All The Day's News…From The Domaining Experts
Domain Name Wire
Save the Date: Austin Domainer Weekend November 12-13
Sep 7th
Are you cool? Then plan to visit Austin this November.
I’ve long talked about holding a domainer dinner in Austin. As I talked to others in the industry about it one common request kept coming up: hold it in conjunction with a University of Texas football game.
Epik Takes Innovative Approach to Domain Trading
Sep 7th
Epik pushes the envelop at next week’s Domain Swap.
Domain lifecycle platform Epik likes to try new and innovative things. Next week’s Domain Swap event at Epik DevCon in Seattle is another example.
UDRP Panelists Still Can’t Agree on Decisions
Sep 7th
Drug company loses dispute, but panelists disagree over key point.
A recent UDRP brought by drug giant Sanofi-aventis is interesting on a couple counts.
First, the company lost the case over the domain name ferrlecit.com. The respondent is a former licensee of Sanofi-aventis. It registered the domain name while it was a licensee. So it was registered in good faith. But when the drug company and licensee terminated their relationship through arbitration, there was no mention of what to do with the domain name. (Another example of lawyers overlooking an important part of intellectual property.) The respondent kept it, and now Sanofi is arguing it is being held in bad faith.
George Soros’ Open Society Institute Loses Domain Dispute
Sep 6th
Foundation backed by George Soros loses arbitration for domain name.
Open Society Institute, a think tank and foundation founded by billionaire George Soros, has lost a domain name dispute over the domain OpenSociety.org.
Priority Inbox? How About Secure Inbox?
Sep 6th
Let’s increase the security on webmail.
Last week Google launched its new Gmail Priority Inbox feature to great fanfare. It’s a fantastic feature for people suffering from email overload.
I have another suggestion for Gmail. Usage of web-based email services has exploded to the point that many people and companies keep critical information in their hosted inboxes. This has led to some high profile security breaches.
GoDaddy’s X.co URL Shortener Launches
Sep 6th
X.co officially launches.
A couple months ago I wrote about how GoDaddy had snagged x.co with plans to use it as a URL shortener. Late last week I noticed that @Godaddy was using x.co in its tweets; and now the service is officially open to all.
Sedo Revenue Down But Earnings Up
Sep 4th
Revenue slides but bottom line improves in first half of year.
Revenue at domain name brokerage and parking company Sedo for the first half of 2010 was down compared to the same period last year, but earnings were up.
Sedo Holding reported (pdf) revenue of 21.9M EUR for its Sedo division in H1 2010, compared to 22.6M EUR for H1 2009. However, profit increased from 3.0M EUR to 3.3M EUR. The company’s employee base dropped from 172 to 157 between periods.
Bingo.com Ltd Buys Out Bingo.com Payments for $900,000
Sep 3rd
Nearly a century of royalty payments bought out.
Bingo.com, Ltd has bought out its remaining royalty payments on the domain name Bingo.com for $900,000 in equity.
The company had a deal with the prevous owner of the domain (Bingo, Inc) to pay it 4% of gross revenue through 2098. An independent valuation pegged the present value of those payments at $1.4 million to $1.6 million.
Jason Davis Strikes Again with Recruiter.com
Sep 2nd
Jobs domain pro merges one of his companies with Recruiter.com.
Jason Davis has struck another large domain name deal by merging his RecruitingBlogs.com with Recruiter.com.
Although technically a merger, Recruiter.com’s domain name was its main contribution to the puzzle. Recruiter.com owner Ashley Saddul will join the merged entity as CTO and founder.