Domain name company gets nice lift in initial public offering.

Shares in Demand Media (NYSE: DMD) have popped 40% on open to just over $23 a share after pricing yesterday at $17, above the anticipated range of $14-$16.

This is good news for the domain name industry. Demand Media owns domain name registrar eNom, parking company HotKeys, part of NameJet, and a large portfolio of domain names. It’s true that much of the company’s growth is coming from its content businesses such as eHow, but the underpinning and stable revenue base comes from domain names.

Demand Media pulled this off despite recent questions about its accounting practices as well as rumblings from Google that it will look into “content farms”, which many people say was a direct attack on Demand Media.

Public companies trade for larger multiples than private ones, which means the economics of acquisitions change. While Demand Media focuses on growing its eHow-like properties, don’t be surprised if it flirts with acquisitions of other domain registrars, parking companies, and more domain portfolio owners.

World’s largest domain name registrar creates new logo with .co.

Domain name registrar Go Daddy has been a big supporter of the .co relaunch. It has tested promoting .co as its default search, tried lowering prices to match .com, and is partnering up with .Co Internet for its Super Bowl ad. It’s even teasing the media with a new GoDaddy.co girl that will be unveiled on Super Bowl Sunday.

It is also going to test changing its name to GoDaddy.co?

Last week the company filed an intent-to-use trademark application for a new GoDaddy.co logo. Yep, that’s .co, not .com.

My guess is that the company will use this logo in its Super Bowl commercial and/or on its site during the game.

Business models dependent on ICANN are risky.

If the new top level domain name process and .xxx are any indication, staking an entire business model on something that must work its way through the ICANN process requires unending patience and a strong appetite for risk.

New top level domain names haven’t even been approved yet, but we’ve already seen layoffs in the new TLD business. Companies that sprung up to launch new TLDs have had to cut back to lower their burn rate.

Frustration with the process was neatly summed up in a blog post by Kieren McCarthy today. McCarthy, who previously worked at ICANN, is organizing a new TLD conference taking place next month.

His post is quite long but worth reading. In it he discusses how the new TLD process has stretched on and how recent developments between ICANN and the Governmental Advisory Committee may push it back further. He refers to the ongoing battle over .xxx as another example of a “damaged process”.

I think this one paragraph sums up the tone:

…The Board and staff think they are being clever, and the GAC thinks it’s being clever. The cleverness is so intoxicating that it’s all too easy to forget that the process has actually become quite idiotic.

The dot-xxx farce (yes, it has gone beyond “saga” and is now firmly in the “farce” camp) is a case in point. Neither the Board nor GAC really know what they are doing from one day to the next. There had to be a public comment period on the substance of course. And a comment period on the process steps that might be taken (which no one agreed with). And then discussions of the upshots of those comment periods. And then a discussion about what the Board was likely to do in response to those comment periods. And then a check whether that likely decision would break the GAC’s advice. And then a discussion about what to do if it did. And then the Board saying ‘we think we disagree with you, do you agree?’ And then a discussion saying ’so you agree we disagree with you. How do we find a way to agree to disagree’. And on and on and on. It would be funny if it wasn’t so appalling.

On the one hand you can say businesses that operate with ICANN knew what they were getting into. But I can’t help but feel that this process has been much longer than it could have been.

Please don’t spam and please stay on topic.

This weekend Elliot Silver posted about commenting on his blog and restrictions on what “name” you can use in the comments. (Your name is optionally linked to a URL.) Elliot threatened to remove the URL of anyone who used a spammy keyword name to link to a web site.

That’s a nice first step but doesn’t go far enough.

I used to measure the success of my posts by the number of comments, but then I realized that many comments are just spam or off topic.

Commenting is a valuable part of the blog experience and I don’t want to curtail legitimate comments in any way. Comments should be made in the interest of adding value to everyone’s experience.

So I’d like to outline ten rules to commenting:

1. If you use a spammy keyword name and link it to a web site, I might delete your entire comment.

Often times the comments tied to these are actually spam comments from bots or paid linkers. So when in doubt, I’ll assume these comments are spam.

Now this doesn’t mean you can’t use your site name in a comment. For example, if Elliot wanted to comment on my blog and made his name “Elliot’s Blog” instead of “Elliot Silver”, that’s fine. Or you can link to your SEO service, blog, mini-site company, etc. But if your name is “Best Teeth Whitening” and you link off to some affiliate site, your link/comment will be deleted.

2. I use ‘no follow’ not on principle, but because of what happens if you don’t use it.

WordPress enables ‘no follow’ links in comments by default. I considered turning it off once. But did you know there are services out there that collect URLs of blogs that don’t have ‘no follow’ turned on? Yeah, and they even have services to spam those blogs.

3. You don’t need to use your real name.

Even though I don’t want to see “teeth whitening” as your name, you can use a pseudonym or pen name if you want. Just remember that your criticisms are taken more seriously when you use your real name.

4. But you do need to use a valid email.

Otherwise your comment will be deleted.

5. Never use a URL shortener for either your name link or in-comment links.

URL shorteners present two problems. First, I have to actually visit the site to see what it is. Second, the redirect can be changed at any time. So please use the full link.

6. Don’t link to a parked page.

I don’t know a single parking company that will let you create links to parked pages, so don’t do it here.

7. Don’t make off topic comments.

I had one guy who would make a grievance about how he felt a particular company ripped him off every single time I wrote anything about that company. On topic discussions about the subjects of a post are fine, but if you make the same comment each time like this it detracts from the overall experience.

8. Don’t say I deleted your comments when I really didn’t.

Here’s a scenario that happens all the time that pisses me off. Someone will post a comment that lands in moderation or spam. They don’t see their comment so they immediately comment “why are you deleting my comments”.

9. If you Astroturf, I’ll call you out on it.

Every once in a while I’ll get a comment defending or promoting a company that is made by someone at the company. They try to hide their identity and act like a third party. Don’t do this.

10. Don’t use profanity or racial slurs.

Here’s my commitment to you: as long as you don’t run afoul of these guidelines, I welcome all comments whether or not I agree with the opinions. In fact, I prefer to hear differing opinions.

If you’re reading this post and considering it, then this post really isn’t targeted to you. There are only a handful of people who ruin it for everyone.

Fewer domains, better quality on tap for next live domain auction.

This headline may seem contradictory. But it aptly describes the change Moniker has made with its live auctions of late, and it’s very apparent with February’s DOMAINfest Auction.

What’s the change? Fewer domains. Better quality.

The Premium Live auction on February 3 will have no more than 100 domains and should take less than two hours to complete. (Only 90 minutes is scheduled, but you know how these things go.) Even better, the extended auction will include fewer than 500 domains and last two weeks. A couple years ago the extended auction had over 5,000 domain names, which made it an all day chore to find the winners.

Of course with fewer domains in the premium auction you won’t see as many inexpensive ones, either. Domains under $10,000 will be hard to come by in the premium auction (you’ll find them in the low and no reserve auction on February 1 auction instead).

Here’s a look at some of my favorite (and least favorite) domains from the auction, but live and extended:

Favorites

Row.com $50k-$100k – solid three letter word with many uses, including for rowing

AJY.com and IZT.com – $500-$1000 – not great letters, but a great price.

Candygrams.com $2500-$5000 – you could build an entire candy delivery business around this inexpensive domain

CatholicSchool.com $2500-$5000 – plural would be better but great for an online directory

LTE.com $500k-$750k – probably won’t sell to a domain investor at this price, but LTE.com is one of the top names for 4G wireless.

Worst

These are good names just at the wrong price.

PepperoniPizza.com $100k-$250k – what would you do with this? Have a site that just sells pepperoni pizzas?

Cotton.com $750k-$1M – I recall being surprised when this domain name sold for only $75k back in a 2008 Moniker auction. It seemed cheap. Yet it appears the domain name never transferred hands, so maybe it didn’t sell. It’s worth more than $75k, but I don’t think it’s worth 10x that much.

ComicBook.com $250k-$500k – I only add this to the list because I’ve seen it for sale in a domain newsletter about a dozen times over the past couple years.