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CrowdSignal is PollDaddy’s new name

by — Services 5 Comments

The CrowdSignal mystery is solved.

Automattic’s PollDaddy is being rebranded as CrowdSignal.

Last week I wrote about how Automattic, the company behind WordPress, was getting ready to launch a new polling/survey service called CrowdSignal.

That was sort of right. The company will indeed soon have a service called CrowdSignal but it turns out that it’s a rebranding of the company’s PollDaddy service.

The rebrand will occur on Monday. It doesn’t sound like there will be any major changes; just the rebranding and some small cosmetic changes.

Existing PollDaddy.com URLs will forward to CrowdSignal.com URLs, although some users might need to whitelist domains used with the service.

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11 end user domain name sales up to $250k

by — Domain Sales 1 Comment

A Romanian Casino, a Space Engineering firm and a language app all bought domain names last week.

It was the week of “2” last week with the top sales at Sedo across all categories (.com, ccTLD and “other”) repeating this digit within their sales prices. And even more unusual was a .RO (Romania) ccTLD purchase beating out the other sales and taking top honors with its €220K ($250k USD) price tag.

Take a look at some of the end user sales at Sedo this past week, and you can view previous weeks’ lists here.

Casino.ro €220,000 – Given the price, you can expect this Romanian ccTLD to be developed by what would qualify as an end user.

Jobster.com $200,000 – Jobster was an online recruiting business that didn’t pan out. Someone is rebirthing it. The site says, “Jobster.com Soon to be unleashed again, The jobster.com team”.

Path.net $22,000 – The top sale for the “other” category was purchased by a technology firm offering internet analytics and uptime monitoring services.

Earth.co $15,000 – A travel media company called Earth is using this domain for a travel website.

Trope.com $10,000 – Forwards to TropeReader.com, a new publishing platform who will produce films, books & periodicals on a variety of subjects annually.

Capeesh.com $8,600 – A cleverly-branded company that offers language courses. I wonder if people know how to spell this word.

PoianaBrasov.ro $5,632 – Another .RO purchase – this time it’s for Poiana Brasov, the “largest and most famous mountain resort in Romania”, also voted the most accessible ski resort in Europe by telegraph.co.uk.

EliteSA.com $5,000 – The SA in this domain refers to “Surgical Associates”, a company out of Houston providing development and management services for surgery center operations.

EPay.me $5,000 – A payment processing company run by the Narula Institute of Technology, which is made up by a group of academic institutions.

Enspace.com €2,900 – Enspace has some rather complex terminology on its page…something about satellites and ion propulsion. I’m sure rocket scientists will understand what the company does.

Soar.tech $2,399 – A Scottish tech company specializing in Apps, Web Applications, and Enterprise Scale Software Systems bought this domain name. This name has good potential for an upcoming campaign or product launch, or for a client.

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Verisign files intriguing domain backorder patents

by — Policy & Law 3 Comments

Patent describes way to sell future rights to domain names through “encoding domains.”

Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) has filed two patents related to buying future rights to domain names for if they become available. The process is rather unique and it makes me wonder what Verisign (which manages the .com registry) has up its sleeve.

Only one of the patent applications has been published so far. Application number 15/488984 for “Domain Name Registration Reservation Through the Use of Encoding Domain Names” was filed on April 17, 2017 and published today (pdf). The application notes that an application for “Domain Name Registration Reservation Through the Use of Encoding Domain Names for Pools” was filed at the same time, but it has not been published.

The published application describes a system for backordering domain names should they become available due to a certain event, such as their expiration on a certain date or the current domain owner relinquishing the domain registration. Click here to continue reading…

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Domain Capital goes after Prince’s estate for reverse domain name hijacking

by — Policy & Law 7 Comments

Musician’s estate sued financing company over Prince.com domain name. Domain Capital is fighting back.

Domain name financing company Domain Capital has responded (pdf) to a cybersquatting lawsuit brought by the Estate of Prince Rogers Nelson. That’s the musician Prince, who later changed his stage name to a symbol.

The estate sued Domain Capital over its ownership of the Prince.com domain name, claiming it was cybersquatting.

Domain Capital loaned money to the previous owner of Prince.com. That owner defaulted and Domain Capital took over the name.

Of course, it’s silly for any one entity to claim exclusive rights to the dictionary word “Prince”, and Domain Capital calls out the estate in its response. The financing company is asking for the estate’s trademark for Prince to be canceled and is also asking for penalties under reverse domain name hijacking.

Domain Capital is represented by Jason Schaeffer of ESQwire.com.

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Jon Nevett leaves Donuts

by — Policy & Law 7 Comments

Nevett completes co-founder exodus from Donuts.

Donuts co-founder Jon Nevett has stepped down from the company but will remain an advisor.

Jon Nevett, one of four co-founders of top level domain name Donuts, has stepped down. He was the last remaining founder in a full-time role at the company. He will remain an advisor to the company.

Nevett ran policy for the company and helped it navigate the new top level domain application, objection and contention set settlement process.

Abry Partners acquired Donuts last month, creating a liquidity event for some shareholders. Since then, the company announced that it hired Akram Atallah from ICANN to be its new CEO. I expect there will be some more management shifts at the company in the coming months.

In the case of Nevett, he’s spent the last eight years handling policy for the company. He’s been working on new top level domains for about a decade.

Should he choose to stay in the domain industry, there are plenty of domain companies in his backyard in the Washington D.C. area.

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