GoDaddy VP no longer using his accredited registrar.

I always thought it was odd that DNForum owner Adam Dicker still owned his own domain name registrar after he took a job as VP at GoDaddy. So when I saw that ICANN was not renewing his accreditation for Domain Jingles, Inc., it gave me a chance to reach out to him.

As it turns out, Dicker moved his domains to GoDaddy a long time ago and hasn’t been actively using his registrar.

In response to an email, Dicker wrote “It has been inactive for about 4 years and I am happy with all my names at GoDaddy”.

I see a number of “abandoned” domain name registrars end up shutting down due to non-renewal from ICANN. But waiting for ICANN to shut down your registrar for you can be expensive: ICANN claims Dicker still owes it over $30,000 in past due accreditation fees.

Warner joins Directi’s new venture.

A familiar face in the domain name world is joining Directi’s DomainAdvertising.com as CEO.

Dan Warner, previously the Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Operation Officer of Dark Blue Sea, the company that runs Fabulous, has joined the company and already hit the ground running.

Warner explained how the company plans to shake up the domain industry:

We will be doing the exact opposite of most domain companies. Significant capital, human resources and infrastructure will be used to accelerate internet advertising innovation and design. We expect that many of the other players in the industry will look like they are standing still or going backwards in comparison to our scheduled advancements.

DomainAdvertising was launched at the most recent TRAFFIC conference in New York City.

Warner will lead an initial team of 30 people at DomainAdvertising.com, but will also have access to Directi’s 500 person employee base.

EVO Media Group picks up investment from private equity group and angel investors.

EVO Media Group, Inc., the company behind web site building platform DevHub, has secured a $1.5 million investment. In addition to an undisclosed private equity group, investors include a number of angels: Geoff Entress of Voyager Capital, John Cunningham of Clearfir, Alex Algard CEO of WhitePages.com, Jeff Schrock of Intel Capital, Richard Wolpert (former President of Disney Online). Many from this group have backed successful Seattle ventures in the past, most recent of note include BuddyTV and Pet Holdings (the group behind ICanHasCheezburger and FailBlog).

DevHub SVP Strategic Marketing/Co-Founder Mark Michael told me via email “We are ready to grow this into a huge media company!”

The company already began expanding its office space last month. It’s looking to hire more developers, too.

Epik founder Rob Monster was an original investor in EVO. The DevHub platform is the basis for Epik’s network of web sites.

Marketing analytics firm reports steep drop in Yahoo click costs.

According to marketing analytics company Covario, Yahoo’s cost-per-click prices were down 29% after instituting widespread variable click pricing in September. Although it’s unclear what universe of click data Covario used to calculate this, Yahoo is happily quoting it. Covario says the typical CPA is down 11% since the change.

Although initial estimates among parking companies were that parking click revenue would decline anywhere from 2% to about 12% following the change, individual publishers are seeing wide variances as their traffic quality scores change.

A bigger drop may be in store once Yahoo implements its new “premium” channel segmentation as part of a lawsuit settlement.

But there are a couple bright spots in the news. First, if CPAs are falling as Covario suggests, advertisers might start moving back to Yahoo and push CPC rates back up. Second, Covario reports that click through rates were up 46% after making the change (a correlation that doesn’t make immediate sense to me).

Help Kauffman Foundation rename a web site.

Here’s an opportunity for domainers to do good by helping out the Kauffman Foundation, an organization that helps spur entrepreneurship.

Kauffman Foundation recently acquired StudentBusinesses.com, a site where people can post and review business plans with the idea of getting matched to advisors, financing etc. It also has a backend system for colleges to manage business plan competitions. To date, the site has been limited to students.

Kauffman wants to expand beyond just student business plans, so the name StudentBusinesses.com won’t work anymore. That’s where you come in — Kauffman is holding a “URL Renaming Competition” where you can submit new potential names. (A simple registration is required to submit a name.)

A panel of judges will consider the names and select a winner. Among other things, it will take into consideration the feasibility of acquiring the domain name. So you can toss Business.com out.

Of course, you can submit domains that you personally own that might be a fit. But the point here is to help out Kauffman Foundation, so give it some thought first. Take a look at the current StudentBusinesses.com web site to understand what it’s about, and also Kauffman.org if you aren’t familiar with the organization.

The deadline to enter is December 1.

The winner will get some nice PR out of this. So could the domain industry: it would be nice if a domain expert wins, as it would show the value domainers can add.