After losing UDRP, IVX says it will go to court for domain name.

Last week I wrote about Dutch company Besloten Vennootschap IVX Networks Europe B.V. The brand management and global domain name registration company uses the domain name IVX.eu. It filed a UDRP against the owner of IVX.com and lost.

An astute reader has picked up that the company tweeted it will now sue to get the domain name:

shame: lost WIPO arbitration case about ivx.com domain.. Monday to sollicitor: of to file an court suit at official courts Europe!

Now, beside the fact it’s pretty clear the owner of the domain name didn’t target this particular company with his registration of IVX.com, another thing has me scratching my head. The panel wrote that IVX offered $13,000 for the domain name but the owner wanted $15,000.

The company would have saved a lot of money had it just accepted the fair $15,000 offer rather than filing the UDRP, let alone a separate lawsuit.

I’m not sure I’d trust this company’s judgment for domain management.

(Hat tip to DNW reader Thomas.)

Trademark frontrunning continues.

A Washington man has filed an intent-to-use trademark application for “.gay” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Thomas Petersen DBA Creighton Investments, LLC filed the application on June 20 just after ICANN approved a plan to open up the top level domain name system.

Petersen doesn’t seem to be connected to either of the two groups that have publicly announced plans to apply for the .gay top level domain name thus far.

But the trademark application won’t get far. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office doesn’t approve trademarks for top level domain names. Some applicants find ways to squirrel around the field of use to slip one past the examiner, but Petersen’s application is quite blunt:

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers extension for top level world wide web domain name extension for all domains ending in “.gay” to be first used in commerce upon provisioning by ICAAN. The mark will be used to promote, identify and market websites pertaining to the gay and lesbian population.

…Trademark is asserted only for use as a Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers extension for top level world wide web domain name extension for all domains www.example.gay

Petersen simultaneously filed a trademark application for .omni.

This isn’t the first time someone has filed a trademark application for .gay. A Toronto company tried in 1997 but gave up the following year.

DNForum founder discusses the state of domain investing and his popular forum.

I last interviewed DNForum owner Adam Dicker over five years ago. A lot has changed in the domain industry since then, so I thought it would be a good time to connect again.

DNW: Bring readers up to speed on how big the forum is now in terms of users, visitors, etc.

Adam: Dnforum.com is now up to about 106,000 members and that number grows by over 250 each day. We have over 1.7 million posts on a variety of topics. Dnforum.com is continually voted the best domain community on the web by your readers.

DNW: When I last interviewed you, you said one of the draws of the forum is that it’s a “forum where people go to do business”. Domain sales have changed a lot over the years. How have you adapted on the forum?

Dnforum.com has had to adapt to the changing industry with the focus still remaining on educating community members so that they don’t have to make the same mistakes others did when they were just starting out.

We started showcasemanager.com, a marketplace designed to offer domainers the chance to sell as many domains per year as the want for $69. Previously domainers were paying anywhere between 10%-30% of their sale price just to have a link on their parked page that said ‘this domain may be for sale’ and that’s way too much. From my experience, none of the current marketplaces are working hard to promote more eyeballs or retail customers to the their domain sales path so why pay the commission when you really don’t have to. Showcasemanager.com hasn’t even officially launched yet but we have over 300 portfolio owners signed up in the first 48 hours. We are also looking at the possibility of adding leasing domains as a feature of showcasemanager.com and I believe no other marketplace currently offers this.

Now by no means am I suggesting you don’t list your domain names for sale on other marketplaces. You should list them wherever you can to maximize exposure. The one thing I do suggest is you keep commission in mind when listing at all marketplaces.

For example, if you want to sell a domain for $1000:

You should list it at $1,000 at Showcasemanager.com because the commission level is 0%.
You should list it at $1,100 at Sedo because the commission is 10%
You should list it at $1,150 at Go Daddy Auctions because the commission is 15%
You should list it with Afternic at $1,200 because the commission is 20%
You should list it on Go Daddy Premium Listings for $1,300 because the commission is 30%

This strategy always guarantees that no matter where it sells you will get the $1,000 you want out of it.

There are three areas that seem are approaching a slow death: domain parking, domain brokerage and minisite development.

Domain parking revenues have dropped across the board to the point that if you are not making domain sales on a regular basis you will be forced to go look for full time work again soon and just do domaining as a hobby.
Domain brokerage seems to have dropped as well with everyone claiming to be a broker but it takes a real salesman to approach an end user and negotiate a sale and this industry has very few people capable of accomplishing such a feat.

With many people consolidating portfolios, there has never been a better time to invest in good solid domain names. My own personal strategy of late has been to sell three or four lower end names and spend half the revenue and get a good generic name. I am a firm believer in the .com and .ca marketplaces while most other tld’s are just domainer pipe dreams that make the registrars money.

A positive area that is taking off quickly is our expansion into selling websites through dcg.com, these are fully functional, original content websites created for the purpose of selling or promoting a product or service. Each site includes ten custom written articles that are submitted to article sites bringing back valuable targeted traffic. Some examples of sites are liberationtreatment.com, gout.ca, limo.ca and igolf.ca.

With focus on our new content development we are offering with custom content, SEO promotion and features we are generating a lot more income on our own domains through PPS then parking. Within 1 month of launching Limo.ca we began receiving over 15 real leads a day on limo rentals and receiving a 25% commission on each sale.

DNW: There were only a couple domain blogs around 5 years ago. Now it seems like one is popping up every other day. Do these new outlets for news and opinion change what people come to DNForum for?

Adam: I recently started a controversial string on dnforum.com called “Newsflash: just because you can install WordPress you are not a domain expert!” and I believe this to be true. Too many people are starting blogs and giving advice without a proven track record and the advice is dangerous and somewhat misleading to those just getting started out in the business. To this day, I read very few blogs and the ones I read all serve different purposes. Some of the best blogs are written by people that I would say are reporters turned into domainers and that includes dnjournal.com and domainnamewire.com.

As far as the effect these new blogs have on Dnforum members, I would say that it is minimal. People come to dnforum.com because they can expect to get an honest appraisal or valuation of a domain or business idea they may be thinking of starting up. Dnforum.com continues to offer valuable tips and direction to those starting out in the industry as well as seasoned veterans that sometimes need a dose of reality, sometimes we all need that.

DNW: You’re a successful domainer who also spends a lot of time running this successful forum. Yet you’ve also worked for a couple domain companies, including IREIT and then Go Daddy. With all this on your plate, what attracted you to work for these companies at the same time?

Adam: I was attracted to both companies because I wanted to share the passion that I have for this industry and make a difference where I could. Both companies have great people yet they were very different and so were my experiences. The experiences and perspectives I gained from working at both companies have helped me tremendously in my current and future endeavors.

DNW: What are some of the bigger initiatives you’re working on that forum members should look out for?

Adam: Dnforum.com will be releasing an iPhone and Android application by the end of June that will make it more convenient for our members to browse our forum easily.

Both Dnforum.com and Showcasemanager.com have great affiliate programs that allow our members to earn 25% on sales they generate.

As this industry continues to consolidate down, Dnforum.com will continue to grow and add new services and partners to benefit our members.

We have many partnerships in the works that will benefit our members both short term and long term that will be announced in the coming weeks.

I would say I still work 18 hours a day but — when you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.

What a Go Daddy sale would mean.

If the chatter is to be believed, The Go Daddy Group could announce a multi-billion dollar buyout sometime this week.

While neither Go Daddy nor the buyers will confirm or deny this, it’s typical for bankers involved in the deal to leak news like this. It helps bring other potential suitors to the table and puts pressure on the buyers to close the deal.

Go Daddy has been shopping itself around unofficially for a while. Word is that President Warren Adelman has been giving presentations at financial conferences off an on over the past couple years. And then there was talk last Fall about the company holding an auction.

When you look at the company’s growth, it’s no surprise investors are interesting in acquiring this cash machine. I talked to Ryan Corder, Go Daddy Senior Director of Finance, last year and he told me the company expected $140M-$150M in operating cash flow for 2010 on sales of $940M-$950M.

Not bad for a company that grossed $4.3 million less than a decade ago in 2001.

And the synergies with other business services companies are beautiful.

Selling the company makes sense on a lot of fronts. Bob Parsons has had a wild decade growing the company. Although he isn’t the day-to-day guy behind the company any more, it may be time for him to cash out. He’d become a real billionaire overnight (right now he’s a paper billionaire). It would also provide an exit for employees, some of which have significant stock options.

On the flip side, a buyout from Silver Lake Partners and KKR & Co might not be the best thing that ever happened to employees and customers. These guys look at one thing — their return on investment. Sure, Go Daddy cares a lot about the bottom line. But new investors would scrutinize everything, like multi-million dollar holiday parties.

And employees might not reap the upside when the investors try to sell the company in the future. Just ask former Skype employees what they think about Silver Lake Partners right now.

But don’t be surprised if Parsons negotiates some “cultural” aspects to this deal to make sure he can keep throwing parties and rewarding his employees.

In fact, don’t be completely shocked if Parsons decides at the last minute to pull the plug on a deal altogether. It seems that happened last Fall. Remember, other than employee pressure for an exit, there are no outside investors pushing this along.

Registrar could take a big chunk of back end services business for new top level domain names.

Last week new TLD consultancy Minds + Machines announced flat rate registry services pricing of $100,000 per year. Apparently this is the first time there’s been “transparent” pricing in the registry business, although the pricing doesn’t apply to super-generic top level domains (i.e. ones that get a lot of volume).

Although this might lay it out on the table a bit for incumbents like Neustar and Afilias, a much bigger shakeup would be Go Daddy entering the race.

Think about it. One of the big things that larger registries pitch is that they can help you get your domains on Go Daddy and other registrars. Why not package that into one? Use Go Daddy as the registry and get guaranteed shelf space on GoDaddy.com, which registers half of all new domain registrations.

It could even be integrated with a pay-for-performance shelf space idea.

There are existing anti-trust concerns that could limit registry-registrar cross ownership for existing TLDs such as .com, but I don’t think this would come into play here for two reasons. First, it would be for new TLDs only. Second, Go Daddy wouldn’t be the applicant for the new TLDs. It would just provide the back end registry services.