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Silicon NYC kickoff features .NYC domain names

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[Editor’s note: Silicon NYC hosted its launch event last week and .NYC was a big focus. SayHello was on hand to give free .nyc domain names to attendees. Art Malkov filed this report.]

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Silicon NYC hosted its kickoff party last week hosted by Ebay New York in the company’s incubator space. The event featured speakers from every part of the NYC tech scene: Angel Investors, Venture Capitalists, Startup Founders and Digital Space Trailblazers.

Silicon NYC is focused on bringing the insider look into NYC tech with in-depth journalistic articles, VC and Angel investors’ unique insights into the tech field plus the latest tech and startup news. Click here to continue reading…

GoDaddy moves from Super Bowl to Presidential Debates [Video]

by — Domain Registrars 2 Comments

Company to run ads during pre- and post- debate coverage.

GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) didn’t advertise during the Super Bowl this year, but it’s going to spend a lot of money on TV ads coinciding with upcoming U.S. Presidential debates.

The company has a new election-themed commercial that will run before and after the first two presidential debates. (There are no commercials during the debates themselves.)

The commercial will premiere on CNN during pre-debate coverage Monday and also run on CBS and FOX News during post-debate coverage. They will also run to coincide with the second debate.

CBS is charging about $200,000-$225,000 for 30-second spots during its post-debate coverage.

Verisign is co-sponsoring the ads, which offer a $2.99 .com domain name for the first year when purchased for two or more years. The second year is $14.99, so really the offer is $8.99 per year with a two-year registration.

The commercial is embedded below.

Domain appraisal scam is now the job resume scam

by — Policy & Law 5 Comments

This scam will sound familiar to domain name owners.

Dan Primack of Fortune has an interesting story about executives falling for a scam that’s very similar in operation to the domain name appraisal scam.

If you aren’t familiar with it, the domain name appraisal scam gets domain owners to pay for a domain name appraisal with the carrot that someone wants to pay them big bucks for their domain.

The scam Primack discovered is similar in nature but involves job resumes. And it’s much, much more sophisticated. It involves a sham venture capital firm and recruiting firm.

It starts with an email from someone at a fake venture capital firm. The sender informs an executive that they’re in the late stages of acquiring a company in a similar field to the recipient. They are firing the current executive team and are interested in hiring the recipient.

If the recipient responds with interest, they get a follow-up from the recruiting firm. The victim is then asked to send their resume.

Once the resume is received, they get a response that the resume isn’t readable by the computer and suggests that the victim optimize his or her resume in the ATS format. The email helpfully includes a link to a service that charges about $100 to do so.

Once the victim pays for the ATS translation, the recruiter disappears. They are told the acquisition fell through.

Sound familiar? The goal is to dangle a carrot out in front of someone. A big domain sale. A big job opportunity. Paying $50 for a domain appraisal or $100 for a resume conversion is a small price to pay for such a big opportunity, right?

This is why it works, and why the domain appraisal scam has been going on for a decade.

.Kiwi turns to new CIRA platform for registry services

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.Kiwi will be run on .CA manager’s platform.

ciraCompetition in the backend registry services business is heating up, and .CA manager CIRA has entered the game with .Kiwi as a client.

.Kiwi will switch its backend to CIRA’s Fury Registry Platform, the companies announced today.

There are about 10,000 domain names in the .kiwi zone file. The domain name is designed for people and businesses with a connection to New Zealand.

The move to a new registry provider was necessary because .kiwi’s current backend provider, MMX (Minds + Machines), is getting out of the backend registry business. MMX is itself switching to another registry company that has traditionally handled a country code top level domain, Nominet, for its domain names.

Nominet also recently snagged Automattic’s .Blog as a client.

Pricing for registry services has dropped significantly over the past couple years since new top level domain names were introduced.

Public Interest Registry is putting its .org contract out for bid. It pays Afilias over $30 million to manage its 10 million domains. To give you an idea of the level of new competition, over 20 companies are bidding for PIR’s contract.

.Games and .Shopping hit registrars this week

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Rightside and Donuts released new domain names this week.

dot-gamesTwo new top level domain names launched this week with one entering general availability and the other hitting early access.

Rightside’s (NASDAQ:NAME) .Games entered general availability with a number of video game companies on board. It’s priced affordably; expect to pay $15-$20 per year at registrars unless the domains are premium.

Compare this to Uniregistry’s .Game (singular) top level domain name, which will set you back about $350 per year.

.Game has 2,184 names in the zone file as of yesterday, according to nTLDStats. .Games already has about 4,500 after just its first partial day of general availability.

Donuts’ .Shopping also hit the market. It’s in a seven-day Early Access period, during which domain names can be purchased at a premium. The launch timing was likely set to compete with GMO’s .shop, which launches in general availability Monday, September 26. Both .shop and .shopping seem to be comparably priced, with registrars offering them for $20-$40.