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Now is the time to join ICA

by — Services 4 Comments

There’s a lot worth fighting for in 2018.

This year is going to be an important one for the domain name industry and domain investors.

Domain investors face serious headwinds from the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. Changes to Whois will drastically change how we securely transfer domain names, find domains to buy, and communicate with domain buyers.

And later this year we’ll find out if the U.S. NTIA renews its cooperative agreement with Verisign, which could have a big impact on .com domain name prices.

This is a lot to keep up on, and I doubt many domain investors reading this have taken any action with regards to these, such as participating in a working group on the Whois user accreditation model.

One group that is participating in these groups and advocating for your needs is the Internet Commerce Association (ICA).

I’ve personally never been more confident in ICA’s leadership, and it would be wise to consider joining as a member. You can join online, and individuals can join for just $50 a month. That’s less than the cost of many domainer service subscriptions, and it will have a great impact on the future sustainability of your business.

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Donuts invests in Cognate, a blockchain-trademark company

by — Services 0 Comments

Cognate uses blockchain tech to record proof-of-use of trademarks.

Donuts.Ventures, the investing arm of new top level domain name registry Donuts, has invested in Cognate. Cognate uses blockchain technology to record proof-of-use of trademarks.

I interviewed Cognate founder Bennett Collen on DNW Podcast #137. At the time, the business was based on saving records to show common law trademark rights. Since then, the company has added the ability to add proof-of-use for registered trademarks.

There are a number of potential ways that Donuts can help Cognate grow, including assisting the company with getting into the registrar channel to sell the product to business owners.

Donuts.Ventures’ other two public investments include Netki and GeoNetwork.

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Selection bias and domain name appraisals

by — Services 6 Comments

Only looking at the domains you sell will skew your opinion of domain name appraisals.

Automated domain name appraisals, such as those provided by Estibot and Godaddy, are extremely controversial in domainer circles. Focusing on cases in which domains sell for much more than the appraised value is an easy way to try to discredit these appraisals.

Consider this post that Mike Mann made on Facebook comparing his sales to GoDaddy’s appraisals:

He notes “All inclusive of our top sales, not selective.” Yet, by focusing only on his top sales, he is making a great example of selection bias.

Mike holds out for top dollar on his domains. So of course when he gets this top dollar, the number is going to be way off from an automated appraisal.

If someone appraises my domain at $10,000, and I refuse to sell it for less than $20,000, then the appraisal (whether automated or by a human) is going to seem wrong.

What about the domains that didn’t sell? Did they not sell because the price expectation was too high?

I recall a conversation at DomainFest many years ago. I was riding home from a party with a couple of other people, including a domain owner who makes lots of five and six-figure sales. That evening he had asked several people how much some of his domains were worth. These were all domains he had sold already. The domainers’ estimates were all over the place and didn’t match the sales prices.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone.  Appraising domains is difficult.

Rather than focus on the accuracy of any one domain appraisal, I think people should use appraisals differently.

They should also not let selection bias color their impression of domain appraisals.

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CIRA wants patent for registry “tag” system

by — Services 0 Comments

Canada’s ccTLD administrator files patent application related to aspects of its Fury registry platform.

CIRA has applied for a patent related to its Fury registry management platform.

Canadian Internet Registration Authority, the group that manages Canada’s .CA domain name and has started offering registry services to other TLDs, has filed a patent application covering aspects of its Fury registry platform.

The organization filed a patent application (pdf) with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for “Registry Domain Name Management”.

The idea is to create a centralized way for registries to add “tags” to domain names. These tags may affect how domain transactions (e.g., registrations) can be handled.

For example, a domain name might have a premium price tag. When a registrar uses EPP to try to register the domain, the tag info will be pulled from a database to notify the registrar of the price. Click here to continue reading…

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Used Canned Responses to make common emails faster in Gmail

by — Services 1 Comment

More useful that Smart Reply, Canned Responses let you insert text you frequently use in emails.

Gmail recently introduced Smart Reply, a way to make it easy to respond to emails with short answers generated by Google. While these are very helpful, Gmail users should also look at Canned Responses to speed up their email tasks.

Canned Responses is a Labs feature that allows you to create email templates so you don’t have to type the same thing over and over. And the name is somewhat misleading because you can use these templates in emails that aren’t replies.

Here’s how to use canned responses and how you might use it to save time.

Enable Canned Responses in Labs

Go to your Gmail settings and enable the lab.

Click here to continue reading…

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