A big haul for .xxx domain names.

ICM Registry, backer of the new .xxx top level domain name, has pulled in about $13 million from its trademark/existing domain sunrise period.

The company received nearly 80,000 applications during the sunrise period that ended today. The wholesale cost was $162 per application, which equals about $13 million.

Oh, and that’s without considering that multiple applications for the same domain will result in an auction.

The typical domain name registrar charged upwards of $200, meaning applicants shelled out around $16 million on sunrise applications.

ICM expected 10,000 applications to block .xxx domain names in the sunrise period. It spent $1 million promoting this opportunity.

The landrush period for .xxx domains begins November 8. During landrush any member of the sponsored community (i.e. adult companies) can apply for domains even without a corresponding trademark. Multiple applications for the same domains will result in an auction.

Some bad and ugly top level domain name ideas.

I’ve written about a number of company’s and city’s plans to apply for new top level domain names. There are also lists of proposed domains out there.

Some of these potential top level domain names have some hope, but others just seem doomed from the start. I was reminded of this today when I saw a trademark application for .url.

So now I ask you, dear readers, to weigh in on what you think the worst proposed new TLDs are.

Feel free to comment away…

This is one of those posts where I write about something that has nothing to do with domain names but make a lame effort at tying it to the industry…

I grew up in St. Louis and am a life long Cardinals fan. So last Friday I could hardly work. My hands were still shaking from the night before and what was perhaps the most exciting World Series game ever played, as well as excitement for Friday’s game 7.

But rewind a couple months.

This year I gave up on the Cardinals. With a month to go in the season they were 10 1/2 games out of the wild card spot.

I gave up.

With 21 games to go they were still 8 1/2 games out.

I gave up.

Then with five games left they were still 3 games out of the wild card spot. It just wasn’t meant to be.

But it was. The Cardinals made the playoffs.

At that point I believed the Cards could win the World Series. This team was on a roll. Anyone who bet against them was making a serious mistake.

They toppled the National League regular season winner Philadelphia.

Then they beat the Brewers while the TRAFFIC conference was going on in Ft. Lauderdale. A few dozen attendees were in the hotel bar but I was the only one watching and celebrating.

City Advertising and Recall Media CEO Darren Cleveland was there, though. He bet me the Rangers would win the World Series.

The series went back and forth until the Rangers pulled ahead 3 games to 2. They could win it all in St. Louis in game 6 Thursday night.

A few innings in to game 6 I believed the Cards had lost their mojo. They were dropping balls like little leaguers. At the end of the eight inning I gave up (again). I thought about sending a PayPal to Darren to settle our bet.

Then it happened.

Any baseball fan knows what happened next. It was simply one of the greatest couple comebacks in a World Series game ever.

Many, what a game. So here’s a shout out to all my Cardinal fan friends in the domainer world, including these guys:

Domain industry Cardinals fans at game 1, left to right: Patrick Carleton, Adam Strong, Mike Robertson (he’s faking to be a Cards fan. He’s from Australia), and Brian Null. I wasn’t in attendance.

Special edition of the end user domain sales report.

Here’s a special Monday morning edition of the end user domain sales post. This will cover some recent Sedo sales as well as non-reported sales.

On the non-reported side, I have a big company to report: IBM has purchased SmarterCity.com and SmarterCities.com from Justin Godfrey of Domain Investment Services for $15,000.

Godfrey also sold MallPlaza.com sold to MallPlaza.cl for $10,000 through Afternic.

Here are some Sedo end user sales:

Internet dating site Match.com bought MatchRadio.com for $1,695.

Veterans United Home Loans bought VUBank.com for $2,000.

Houston, Texas car dealer Russell & Smith Ford bought RSFord.com for 1,799 EUR. It uses the web address RussellSmithFord.com right now.

Finally, I’m wondering who the mystery buyer of Cocomo.com is. Sedo sold the domain for $33,000 but the new owner has a fake whois record:

I’m surprised CSC let one of its clients use bogus information like this. The nameservers are used for Microsoft hosting services and don’t mean that Microsoft is the buyer.

Warner Bros registers domain names for third Sherlock Holmes movie.

Even before Sherlock Holmes 2 hits the theaters Warner Bros is already gearing up for the third installment.

The company just registered the domain names SherlockHolmesThree.com and SherlockHolmesPart3.com.

Multiple online sources say that Warner Bros has hired Iron Man 3 writer Drew Pearce to write the movie.

Unfortunately for Warner Bros one key domain name has already been registered by another person. SherlockHolmes3.com was registered by someone in China on October 13.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, the second installment in the movie series, comes to theaters December 16. The movie stars Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law and Jared Harris.