An example of why you a .com domain.

What happens when you use a non .com domain name and market it? Yeah, every one knows that the .com equivalent suddenly gets more traffic. In case you’re looking for another concrete example, Domain Name Wire reader Ross Hosman stumbled upon TwoOfUs.org.

Hosman was on Pandora recently and saw ads for TwoOfUs.org, a web site by National Healthy Marriage Resource Center. He ran a quick check at Quantcast to see how much traffic the web site gets and compared it to .com. Here’s what he found:

Although data is limited, Quantcast figures that both the real web site and the .com version are getting about the same amount of traffic.

Compete.com shows a wider difference, estimating that the .org domain name gets about 12,000 uniques a month compared to 1,200 for the .com. But either way, it’s clear that the .com is benefiting from the .org’s marketing.

Just wait until new top level domain names come out. Spillover traffic to dot coms will increase.

Two Daily Show clips related to domain names (Ok, so one’s a stretch).

Last week on the Daily Show Jon Stewart discussed net neutrality. In the story, he also poked fun at domain names, saying he registered a .net because he couldn’t get the .com. He repeated it several times during the story. I can’t repeat the made up domain he mentions in the video, but he emphasized .net. “I was going to have that .com but it was already taken, so I got dot net.”

Later in the week he discussed Michael Bloomberg’s opponent in the Mayoral election. It really doesn’t have much to do with domain names, except for me personally. Bloomberg’s opponent was the former comptroller of New York City, and I own the domain name Comptroller.com. So Jon, if you really want to know what a comptroller is, visit Comptroller.com. And if any politicians running for comptroller want a great domain name for their campaign, I’m happy to lease comptroller to them.

Quick news updates before the weekend.

It’s the Friday before Halloween and there’s a lot of domain news to report. I’ll be taking off early today to go to my daughter’s Halloween school carnival (she’s dressing up as a Flamingo), so here’s a condensed version of all the news that’s fit to print.

IDN TLDs are coming! ICANN’s board has approved the fast track IDN country code domain name process. Here’s what you need to know:

1. These are the first top level domain names to allow non-Latin characters at the top level (many allow second level non-Latin characters already).

2. This only applies to a limited number of new country code domain names. Probably 20-30.

3. Some countries may give existing ccTLD holders rights to the new IDN ccTLD, but not all.

4. This will not affect existing gTLD domain names, such as .com.

ComWired has released a new user interface. ComWired, which lets you send internet traffic to different destinations based on the visitor’s geo location, has released an improved user interface. Check it out.

When will Moniker synchronize its whois data reminders? Really, it’s annoying getting a whois accuracy reminder every couple days. Why can’t it send out one a year like the other registrars?

It’s Extended Auction time. Check out both the extended Rick Latona auction and Moniker auction (over at Snapnames).

A number of domain name companies land on valuable start up lists. But SAI didn’t do its homework.

Silicon Alley Insider has released its latest list of the world’s most valuable startups, which includes a number of domain name companies. But I question the validity of some of its assumptions because of some glaring errors, such as saying that Oversee.net hasn’t taken any outside funding.

The top domain name company on the list is GoDaddy at #9. The valuation is based on estimated 2009 revenue of $700 million with a two times revenue multiple. It’s a very basic valuation technique, but it’s hard to peg revenue and valuation number on private companies. By comparison, Inc. magazine shows GoDaddy’s 2008 revenue at about $500 million.

Coming in right behind GoDaddy is Demand Media and its highly automated content generating system at $1.3 billion. Demand Media also owns domain name registrar eNom. SAI says it has confirmed that about 10% of Demand Media’s revenue comes from domain parking.

Also at a $1.3 billion valuation is Quinstreet, the lead gen company that just bought insurance web site Insure.com for $16 million.

Oversee.net, parent company of Moniker, DomainSponsor, and Snapnames, comes in at #16 with a $1 billion valuation. SAI estimates Oversee will bring in $200 million in revenue this year. But it also says that the company hasn’t taken any outside funding. It has. So I question SAI’s analysis.

2009 has been rough for domainers, but put it in perspective.

I got an iPod this week. Yes, it’s my first iPod. I bought it because I got back into running and needed to get my own tunes rather than borrowing my wife’s iPod.

Since I plan to use it primarily for running, I initially considered getting the iPod Shuffle. But I liked the idea of the Touch as a portable video game player; kind of a throwback to my days growing up playing the GameBoy.

Touch vs. Shuffle. The Touch is so big, isn’t it? It’s clearly too big for running.

Then I put things in perspective. When I ran cross country in high school I would run with a Walkman. With a cassette player. After that, I graduated to an even larger Walkman with a CD player. (Remember these?)

The iPod Touch is 1/5 the depth of a cassette Walkman and a fraction of the size of a CD player. So when you put things in perspective, the Touch is minuscule, and there’s no reason you can’t go running with it.

Much like the size of an iPod, I think it’s smart to put 2009 in domaining in perspective. We’re all thinking about the glory years in domain parking. But how does now compared to, say, 2004? Are we better off today? The first five years I owned domain names I didn’t make a cent from them, because there wasn’t domain parking as we know it. For the first two web sites I built in the late 90s I had to get direct advertisers because there was no such thing as Google Adsense.

Compared to a decade ago, I’d say things are much better. Sometimes you just have to put things in perspective.