The trademark typo domain, Linkdin.com just sold on SnapNames.com today for $22,000.

$22K

There were 50 people in the auction but there were 10 active bidders (bidders that put in a bid above the minimum).

Its amazing in this day and age there are so many people willing to pay this kind of money for a domain that would be taken in a UDRP if a complaint is filed.

Yes I know the domain has traffic,  but its a bang on typo trademark domain with no other conceivable meaning.

No Bueno.

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I just ended the week long poll I was running on which domain you thought would sell at the live domain name auction at Domainfest, which will be held in New York on August 18th, of those domain names with a reserve price range of $250K-$500K .

The package of domains including Tshirts.com got the most votes with 32% of the voters predicting a sale with “None will Sell” coming in second with 23%, Lawsuits finished 3rd with 14%  of the votes.

We’ll see how you did in a few weeks.

This weeks poll is for the 9 domain names with a reserve range of $500K-$1 Million Dollars.

As always place your votes on the right (only 1 vote is allowed this time) and place your comments below.

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A new post by Fortune.com, entitled Google: The Search Party Is Over” is an  interesting read especially for domainers who do any significant domain parking.

The article which in large part discusses the business operations of Google says about search:

That there is a real shift going on within the internet where search will soon be less used.

“”The shift going on within the Internet, one that is arguably the biggest change to the web and the way we use it since Google came on the scene. Your network simply provides you with answers, stories to read, bargains to buy, and you often don’t even need to ask a question.”

The article quotes a Mike McCue who “recently launched a  tablet software company Flipboard, which takes all your Facebook updates, your Twitter feeds, all the news sites you like and subscribe to, and in a very elegant way publishes a constantly updated magazine of text, photos, and video. “There is no need to do a search,” McCue says. “We almost view it as a bug if we have the user search for something.”

“In this new phase of the web, one of the largest threats to Google and its core search business is the expanding Facebook footprint around the world. Not only because social networks  offer a substitute for search for consumers, but also because they offer a substitute for advertisers as well. In display advertising, for example, Facebook has a 16% share of the roughly $9 billion market, according to comScore (Google sites have 2.4% of the market), and advertisers say they’re looking for more ways to plug into Facebook.”

“Facebook has got Google in its sights,” says Debra Aho Williamson, a senior analyst with eMarketer. “Advertisers get the best of both worlds — a mass audience but also the ability to target more than anyone else. Who are the advertisers? In a lot of cases, they’re Google’s advertisers.”

Its an interesting artcile and you should check it out.

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According to MobileCrunch.com, the company that makes  Blackberry  phones Research In Motion or Rimm for short, just purchased the domain Blackpad.com for their long-rumored BlackBerry tablet.

The devise of course will complete with Apple’s iPad.

“According to registration records, RIM purchased BlackPad.com just days ago.”

The domain is being administered by one of those trademark protection companies, corporatedomains.com

According to erictric.com:

“”The domain name has existed for several years now. It has been squatted by a couple of individuals since January 2002”

“Considering that there are no trademarks for BlackPad, it seems unlikely that RIM paid a huge amount of money for the domain name.””

I see if a domainer owns the domain its been squatted on even if the product doesn’t even exist.

However if a corporation buys the domain, well the shares of the maker of Blackberry, Research In Motion were up over 4% on the news today.

Moreover the mainstream blog got it wrong.  Since there is no trademark the owner of the domain probably got paid.

Or at least I hope so.

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Ask.com has begun testing a new service that lets users of its search engine submit questions to other Ask.com users

According to Doug Leeds, President of Ask.com, the new “Ask the Community” feature allows the search engine to provide specific answers to a greater portion of the search queries it receives, instead of simply displaying links to relevant web pages.

The community will vote on the best answers to determine the highest quality.

Ask.com will launch a social network Tuesday that allows people to poll the community for the best possible answer.

The social network is built on Ask’s search technology to classify and rank answers.

Businesses will have an opportunity to sign up and participate to answer questions. At first, Ask will not charge brands for “sponsored answers,” but that could change in time. Another potential revenue stream could come from paid-search sponsored listings.

According to ComScore, Ask.com had only 3.6% share of the U.S. search market in June.

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We wrote about some insiders at Oversee.net were offering shares in the company for sale on SharesPost.com back in may of this year for $7.35 a share.

Today a new seller hit the Sharespost site, offering 5,500-20,000 shares for sale for only $4.97 a share.

For Oversee a sale of a block at shares at its former asking price of $7.35 would have meant according to Sharespost a valuation of over $1.1 Billion dollars for Oversee.net.

At the new asking price, Oversee.net would only have a valuation of $760 Million.

That’s a haircut of more than 25% in just 4 months.

Ouch.

Since our intial post in March several other blocks in Oversee.net have found their way onto Sharespost without any sales

Other blocks of shares of Oversee.net still for sale on Sharespost are at  $7.35 a share, $6.15, $6.10, $5.95, and $5.30.

With this new offer to sell at $4.97 they’re are still are no buyers as of time of publication.

(you will have to sign up and qualify with Sharespost to see the actual offers to sell stock)

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Namejet.com just announced the  “”First Aftermarket names available for Public Auction”

“These auctions are going on right now and since they are Public anyone can bid, but hurry they are scheduled to close on Friday July 30th.”

The list follows, here is the direct link to the domains.

Bidding starts at $69.

Interestingly all of these domains seems to be owned by one person,  so they are not registry owned domains or domains picked up by NameJet or Enom.

Matter of fact none of the domains seem to be registered at Enom but rather Godaddy.com

airlinejobs.co
funnypoems.co
obits.co
ancientgreece.co
ghoststories.co
obituraries.co
babyboynames.co
graduationsayings.co
orientbeach.co
currencyconversion.co
hippies.co
playarcadegames.co
cutebabynames.co
hostal.co
polarbears.co
deathnotice.co
humping.co
shorthairstyles.co
dreamdictionary.co
instructor.co
showering.co
emailaccounts.co
internetsearch.co
sunsets.co
endangeredspecies.co
internetsearchengines.co
tattoogallery.co
exoticlingerie.co
localnewspaper.co
tila.co
foodpyramid.co
lovetests.co
tornados.co
freeenglishcourse.co
metricconversion.co
uniquebabynames.co
freepoems.co
microbikini.co
wbr.co
freeradiostations.co
miniskirts.co
weddingvows.co
freesearch.co
nena.co
zodiacsigns.co

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Mike Mann announced the sale of a .Co domain he owned, Flying.co for $3,500 on Facebook.

This could be the first reported .Co aftermarket sale since general registration opened for .Co domains last week.

We posted last week that Mike Mann has many of the top generic .CO domains for sale listed on his Facebook page.

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Yahoo Japan just signed a deal to use Google’s search engine rather than Microsoft’s Bing.

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If your not familiar with Groupon.com, its a group buying site that sends “you coupons, discount and deals” from merchants.

Its one of the group buying sites that the domain blog Fusible.com often writes about.

TechCrunch.com,  back in April of this year declared the company had a valuation of $1.35 Billion dollars.

Today a blog, Mixergy.com, published an interview with Andrew Mason of Groupon.com who told the story of how it acquired the domain name Groupon.com for just $250,000, long after the service had already started on the net using the URL, Groupon.ThePoint.com.

The blog has a the full interview and some video which you should check out, as its an interesting read.

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