today. Additional terms of the transaction will not be disclosed and the financial impact to Moody's is not expected to be material.

Business 2.0 on Domainers and Domains as an investment strategy

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 11:05:42 -0500

Quote:

But considering that Schilling’s traffic generated more than 1 percent of Yahoo’s $3.6 billion [...]

The December issue of Business 2.0 features an article about the Master$ of their Domain$ by Paul Sloan. A great piece and well worth the read. As Peter Ejtel already hinted in his blog, the publicity of recent sales was only the start. There also was an article in the Wall Street Journal, entitled "Thanks to web ads, some find new money in Domain Names".

The article overall is written in an entertaining and positive style, so it should help to promote the industry. However we probably don't have to wait a long time to see more articles, some of them probably not this positive. All in all a great start for the big wave of publicity that this industry is going to receive. Maybe even I can find the time to write an article.

Some exerpts:

Today, Schwartz owns about 5,000 names, with less than a third falling into the “adult” category. [...] he claims, that[’s] are earning him $2 million a year.

[...]

The secret? It has to do with what’s known as type-in traffic, or, in Wall Street jargon, direct navigation. Though it may seem odd in the era of powerful search engines, it turns out that millions of Internet surfers don’t use search at all. Instead, they type what they’re looking for right into the top of their Web browser. Looking to buy candy? Type in Candy.com, a name Schwartz bought in May 2002 for $108,000. A page filled with links to candy-related products comes up. Click on one of the ads and the advertiser pays Google, which in turn sends a share to Schwartz and the company that runs Candy.com. Some days Candy.com makes Schwartz $300 in profits; the site paid for itself in a year and a half.

[...]

Besides some of the more or less well known domainers, the UltSearch portfolio sale, the "factcheck.com" story, the article also features an investor in this industry, one of the founders of Internet REIT (Internet Real Estate), also featured in the Wall Street Journal article.

Rabin teamed up a year ago with a Harvard-trained finance whiz named Bob Martin and domain speculator Marc Ostrofsky. They named their company Internet REIT and, according to Ostrofsky, are spending $250 million, probably far more, buying out domain owners as fast as they can find good names. (Ostrofsky, for the record, was the man who pulled off the much-publicized sale of Business.com for a reported $7.5 million in December 1999.)

[...]

Ostrofsky pulls aside Bahlitzanakis, the Ye worshiper. Bahlitzanakis, who works from his apartment in Queens, N.Y., owns fewer than 100 names, but at least one is a gem: Cellphones.com. The site -- a plain page with relevant links --
makes an average of $1,300 a day.
[...]
He returns to his hotel room in the early morning to find a contract under his door. Total price: $4.2 million. He paid $90 for the name in 1996.

Very good timing, considering Rick Schwartz has just announced his preliminary schedule for the Silicon Valley TRAFFIC conference.

Domain Name Sales picking up

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 01:25:47 -0500

While one person wants to get into the Guinness Book of World Records by selling TheRecordBreakingDomain.com, someone else has ...

Domains for fun?

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 01:36:58 -0500

While in North America and Europe more and more people are starting to realize that investing in domains is a fulltime job that yield quite lucrative returns, Andrew Straw describes how domains are 'a fun outlet':
Scoop: Internet Domains a Fun Outlet

A different Business model for release of .EU

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 00:35:33 -0400

.EU is coming - Let the money-making begin: I was just checking the list of accredited registrars on the EURid website, when I noticed several applications from one Austrian city. All of those also have the same address details:

Interesting changed in the ccTLD space: AU does not like PPC

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 16:16:39 -0400

Domain registration rules face change amid protests: ZDNet Australia: News: Communications

In 2002, auDA -- .au Domain Administration -- introduced the "close and substantial connection rule", which allowed companies to register domain names that, although not derived from their own company or business name, are connected to their business in some way. For example, it would be acceptable for a real estate directory service to register names such as houses.com.au, apartments.com.au, land.com.au, estateagent.com.au.

However, on Friday, auDA issued a statement saying it is considering changing the rule after some companies were found to be "using this interpretation of the close and substantial connection rule to register large numbers of domain names apparently for the primary purpose of capturing Web traffic and/or selling click-through advertising".

Interesting - they are going in the opposite direction, compared to the gTLDs and wanna-be gTLDs.

[via ZDNet]

MSN to launch PPC search ad service

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 02:21:35 -0400

Looks like they are finally ready.

Investor's Business Daily: MSN Ready To Rumble In Search

The most interesting part:

But ...

Domain Name Investment Fund launched [update]

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 17:01:54 -0400

DomainMart Launches Private Domain Investment Management Accounts

From the press release:

Berkeley, CA (PRWEB) August 15, 2005 -– DomainMart, a leading provider of quantitative and analytical domain-name services, introduced today a service that allows individuals and companies to participate in the generous returns that domain name investments provide.

I guess this had to happen, considering that this form of Internet real estate is gaining more and more media coverage these days.

More info: http://www.domainmart.com/broker/investment-account/IA_enter.htm

[update] I just saw InternetReit, another 'Internet Real Estate Development' company mentioned at Netcraft.

[Disclaimer] I am not endorsing any of those funds or any form of investment.

Excite@Home domains up for grabs

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 21:24:04 -0400

Former Internet Crown Jewel Excite@Home to Sell Million Dollar Domain Name Assets

The assets available for sale include 119 domain names. Certain trademarks associated with specific domain names will be sold concurrently. Names such as Stuff.com, Home.net, Mystuff.com and Firstyears.com are just a few of the domain names that will be sold.

Just after I posted this I tried to go to Moniker's site, to take a look. It looks like their webserver is not responding, since I got a 'connection' refused message ;-)

Chinese Internet powered by new.net?

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Mon, 02 May 2005 11:27:13 -0400

ICANNWatch | China announces 3 new TLDs

Apparently the Chinese government has invented their own TLDs without any involvement of ICANN. Another Namespace? Maybe the Chinese government is going to enhance their huge Intranet with the help of those TLDs, maybe this will be a new New.NET. Interesting, let's see where this goes.

[via Free2Innovate.net]

US court: Nissan.com/Nissan.Net are not cybersquatting

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 07:11:25 -0400

Nissan's Appeal Over Website R ejected

The US Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by Nissan (the car company) against Uzi Nissan, who registered nissan.com and nissan.net in 1994 and 1996 for his business Nissan Computer Corp.

Interesting result, considering we have seen the opposite often before. However the courts had already placed several restrictions on what could be shown on the websites.

[via the LA Times]

Netcraft on Popesquatting

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 11:49:24 -0400

Netcraft: 'Popesquatting' Seen on Potential Papal Domains

As an extension on my post about dead pope domains, Necraft has some information on speculative domain registrations related to the new pope.

dying pope domains

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 13:03:02 -0500

deadpope.com is taken and apparently gets 506 unique visitors per month. It was created on Dec 25th, 2003. popeonarope.com is a personal site where 'the pope f*cking rocks'. 'dyingpope.com' is still available.

Domains - the numbers game

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 12:53:12 -0500

Dark Blue Sea (the ones running roar.com and fabulous.com) published a report on the 'domain name aggregators' - quite an interesting read:

Domains - the numbers game | domain name and web development blog (download the PDF as well)

[via Jottings.com]

Industry Data Demonstrates Strong Growth in Secondary Web Domain Sales in 2004; Volume Increased Nearly 300 Percent from 2003

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Tue, 22 Mar 2005 20:24:59 -0500

"According to data from three leading independent companies tracking the domain name marketplace, DNJournal, Domain-Spiegel.de and Sedo.com, the secondary domain marketplace--the marketplace where already registered domain names are bought and sold -- experienced strong gains both in terms of the volume of sales and the overall sale prices for domains compared to the previous years. According to Domain-Spiegel.de, a German publication that closely tracks the sale of domain names, the domain name marketplace experienced explosive growth with more than 1,400 transactions reported -- compared to only 500 domain transactions reported in 2003 and with just 400 domains sales reported in 2002. In addition, the average sale price of a .com domain increased more than $1,400 from 2003 to 2004, with the average domain selling for more than $9,700."

Full Press Release

When looking at the data one should keep in mind that Sedo and "domain-spiegel.de" originally were very much focused on the German marked. While this has changed over the years, the increasing popularity in .INFO names could be related to this fact. However adaption of the new gTLDs (info/biz) has certainly improved.

Since the part of the secondary market covered in the press release mostly is limited to the public auction markets, it would be very interesting to also see numbers from the drop-name catchers such as pool.com.

Panix Hijack follow-up, easy to use domain services

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 15:15:38 -0500

I know it's a little late for a follow-up...

Netcraft: Panix Hijack Prompts ICANN Review of Resellers' Role

Apparently Melbourne IT had their Reseller authenticate the transfer request on their behalf, and they failed to verify legitimacy.

While I find that the new current transfer process does make it easier to complete transfers, end users are still confused by the rules and obligations involved. Especially those, who just want their service provider to take care of any technical issues, and just want the services to work.

A possible solution is to list the reseller as the admin contact, which seems to common practice in Britain. The only downside is that if the reseller goes out of business or 'turns evil', it might take a bit of effort on the registrant's end to re-gain control of the domain name.

For registration service providers and their customers a seamless from one registrar to another is desirable.

In the end, who are we doing all of this for? Is it not our business to make things as easy for the consumers/end users as possible.

49DollarsWasted.pro [updated]

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 16:03:53 -0500

Jottings.com » 49DollarsWasted.pro | domain name and web development blog

Andrew registered a second level .PRO names with Encirca.biz, only ...

VeriSign to auction deleting domain names

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Mon, 24 Jan 2005 10:15:22 -0500

George Kirikos dug up that the COM/NET Registry VeriSign GRS is making another attempt at offering expiring domain names at the registry level: VeriSign to auction deleting domains

(via OpenSRS discuss-list)

Press Release: Tucows acquires blogrolling.com

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Fri, 27 Feb 2004 23:28:46 -0500

From the press release section at the new corporate site, www.tucowsinc.com: Tucows acquires blogrolling.com. Looks like a nice expansion to our Blogware product and certainly a nice way to reach an additional userbase :)

Read more on it in the article in Ross' blog at byte.org or in Accordion guy's blog.

Who let the blogs out?

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Fri, 27 Feb 2004 11:47:37 -0500

We should really do a version of the Baha Man's Who Let the Dogs Out and make it Who let the Blogs out instead. And then my wife was saying that it should be "Moo" instead of mimicking the barking sound to indicate that it was Tucows who let them out ;-) So where are the new T-Shirts...

So this is the type of idea you come up when you fly socalled "Low Cost" airlines across the country to visit a reseller.

On the road in the home country

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Fri, 28 Nov 2003 04:05:09 -0500

I am on a business trip in Germany for Tucows... I left on Tuesday for an overnight flight, meet up ...

All your internet are belong to VeriSign

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Mon, 20 Oct 2003 00:05:55 -0400

In the CNET interview entitled The cultural divide and the Internet's future VeriSign CEO Stratton Sclavos still considers sitefinder an innovation and would like to "go commercial" with the root servers. What ever that exactly means - I am sure I don't really want to know.

Blogware now official

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Sat, 18 Oct 2003 23:58:10 -0400

As per this post blogware is now an official product in pre-release state. To find out about the features, check ...

Versign Sell Out

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Thu, 16 Oct 2003 16:49:37 -0400

VeriSign to Sell Network Solutions Business to Pivotal Private Equity. We were waiting for this, but is this the ...

Sitefinder - the end for now

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 14:08:55 -0400

I just figured that Sitefinder and it's possible comeback is already featured in many places - and I realized that ...

Verisign pulls sitefinder

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Mon, 06 Oct 2003 09:43:08 -0400

So Verisign pulled their sitefinder. Unfortunately of course they make all kinds of excuses etc. so it seems that they are indeed looking to bring this service back. In any case, at least a temporary success. I can read more about this in a lot of other places, so I am going to cut this short for now.

A first? ICANN insists for Verisign to cease wildcarding

i@m.fm (Frank Michlick) — Fri, 03 Oct 2003 10:45:32 -0400

ICANN: Advisory Concerning Demand to Remove VeriSign's Wildcard. Wow. ICANN actually tries to force an issue - I am ...