Looking for something for that domainer on your holiday list?

Domainers can be hard people to shop for. Here are a few domain-related gifts for your friends.

1. Watch My Domains. Give the domainer in your life a bit more free time thanks to Watch My Domains Pro. This software program helps domainers keep track of their domains, including DNS data and expiration dates. No more missed renewals or messing with spreadsheets of domains.

2. Sex.com (The Book). Here’s a stocking stuffer that’s sure to thrill. Kieren McCarthy’s entertaining chronicle about the Sex.com theft is an engaging read. Be sure to order this early; major bookstores don’t carry it.

3. Domainer Apparel. Pick up a t-shirt, mouse pad, or tote bag. Or a bib for that future domainer in your house.

4. A domain conference ticket. This one will set you back a little. But why not send one of your domain enthusiast friends to a domain conference? Choose from TRAFFIC, DOMAINfest, Domain Roundtable, and several others. Coach class airfare and the hotel will set you back another couple grand, so save this one for that special someone.

5. TheirName.com. If a domainer doesn’t own their own domain, that’s because they’ve tried to buy it without success. For example, I’ve tried to buy Allemann.com for quite some time. No luck so far. Use your connections to get the only domain that’s ever “priceless”…someone’s own name.

Feel free to post other ideas.

This Thanksgiving, Domain Name Wire has lots to be thankful for.

Thursday was full of turkey at my household. It’s that time of year — the holiday season – that ends up being more hectic than a holiday. But I have lots to be thankful for…

1. My readers. I appreciate each and every person who finds the site valuable. And there are a lot of you. In fact, my webhost recently threatened to shut down the site due to traffic spikes. They offered a simple solution: your RSS feed seems to get a lot of traffic, why not disable it?

If you happen to know an intelligent webhost with great uptime, let me know

2. Rising domain name prices. Week after week, auction after auction, we see record setting domain name sales. This is one of the few industries in which people rarely sell for a loss. Compare that to real estate, stocks and bonds, etc.

3. Great customer service from domain name companies. I may gripe about customer service from time to time, but the majority of domain name services companies have excellent customer service. Consider parking company Parked.com. They always pay on time (net 7). But because Thanksgiving fell on payday this year, they sent payments a day early. Thanks, guys!

4. Other domain name blogs. As far as I know, Domain Name Wire is the longest running domain name blog in the industry. A bunch of other blogs have started, and many have closed down. But we’re starting to see some stick. Kudos to Frank Schilling. Now that his income is on auto-pilot, he’s taking the time to give back to the community (including his blog).

Cheers, and happy holidays!

Next auction begins November 28 at Sedo.com.

mTLD, the registry for .mobi domains, must be very happy with its relationship with domain aftermarket Sedo. Sedo is working with mTLD to auction off premium .mobi domains. By all accounts, Sedo is getting top dollar for the domains.

At the last auction, Sedo sold Taxi.mobi for $75,000 and Dating.mobi for $73,000.

The next .mobi auction will start November 28. A quick review shows that this auction has perhaps the best names yet, and most have low reserves. The low reserves are an indication that mTLD and Sedo are comfortable that the domains will sell at fair prices.

Here are some of the good domains and their reserve prices; you can see a full list here.

Art.mobi $5,000-$20,000
Astrology.mobi < $5,000
Bar.mobi < $5,000
Beer.mobi $5,000-$20,000
Bikes.mobi < $5,000
Careers.mobi $5,000-$20,000
Chocolate.mobi < $5,000
Classifieds.mobi < $5,000
Coffee.mobi < $5,000
Comedy.mobi < $5,000
Dictionary.mobi < $5,000
Entertainment.mobi < $5,000
Flower.mobi < $5,000 (Flowers.mobi sold for $200,000, which started the .mobi land rush)
Games.mobi $5,000-$20,000
Horoscopes.mobi < $5,000
Job.mobi $5,000-$20,000
Jokes.mobi < $5,000
Movies.mobi $5,000-$20,000
Music.mobi $5,000-$20,000 (this domain could clear $100k)
Radio.mobi < $5,000
Restaurant.mobi < $5,000
Roses.mobi < $5,000
Soccer.mobi < $5,000
Sports.mobi $20,000-$50,000
Wine.mobi $20,000-$50,000

Domains like Music.mobi and Horoscopes.mobi make perfect sense for mobile devices. If the previous auction is any indication, I predict that this auction could clear $1,000,000 in sales.

Domain registrar and software download site Tucows is relaunching its reseller parking programs. Will this help its sagging stock price?

November has been a dissapointing month for shareholders in Tucows (AMEX: TCX). After opening November 1 at $.97 a share, the stock has fallen to a low of $.69 a share. Shares closed yesterday at $.79.

At the heart of the drop was a dissapointing earnings announcement. Tucows blames reduced registration fees it is charging resellers. The company believes these reduced prices will help the company in the long run. It also means competition is fierce.

Yesterday, Tucows announced the relaunch of its Parked Pages and Expired Domains parking programs. Tucows resellers will earn a 50% share of Tucows parking revenue on unused domains as well as domains that have expired. Also, Tucows will share aftermarket sales revenue with resellers. If a domain expires and Tucows sells the domain in the aftermarket, resellers will get 10% of the net revenue.

Interestingly, a press release from Tucows about the reseller program explains that Tucows buys expired domains on its own account. Many registrars do this, but few so openly.

The press release notes, “When a domain name expires, Tucows may choose to purchase that name and place it in the Expired Names Program. If, at a later date, Tucows sells the domain through its Premium Domains service, the company shares 10% of net revenue with the original reseller.”

Doing this creates a conflict of interest. If a domain is earning just a bit of parking income, it makes sense for Tucows to not encourage the registrant to renew the domain. The margin on registrations is a buck or two; it can be much higher if Tucows owns the domain outright and collects pay-per-click parking revenue.

Hopefully this relaunch will encourage Tucows resellers to sell more and help the company’s sagging stock price.

I’m frustrated with Google.

Google, I’ve had enough.

I’ve been a customer since the beginning, when you sold search ads on an impression basis. I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars with you. Sure, I don’t spend as much as some of the big companies, but you were kind enough to send an electronic picture frame to me last year to thank me for my business.

But I’ve had enough with the “black box” algorithms in your advertising program. Advertising with Google should be transparent, but it’s far from it.

I realize you had to tweak Adwords to prevent people from gaming the system. But how you calculate relevancy and minimum bids is frustrating. Customers don’t like frustration.

You see, my company launched a web community a couple months ago called Virtual Ventures. If you search for Virtual Ventures or even our domain name, virtualventures.com, you don’t see our site on the first page. You see lots of articles about our site, but not our site. That’s OK; I know it takes a few months for you to index new sites.

I’m willing to pay for search ads in the mean time.

So last week I set up an ad campaign to show ads when people search for “Virtual Ventures” and “VirtualVentures.com”. The ad asks searchers to visit Virtual Ventures, which they are most certainly interested in doing if they search for one of these phrases. There are no other ads running for these terms, and advertising with you will make our site visible while we wait for you to index it.

After carefully selecting the ad text and keywords, I submitted the campaign.

But I won’t see my ads anytime soon. Apparently your black box thinks that the term VirtualVentures.com isn’t very relevant for advertising the site VirtualVentures.com. Nor is “Virtual Ventures”. You’re asking me to bid $5 per click for “VirtualVentures.com”, or asking me to make my ads more relevant. Sorry, not even a Google engineer could pick a more relevant ad for these keywords.

There’s not much I can do. You have a stranglehold on most web traffic, especially the tech-savvy audience I’m trying to attract. But I’m not happy; and that goes for a lot of other customers as well.