Here's the The Lowdown
from DN Journal,
updated daily
to
fill you in on the latest buzz going around the domain name industry.
The Lowdown is
compiled by DN Journal Editor & Publisher Ron
Jackson.
People
& Companies in the News: Directi's Divyank Turakhia,
Sedo, IDN Newsletter and DNS.com
Directi
Co-Founder Divyank Turakhia,
who was featured in our September
2008 Cover Story, continues to build
a reputation as one of the world's brightest
young businessmen. The 28-year-old entrepreneur,
who is based in Mumbai, India, started
programming computers when he was 8 years old
and he was a millionaire by the time he
was 18!
Divyank
and his brother Bhavin founded Directi in
1998 and since then they have grown it into a
company with a valuation of over $300 million, approximately 600 employees and
over 2 million customers around the
globe. Despite his phenomenal success, Divyank
has kept his feet solidly on the ground and he
is one of the nicest people you will ever
meet.
In
view of all of that it is no surprise that
Divyank caught the eye of Bloomberg's UTV
Network in India and they recently aired an
inspiring 22-minute video
profileabout Divyank that I highly
recommend watching.
Divyank
Turakhia
Directi Co-Founder
On
another front, Sedo
reported a record number of domain sales in
a Q1
2010 Domain Market Study (.pdf
file) that they released this week. The company
said that nearly 12,000domains
changed hands via the Sedo marketplace during the
quarter, accounting for more than $23 million
in transactions. This marked Sedo’s best quarter
for domain sales since 2008 and represents a 36%
jump in dollar value vs. the same quarter a
year ago and an 18.6% increase in the
number of sales compared to the previous quarter -
Q4 2009.
During
the quarter, Sedo said it witnessed a
surge in both generic gTLD and ccTLD
(country code) domains, including several
blockbuster sales like Poker.org
for $1 million, Credit.fr for
€587,500 and Pilot.com for
$300,000. The Sedo report said,
"Overall, the strong
growth
in the domain name market this quarter can
be attributed to an increase in marketing
spend among larger corporations, as well
as the introduction of one and
two-character domains and IDN
domains that use non-Roman scripts."
The
.com extension remained the most
popular gTLD at Sedo, accounting for 76%
of gTLD domains sold. The average price of
a .com domain was $2,373. Among
ccTLDs, Germany's .de extension was
the frontrunner accounting for 38%
percent of ccTLDs sold. The European
Union's .eu extension moved into
second place at 36%, a surge that
Sedo said can be attributed to the launch
of new IDN domains under .eu in Q4
2009 and the beginning of Q1 2010.
Congratulations
are also in order today to IDNNewsletter.com
who Register.com
has chosen to broker a select
portion of their vault full of
premium IDN domains.
IDNNewsletter is run by Gary
Males and Aaron Krawitz,
the duo who also founded IDNTools,
IDNBlog
and IDNDemystified.
Krawitz said "it is an honor
to have been given access to
Register.com's IDN vault, and we
doubled our efforts, hiring
multiple sets of native speakers
and consulting with our colleagues
as we vetted and priced these
names." Males added,
"IDNNewsletter is serious
about catering to our many
newsletter subscribers and there
are some tremendous bargains that
you will be seeing in the coming
weeks."
Among
the names that will be up for sale
are ラブ.com
("Love" in Japanese) and
כיף.com
("Fun" in Hebrew").
The IDNNewsletter / Register.com
launch is planned for the first
week of May and will be
exclusively going out to
IDNNewsletter subscribers.
In
closing today, I want to
send a belated shout out
to Daniel Kimball
and Sean Stafford
of managed DNS provider Comwired.com,
who while I was away
covering the GeoDomain
Expo last week, announced
that they had acquired the
industry's
category-defining domain
name, DNS.com,
in a private
transaction.
With
this great domain in hand,
Kimball, the company's
CEO, also announced the
launch of the company's
most advanced hosted DNS
solutions at DNS.com where
a new website details
pricing and plans
targeting the enterprise
market.
Kimball
said, "This
opportunity was the
next step in
solidifying our
position in the DNS
marketplace while
also giving clients
a peace of mind that
they are being
supported by a
highly-robust, and
economically
practical DNS
solution. Like many
of our customers, we
pride ourselves on
being a technology
and service-oriented
business. The
DNS.com domain is a powerful
asset which will
help expand our
online community
through increased
name recognition and
memorability."
Again
proving the power of
a great generic
domain, Kimball
added that the
DNS.com name has
provided the company
with a 700%
increase in the
online audience for
the company's DNS
service. Having
built the first
enterprise-class DNS
network with
local geo-
Daniel
Kimball & Sean Stafford
Comwired Inc./DNS.com
aware
capabilities,
Comwired Inc.
serves websites
that require
maximum protection
against DNS-based
online attacks and
other forms of
downtime. In
addition to
selling directly
to businesses and
consumers, the
company offers its
hosted DNS
services via
resellers
including web
hosting companies
and domain name
registrars.
I've
gotten to know
Daniel and Sean
well over the
years and have a
great deal of
respect for both
of them both
personally and
professionally. If
you are in the
market for DNS
services you won't
find more reliable
people to work
with.
We need your help to keep giving
domainers The
Lowdown, so please email [email protected]with any interesting information you might have. If possible,
include the source of your information so we can check it out (for
example a URL if you read it in a forum or on a site
elsewhere).
