Domain Name Blog

Today sees the launch of the new .mobi top-level domain, which will be exclusively for use with mobile phones and other mobile devices. This is what we have been waiting for to see the mobile revolutionize the world. One fact remains that there are over 2.2bn mobile phones in use today– that’s four times as many phones as there are PCs. In some parts of the world e.g. Africa the mobile comes in a handy device because there is not so readily available internet for all to  browse.  According to TechSpot.com some 13,000 companies have already registered .mobi addresses as part of a pre-registration process. In fact, in many places in Europe and Asia, phones are the primary way that people connect to the web. While adoption of mobile browsing has been slower in North America, a new top-level domain is poised to change that experience.

To me what is most disturbing is the fact that so far, the DotMobi registry has reserved over 5,500 so-called premium generic terms, which include such domain names as sex.mobi and sun.mobi. If you wish to apply for a premium name it will cost you $1,500 which you must pay to the World Intellectual Property Organisation for accreditation. Other than that, it costs about $25 (£14) to register a DotMobi site for a minimum two-year period.

I have applied for several .mobi domains and all i can do now is to sit down and wait!!

What is the latest rumor on the net? Facebook’s chatty users love to gossip. Rumors of buyout talks between the student-focused social networking site and any number of high profile media and technology players have been circling since Facebook earned its first round of venture funding in 2004. According to an article published by the Forbes magazine the latest bout of speculation, reported Thursday, involves Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) and an asking price near $1 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. That’s not a bad bid given that Facebook has about 10m active users and that number is still growing!
The speculated sale comes after an ongoing series of changes to the site’s privacy settings, which at first infuriated many users though the furor has quieted since Facebook honored some of their wishes. Last week the company said it would eventually open the site to the public rather than limit it to people affiliated with certain organizations like schools or companies.

I can’t hesitate to question the motivation behind making public Facebook content through google indexing and making it open to any ‘other’ interested parties, groups and organizations. I understand Yahoo! wants to make more money through ads but let them leave membership open for every other dick and harry and we’ll see what happens–we will all leave Facebook. The fact that it consists of students only is what makes Facebook so special, however an oversight might predict that employers could be lured into Facebook to scout for talent of potential employees once it is made public. Nevertheless, I highly doubt any progress thinkers would laud Facebook for making their personal info public available in the internet!!!

Oversee.net, a technology-driven media company, today announced it has acquired 10 domain portfolios over the last two months. The Company continues to aggressively build its portfolio of successful domain names and then quickly monetizes them. Oversee monetizes more than one million domain names per month and has more than 100 million unique visitors per month. The Company owns DomainSponsor, the industry leader in domain monetization.

DomainSponsor is the leader in domain monetization—a service that enables domain owners to maximize earnings on the traffic generated to their domains via direct navigation.

InterSearch Group, a leading provider of Internet search services and operator of industry specific destination portals, announced today that it has acquired the internet domain www.Banks.com. The article can be found here.
The sale reminded me of another domain commercialBankers.com that sold for $4,600 at Moniker/Traffic. Going a little backwards in time reveals that www.bankers.com sold $40,000 Jan 04 Sedo/Traffic. Obviously this last sale was done more than two years ago and thus bankers.com is certainly worth a value higher than $xx,xxx!

Back to the weekly sales, according to the DNJournal.com, NewYork.info was sold for $46,392 in a transaction handled by Moniker.com/DomainSystems.com. Moniker actually handled an even larger sale this week, a $60,300 deal for AnimeOnline.net, a fully developed website which is more than just a domain.

Last week was a bad day for automaker Maruti-Suzuki when the company lost its domain name to a domain cybersquatter. Maruti Udyog lost its case to Rao Tella, a US citizen and the present owner of the domain name www.maruti.com, for transfer of the domain name to the auto major.
In January 2003, Maruti Udyog had filed an arbitral complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) alleging that Tella’s domain name infringed Maruti’s trademark, `MARUTI’ and, hence, had the right to the domain name. The plaintiff, Tella said that his use of the domain name was lawful as the domain was at one point primarily used to post photos of a nephew named Maruti though later he converted the Web site to an engine portal. Tella earned revenues from the site through an affiliated Web site that paid him every time someone clicked on www.maruti.com to reach the affiliated Web site. However, Tella is known to be a cyber squatter with a history of registering Web sites having the names of trade marked companies.

While it stands a fact that the domainer won the day, it is not fair at all because the automaker is not able to use its name to market its products in the net.

According to an article published by Circle ID, notes Afnic, there has been a significant increase in the number of cases of slamming since the beginning of this year.
Consequently the french domain registrar, Afnic, has issued a guide to fight against these practices. AFNIC defines “slamming” as “a variety of illicit practices … based on deception and … aimed at getting owners of domain names or brands to subscribe to unsolicited services related with their presence on the Internet” such as false renewal invoice, false register, or even psychological pressure. Just to give you an update, Afnic mid this year liberalized .fr allowing individuals from France to register domain names. Therefore Afnic limited private registrations by asking registrants for a siren number only issued to companies residence in France.

The battle for supremacy among MP3 players makers is becoming ever competitive with more players entering the market to sell gizmo devices to insatiable customers. Microsoft is the latest entrant into a market that has become increasingly dominated by Apple’s Ipod. If lateness was anything to go by then Microsoft is definitely too late and comes in at a time when Apples already controls over 40 percent of all the internet music download through it iTunes software. To counter the competition, Microsoft has also announced that it would launch its own music download program known as Zune Market Place. Being an Ipod fan, I wonder what might be so special in the Zune. The device, which the company anticipates will be ready in time for holidays, will come in three colors black, brown and white. Interesting enough, a Zune will have in-built Wi-Fi for sharing full-length music downloads with other Zune devices around it. As rumoured earlier, zune will have a 30Gb hard-disk and a screen. However, Microsoft has declined to disclose any pricing information.

As the battle for gizmo devices intensifies, all I say is that a better pricing strategy by Microsoft could see it curve a sizable market niche from Apple. Pricing wars are definitely in the offing after Apple this week released a new 30Gb Ipod with a lower pricing of $249 -dropping from earlier pricing of $289. There were rumours back in August that Microsfot was going to charge $299 per Zune device. However, there was nothing special in the new 30 Gb Ipod except that a longer battery-life, larger screen, brighter screen and a lower price tag! Apple might boast of its market command but it has missed the opportunity to release a Wi-Fi device!
As I see it now, the key to Zune beating Ipod will depend on a pricing and Wi-Fi technology.

In the September issue of Sedo Newsletter reports the PPC provider that .DE is rising in popularity on the internet coming only second to .COM. But I already thought that it was a foregone conclusion that .DE was the strongest of all ccTLDs? This is exactly why Sedo has not informed me much in it’s September issue. The letter goes on to say that .DE has been popular because of the huge population size of Germany and economic muscle. While the I find the first reason rather too light the second one that DENIC’s policies have played the biggest role is the best IMHO. Why do I say this? Denic, like any other registry has well laid out a domain registration policy that only allows domain registrants (owners) to provide valid German street addresses while registering a domain. That is ok. But while this has its own advantages, it does have its own disadvantages e.g. leads to cybersquatting. The domainers who own .DEs have won in this regard. A liberal Denic is a good example of a success story as compared to its backward and conservative french counterpart Afnic. However, the good news is that Afnic is slowly loosening the bolts as we saw last June–individuals not companies can now register domains in France.

It was interesting to read in the late August issue of the Economist about the near death of the Newspaper. With a running sensationalist theme “Who killed the newspaper”, the Economist elaborated on how the most useful bit of the media is disappearing. This is a cause for concern, but not panic, concluded the magazine! I was not so convinced by the author of the article who stayed on the fence in his writing without coming out substantially on the “death” of the newspaper! However, with local advertisers migrating to the web, the plight of newspapers seems to get worse daily. Newspapers are being forced to cut on their sizes due to diminishing ads and sales since the invention of the internet. Late last week, according to a report in the Boston Business Journal, the Boston Herald is slashing an average of 6 pages from its daily newspaper to save on costs.

Two CNET News.com reporters’ personal telephone records were accessed by a contractor hired by Hewlett-Packard to uncover the source of boardroom leaks to the media, according to the California attorney general’s office.

The investigation conducted by a company hired by HP used a controversial technique called “pretexting” to obtain the personal phone records of CNET News.com reporters Dawn Kawamoto and Tom Krazit, state prosecutors said. Pretexting is a sometimes-illegal method of obtaining personal records through misrepresentation of someone’s identity.

Kawamoto and Krazit co-wrote a Jan. 23 article outlining a private, long-term strategy session held by HP’s board of directors.