Data shows that bulk of domain registrations are not from domainers.

Are domain investors or individual site owners and end users driving most of the .co domain registrations?

I just got some data from the .co registry that suggests it’s the latter.

Registrants with 50 or more .co domain names comprise only 1% of the total registrant base. What’s more, these people only account for about 10% of all domain names registered.

That means people with fewer than 50 .co domains make up 90% of the total registration base.

If you define people with 10 or more domains as “domain investors”, the number goes up slightly. About 2% of .co registrants have 10 or more domains, and the total of their portfolios is about 17.5% of all domains registered. This percentage is dropping every month.

So over 80% of .co registrations are coming from people with fewer than ten .co registrations. Most have just one or two .co domains. I suspect some of the heavily domainer-invested extension are opposite of these numbers for .co.

For the record, I own one .co domain name — DNW.co.

In other interesting .co news, .Co Internet was recently nominated for a World Trademark Review Industry Award.

Company granted continuation patent for parked domain optimization.

Today Oversee.net, parent company of domain parking company DomainSponsor, was granted U.S. patent #7,945,662 for “Internet domain keyword optimization” (pdf).

This patent was a continuation of previously granted patent #7,281,042 filed in 2004.

The patent covers a number of parked domain name optimization techniques. Here’s the abstract:

A computerized system and method for optimizing contents of a domain landing page for increased revenues for the domain name owner. A landing server tracks user interactions with the domain landing page and generates an optimized keyword data set for the domain name. The keyword data set is used for selecting the information to be displayed on the domain name page. According to one embodiment, the keywords are associated with advertiser payment values. When a link to an advertiser bidding on a particular keyword is selected, revenue generated due to the click is shared with the domain name owner. Selection of links on pop-under pages displayed with a landing page are also shared with the domain name owner. Semantic analysis of keywords and domain names allows the generation of a related keyword data set when there is insufficient number of relevant user interactions for generating the optimized keyword data set.

Request asks for bundling of multiple transliterations and translations of new gTLDs in applications.

VeriSign is amongst 26 signatories on a letter (pdf) to ICANN requesting “packaged” top level domain name applications.

The group writes that “there is no mechanism in the Guidebook that will support applicants that wish to offer multiple script versions of their community or product, whether ASCII or IDN, to serve the diverse needs of non-English and non-Latin script users.”

Two types of communities would benefit from bundled applications, the letter states. First are multi-script communities, such as some in North Africa where more than one script is used every day. Second are “smaller script” communities that are too small to justify a $185,000 application. The group says these communities’ “languages might go extinct on the web” without bundled applications.

Basically, the signatories want an option in new gTLD applications to add transliterations or translations of their string at a reduced package price.

Domain broker added to suit over failed Women.com transaction.

DONE! Ventures has added domain name broker Sedo to its lawsuit over a failed transaction for Women.com.

DONE! sued NBC Universal last year after it alleged the media giant failed to follow through with a transaction to sell Women.com and Women.net for $1 million. According to the suit, NBC Universal’s CEO at the time Jeff Zucker vetoed the deal after it had been agreed to. Sedo broker Jeff Gabriel managed the deal.

Now, apparently frustrated at lack of support from Sedo to enforce the deal, DONE! founder Ben Padnos has added Sedo to the suit (pdf).

“Sedo told us we had a deal,” Padnos said. “There’s no confusion around ‘Congratulations, the offer has been accepted’, as they told me on May 24, 2010.”

However, NBC has argued in court that they never authorized Sedo to bind the transaction. While that may be debatable, it appears Padnos found it necessary to add Sedo to the suit to add some firepower.

Padnos claims in the amended suit that he’s been damaged in excess of $10 million. In addition to asking for at least that much in damages, he still wants the transaction enforced — which was all he asked for in his original suit against NBC.

Another clue about Donuts’ plans.

At first I could only make an educated guess that Paul Stahura’s new venture, for which he recently raised $1 million, was about new top level domain names.

Then I got confirmation that the company was at least a domain name company thanks to a trademark filing.

Now we know for sure.

Donuts Inc. COO Richard Tindal just filed comments on the latest new top level domain name guidebook on behalf of the company.

That means TL Ventures and Austin Ventures are playing in the new top level domain name game — even if only with a small initial investment.