DNW is celebrating a birthday today. Domain Name Wire is now voting age, celebrating its 18th birthday today. I started Domain Name Wire on March 9, 2005, as the first blog covering the business of domain names. A lot has changed in the industry ... Continue Reading29 Comments
February’s top domain name news stories
· UncategorizedGoDaddy and Verisign were in the news last month. With February in the books, let's take a look at the top stories on Domain Name Wire last month ranked by views: 1. GoDaddy announces layoffs - GoDaddy let go of about 8% of its employees. 2. ... Continue ReadingLeave a Comment
.To registry assures Register.to customers that their domains are safe
· UncategorizedTonic can provide access to customers' .to domains. According to Tonga Network Information Center (Tonic), Register.to is no longer a reseller of .to domains following the death of its owner. A number of domain investors used Register.to, which ... Continue ReadingLeave a Comment
This isn’t the first time Afternic has offered a parking rebate
· UncategorizedAfternic offered a "Park & Sell" rebate until GoDaddy acquired the business. I was looking through the Domain Name Wire archives last week when I came across an article I wrote in 2014 about changes GoDaddy made to Afternic after acquiring the ... Continue Reading1 Comment
eBay tries (and fails) to use UDRP in a trademark dispute
· Policy & Law, UncategorizedeBay tried to shoehorn a trademark dispute into a cybersquatting dispute. eBay has lost a dispute it filed to get control of the domain name BillionaireBay .com in a UDRP cybersquatting case. National Arbitration Forum panelist Nicholas J.T. Smith ... Continue ReadingLeave a Comment
January’s top domain name news
· UncategorizedThese were popular news stories in the domain business last month. 1. Sex/com is for sale again - It last sold for $13 million, and the current owner wants at least $20 million. But they think they've found a business model, so it's not just the ... Continue ReadingLeave a Comment
Sedo and InterNetX are part of a new public company
· UncategorizedIONOS went public today. Some domain name companies you've probably used are part of a new public company today. United Internet spun off IONOS in an initial public offering in Germany today. The IONOS entity includes Sedo, InterNetX, IONOS, ... Continue ReadingLeave a Comment
Using Scrabble scores for domain name values
· UncategorizedScrabble points can be a helpful barometer for the value of letters in short domain names. I was talking about short domain names with fellow investor Nat Cohen recently when he mentioned Scrabble scores. He noted that one of the domain names we ... Continue Reading1 Comment
My domain industry predictions for 2023
· UncategorizedHere are some things I think will happen in the domain business this year. Earlier this month I published the annual predictions episode of the Domain Name Wire Podcast. Now that you've heard from other people, here's my forecast for the ... Continue Reading13 Comments
NameJet and SnapNames: here’s what sold
· Domain Sales, UncategorizedA slow holiday month for Newfold Digital domain auctions. Sales at Newfold Digital's domain aftermarkets, NameJet and SnapNames, slowed considerably during the holiday season. The company published sales of $2,000 or more, and I count 81 sales ... Continue Reading2 Comments