Sedo acquires another domain name parking company.

In a long rumored transaction, Sedo has acquired domain name parking company ParkingPanel.com for an undisclosed price.

ParkingPanel was launched in 2006, but ran into a few roadblocks. In March of 2008 it lost its advertising feed and was forced to look for an alternate provider. It announced its relaunch in August of 2008. But, like many small domain name parking companies, it has faced a tough slough in today’s domain parking environment.

Sedo will incorporate the ParkingPanel.com brand into its own, and transition all of ParkingPanel’s customers over to Sedo. This transition should be completed before the end of the month.

Sedo acquired another small parking company, RevenueDirect, in February of 2009 for $825,000.

NameMedia presentation is worth watching.

This week NameMedia presented a webinar “How to Sell your Domain Names Fast, and for Maximum Value.” The webinar is now available for playback on the Afternic web site.

I just watched the thirty minute webinar, expecting it to be one big pitch for NameMedia. And although that’s certainly there, the webinar has some good data and information. If you don’t know much about Afternic and BuyDomains, I recommend watching the entire webinar. If you have been in the industry for a while, I still recommend watching the first section, which has some good data and ideas:

-91% of AfternicDLS buyers are end users

-Pricing your domains results in 10x higher sales velocity: “usability studies show that businesses view priced names as a more legitimate business proposal than non-priced names…perception that “make offer” domains will have their asking price materially increased once a prospective buyer indicates interest.”

-Categorized domains sell with 3x the sales velocity of uncategorized — categorical search tool is frequently used at BuyDomains

-Respond to all offers — you never know what large buyer is behind a $75 offer

-For sale notices on your parked pages have minimal impact on parking revenue

-Include a phone number in your domain sales notice on your parked page. NameMedia’s close rate for phone leads are 2x email/web leads. The average sales price from phone-based inquiries is $200 higher than other leads.

-Set realistic prices — more than 80% of end user acquired domain names are purchased from $500-$5,000.

-”Unless you own high value generics, domain sales is a volume game — play it that way”

-NameMedia’s sales people average 4-7 domains sold a day at about $2,000.

One character .biz domain name auction off to strong start.

An auction for one letter and one number .biz domain names at Sedo is off to a strong start.

After just a day of bidding, e.biz leads the pack at $6,201 with 17 bids. X.com biz is close behind at $5,000 with four bids. It appears that all domains have a reserve of $5,000, and only e.biz and x.biz have met their reserves so far. However, many other domains are getting close, including u.biz and 1.biz.

The interesting thing to me is that anyone who came up with a decent plan to develop and promote e.biz could have had it for a lot less through the registry’s RFP process. That’s how Overstock got O.biz.

The .biz auction ends September 30.

September’s Great Domains auction at Sedo ends today. So far the highest priced domain to hit its reserve is 79.net at 5,900 EUR.

DotGreen to take on DotEco.

When I wrote my tongue-in-cheek guide on how to my .Eco a success, I joked:

Make sure the other side doesn’t decide to just get .green instead. You need to get their heads stuck on .eco. If they opt for .green, you could have long term competition. And that’s not what this is about; you need to get a monopoly TLD.

I should have done some fact checking, because, buried beneath all of the hoopla around .eco, a group has announced .green.

And, according to a press release about the group choosing Neustar as its registry provider, it was their idea first:

Conceived in 2007, .green was the first environmental TLD proposed to international environmental groups, and the DotGreen Registry Corporation remains the only announced non-profit public benefit corporation to seek such an environmental domain. DotGreen accepts philanthropic donations, has no owners or shareholders, and will give 100% of its profits to hundreds of green projects and green organizations aimed at sustainability in every region of the world.

So this begs the question, what would companies do if there’s both .eco and .green? Which one will win? Will GE choose both a .eco and .green, or will it forward one to the other? Or will it just go with GE.com/green? It might create an entirely new category of defensive registrations.

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Keynote speaker announced for DOMAINfest Global.

Tony Hsieh, CEO and Co-Founder of Zappos.com, will be the keynote speaker for DOMAINfest Global 2010. The event will take place January 26-28, 2010 in Santa Monica, California.

This is a good choice for the show, given Hsieh’s background in internet marketing and domain names. Hsieh founded the popular banner exchange network LinkExchange, which he sold to Microsoft for $265 million. He also understands the value of a category killer domain name, as Zappos.com paid $4.9 million for Clothes.com. Zappos entered into an agreement to be acquired by Amazon.com for $850 million earlier this year.

If you plan to attend the event, early bird registration rates are available through the end of September for $895. Prices increase $200 on October 1.

Last year, more than 600 people from 26 countries attended the event, making it the largest domain name conference of the year.