My visit to company’s offices in Seattle.

Over the holiday weekend I traveled to Seattle for a wedding. Because I can never take a holiday from the domain world, I arranged to visit Name Intelligence’s office while I was there. Name Intelligence, owned by Thought Convergence, operates DomainTools and Spry, a web hosting company.

Friday afternoon I made the short walk from the W Hotel to NI’s offices, located in a non-descript building that used to house a radio studio. DomainTools’ General Manager Susan Prosser gave me a tour of the building, which retains a high tech start-up feel. Name Intelligence leases the bottom floor of the two story building, which is split about 50-50 between offices for Spry and DomainTools. The top floor is currently empty. The building includes standard high tech necessities, such as a game room (apparently part of a 4 pm Friday ritual) and kitchens.

I liked the vibe of the DomainTools area, which is mostly an open room that reminds me of the cohesive environment at my first company out of college. Even at 4 pm on a Friday before a holiday weekend, DomainTools’ developers were hard at work (see photo).

Over the next few days I’m going to write about some of the ways I use DomainTools. Most domainers use DomainTools, but everyone uses it in a different way. I’ll give my take on it throughout the week.

Twitter related .me domain names sells for five figures.

The latest premium .me domain name auction is coming to an end, and Tweet.me looks to be the winner at $11,505. I can see this being used for a Twitter service, but I’m a bit concerned about all of the services popping up that use variants of Twitter and Tweet in their names: could Twitter ever come after them for trademark infringement?

Lease.me sold for $7,605 with 139 bids and Massage.me sold for $6,005 with 32 bids. Other sales included:

Name/Price/Bids

preview.me $2,605 52
only.me $2,540 166
excuse.me $2,505 140
rome.me $2,015 103
zoe.me $2,011 55
england.me $2,005 70
aweso.me $2,005 93
escorts.me $2,005 124
brand.me $1,805 221
budget.me $1,805 24
bookmark.me $1,755 120
france.me $1,510 48
view.me $1,505 49
social.me $1,455 51
sanfrancisco.me $1,330 63
oglasi.me $1,155 64
arizona.me $1,116 51
ohio.me $1,116 65
bring.me $1,110 80

It appears that at least one domain name in the latest auction was sold at a previous auction, so perhaps it was never paid for.

The next premium .me domain name auction takes place on NameJet June 5.

Use BrowserShots when to check new web sites.

There are hundreds of versions of various web browsers in use, and each of them has its own quirks. I learned this when I launched the re-designed Domain Name Wire. (Thanks again to SiteGraduate for the redesign.)

There were two main browser issues we had to overcome. First, the site was just a bit too wide for most browsers when people used a 1024 resolution. 21% of Domain Name Wire visitors have a 1024 wide resolution. Second was a CSS problem with Internet Explorer 6, since IE 6 has horrible CSS support. I didn’t think this would be a big issue, but it turns out nearly 10% of visitors to Domain Name Wire still use IE6.

There’s a quick way to test your web site in multiple browsers and operating systems — BrowserShots. All you have to do is enter your URL and select which browsers, versions, and operating systems you want to test. You can then add other requirements, such as screen resolution and color depth. BrowserShots then goes to work, grabbing screenshots of your web site across its network of opt-in computers.

When you develop one of your domains, I highly recommend using BrowserShots to test your web site. Even if you have a site you developed years ago, you should double check that it’s passable in all major browsers.

TRAFFIC ccTLDs and Domain Roundtable round out first half of year.

Domain conference goers have been treated to many options this year, and two more events are coming up next month. These conferences will be very different from the typical conference, with unique programming and cities as a backdrop.

TRAFFIC ccTLDs will take place in Amsterdam June 1-4. Rick Latona is organizing the event, which will focus exclusively on country code domain names. Many of the speakers and guests at the conference work for the country code domain registries.

The show has not yet sold out, so organizers are rolling back the admission price to early bird rates of $1,495. There’s also a part-time domainer option for $395 a day, open exclusively to European residents. Day passes do not provide access to evening events.

Domain Roundtable goes to Washington D.C. June 14-17. With the center of U.S. government as the backdrop, this event will cover not only traditional domain conference topics but also policy and regulatory issues. You can expect policy makers and registries to rub elbows with domainers.

Registration for Domain Roundtable is $995.

Consider what the benchmark for a successful domain name is.

In light of yesterday’s news that .me has hit 250,000 registrations and .tel has already reached 200,000, a number of people are asking if that makes these TLDs successful. Michael Berkens asked a similar question today.

My answer is that it’s way too early to say they are or are not successful.

I’m sure that GoDaddy/Afilias/DotMe had goals for the launch of their domains, and I have no idea if they’ve been met. Telnic certainly had its first year goals mapped out as well. But many TLDs fall off after an initial rush of speculators and trademark holders run in to register their domains.

.EU, by comparison, has nearly 3 million registrations. From a domainer’s perspective, however, this domain has been an utter failure.

I’m not saying these initial results aren’t impressive. But judging a new TLD takes time:

1. Number of registrations and registrants after three years.

2. Percentage of Fortune 500 firms that have registered and are using the domain.

3. Percentage of domains registered that are developed.

4. Resale prices of domains after three years. (In other words, after the initial froth has subsided.)

5. Renewal rates 12 months and 24 months after launch.

6. Retail price of domains is at least $5 (i.e., not giving away to boost numbers).

Different domains (such as local ones) may require different metrics, but I think these are a good start.