and international news from the Internet, versus 35% for newspapers. That is a huge 16-point jump for the Internet which had only a 24% share in Pew's survey just one year ago. 

With non-stop horror stories about he decline of the newspaper industry everyone knew that the Internet was steadily gaining ground on the papers, but this is the first time the web has 

completely overtaken newspapers in the minds of news consumers. The web now has its sights set on dislodging TV from the top spot and that change already appears to be well under way. 

The Pew report said "For young people the internet now rivals television as a main source of national and international news. Nearly six in ten Americans younger than 30 (59%) say they get most of their national and international news online; an identical percentage cites television. In September 2007, twice as many young people said they relied mostly on television for news than mentioned the internet (68% vs. 34%)."  By overcoming that 34-point deficit in just one year, the Internet is obviously gaining momentum at a spectacular pace. It will surely pass TV in the under 30 demographic by this time next year on its way to becoming the #1 news source among all media platforms.
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While Pingdom posits that the introduction of Google Adsense might be the key factor in the increasing number of domain disputes I think a bigger factor has been the steady rise in domain values that began in late 2003. When mainstream media started reporting on the domain boom, awareness of the high value of good domains became far more widespread. That prompted legal experts in our annual State of the Industry reports to predict that WIPO cases would shoot up as covetous parties looked for ways to get their hands on those valuable assets without paying market value for them. 

In our January 2006 report, attorney Ari Goldberger noted, ""We witnessed a big increase in domain name disputes in 2005 as the increased value of domains justified the associated legal costs. There were also more attempted reverse domain name hijackings and domain thefts. Domain owners need to make protection of their domains a primary part of their business strategy, being careful to avoid collisions with parties that own trademarks identical or confusingly similar to their domains. That means being careful to avoid PPC links for products sold by such trademark owners or their competitors. In 2006, as ecommerce continues to grow internationally, there will be more and more disputes of all kinds involving domain names - the real estate and storefronts of the Internet." 

Pingdom's new report shows how prescient Goldberger was when he made those comments almost three years ago. Since complainants have won 85% of WIPO cases even those with flmsy claims are emboldened to make a run at domains they would like to take from current owners. 

Organizers of the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Silicon Valley 2009 conference coming up in April are reminding those thinking about attending that tomorrow night (Dec. 31) at midnight is the deadline to get a free 7-DVD set as an early registration bonus. The DVD's feature Steve Forbes, Terry Jones, Tom Gardner, Barbara Corcoran, Jim McCann, John Reese plus Andrew Miller and Mike "Zappy Zapolin" speaking at previous T.R.A.F.F.I.C. shows. 

New York Times, "The Comics Are Feeling the Pain of Print", the venerable comic strip, a newspaper staple for over a century, is the latest traditional institution facing extinction.

Like the papers, major comic syndicators are hoping to save themselves by moving to the web themselves. The author of the Times article, Leslie Berlin wrote, "In November, United Feature Syndicate, which distributes 50 comics, including “Peanuts,” 

“Dilbert” and “Get Fuzzy,” made its full archives and portfolio available free on its Comics.com Web site. The company also added social networking features for tagging and rating comics. Visitors can have comics sent to them via e-mail or RSS feed." 

Berlin added, "In the past, Comics.com displayed the current day’s strips and a 30-day archive free. Anyone wishing to see older comics or receive comics via e-mail had to pay a subscription fee of less than $20 a year. However, The syndicate decided that the subscription model “was limiting the audience for comics, and It appears to have been right." After the charge was dropped, November traffic to the site increased 48%, to 571,000 unique visitors in the U.S. alone.

Yet more evidence that the future of almost all forms of media is on the Internet. That migration is one of the key factors underpinning the value of memorable domain names like Comics.com, a name that is playing a key role in the shift of comic strips to the web.
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season with spring time dates April 24-25. Mark Burgess and his team at SanDiego.com will be hosts for this fifth annual edition of the geodomain industry's premier event. 

The 24th and 25th (a Friday and Saturday) are the public show dates. As in the past, there will be 

private sessions for Associated Cities members only the day before the show officially opens (those sessions will be held on Thursday, April 23). The conference is staged by Associated Cities and they have posted more information about the 2009 event on their website. 

While you are at the Associated Cities site, be sure to check out a new article published this week in which several well-known geodomainers; David Castello, Jessica Bookstaff and Sean Pilfold share their bullish expectations for the geodomain business in 2009.

This will be T.R.A.F.F.I.C.'s second appearance in the Silicon Valley. A very successful show was held at the same hotel in 2006.
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California ruled that  OnlineNic.com, a large, long-established domain registrar based in San Francisco "unlawfully registered at least 663 domain names that were either identical to or confusingly similar to Verizon trademarks." The company was awarded $50, 000 per name for OnlineNIC's "bad-faith registrations" that were intended to steer traffic away from Verizon's sites (federal law provides for a penalty of up to $100,000 per name). 

How is this different from what OnlineNic just lost $33 million for doing? Infringement is infringement. Make no mistake, I think OnlineNic was dead wrong (not to mention plain stupid) for what they did - but I think Verizon is dead wrong in what they are doing in monetizing other company's typos too. Do you think they are turning the money earned from pages like this over to Hewlett Packard? Neither do I. The rules should apply equally to everyone. When Verizon does it they call it a "service". When someone else does it they call it "cybersquatting". I think it is the latter, but in any case what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
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BuyDomains, the AfternicDLS and several parking services), originally filed for a $172.5 million IPO in November 2007. In a news report today, Reuters is reporting that the number of companies that have withdrawn a planned IPO this year now rises to 103. 

Reuters said, "The market turbulence has led to the slowest year in IPOs since 2003, with more than three times as many deals withdrawn as those that have gone ahead. 26 tech companies have canceled their IPO plans this year. Those deals would have yielded an estimated $2.5 billion in proceeds, according to Thomson Reuters data."

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noted that the first dot-com domain registered was Symbolics.com on March 15, 1985 (a good trivia question to ask around the bar at the next domain convention). Raphael added, "The site belonged to a computer manufacturer 

known for its Open Genera Lisp and Macsyma computer algebra systems. Symbolics declared bankruptcy in the early 90s but is still under operation with new owners. That means Symbolics.com is the Internet's oldest still-functioning dot-com domain - and, I must say, it still looks like it was designed in 1985."

Only nine more domain names were registered in the 12 months following the registration of Symbolics.com. The ten oldest domains include four 3-letter domains (a category that remains popular to this day). Those historic ten names are: 

When you consider that any name could have been registered in those early days, it is a bit surprising what was NOT registered - but back then no one had an inkling how valuable domain names would become a little over a decade later.  You can review PC World's entire 100 Oldest Domains list here. 
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Shimon Peres, last week when Zappy was a featured speaker at the Globes Israel Business Summit in Tel Aviv. Israel's Globes business magazine also ran a profile of Zapolin just before his appearance at the conference.

In that magazine interview Zappy said, “Although the current economic situation is dismal, the Internet is a ray of light where it is possible to do business on a larger scale than ever before. Today, 21% of content consumed is online, but just 7% of the money channeled to the advertising industry reaches the Internet. This gap will narrow.”

At IREG Zappy and his partners scored big with the sale of Beer.com for $7 million, CreditCards.com for $2.75 million and Shop.com at $3.5 million.

IREG's Mike "Zappy" Zapolin and Israeli 
President Shimon Peres last week in Tel Aviv

These days the company concentrates on developing their prime generic domains, like Chocolate.com, rather than selling them. IREG also owns gems like Insurance.com, Patent.com and Jeans.com.

When Globes asked Zapolin how the current recession would affect online advertising he noted, "It’s true that the growth rate in the online advertising industry is slowing, but it’s still growing, and it will only continue to grow in the coming years. Advertisers are now abandoning traditional advertising channels and rushing to the Internet, where it’s possible to measure the marketing and to create a high ROI (return on investment).” In another interesting tidbit from the interview Zapolin revealed that he is planning to publish a book soon that will include tools for finding good domains and tips for creating reputation, reliability, and traffic.

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replay on the GoDaddy Radio home page. Parsons invited Allemann to come on the program to talk about articles Andrew posted at DNW that were critical of GoDaddy. Those articles prompted Parsons to order a couple of major changes at the company including a rollback in starting bid prices for high traffic domains at GoDaddy's aftermarket auction site, TDNAM.com and a decision to shut down a domain warehousing subsidiary called Standard Tactics.  

When you reach those kinds of dizzying heights it is easy to become arrogant and think that you know it all. To his credit Parsons, who was featured in a 2004 DN Journal Cover Story, still comes across as a regular guy who, despite amazing entrepreneurial success, has managed to keep both feet on the ground and his ears open to new ideas. Kudos to both men on a good show.

year and GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons made sure his employees knew they were appreciated by treating them to a $2 million holiday party last Saturday night in Phoenix. The gala event was staged at Chase Field (home of the Arizona Diamondbacks major league baseball team) and featured live performances from Joan Jett, .38 Special and comedian Sinbad. 

In addition to a fabulous feast, there were prize drawings that doled out free motorcycles and cash awards as high as $5,000. Parsons told the crowd the largesse was possible, even in a severe recession, because the company was part of a new economic order being driven by the Internet. "We're helping put millions of people on the Internet so they can be part of the new order. The new economy is going to allow America to rise from the ashes of this recession," Parsons said.

Bob Parsons
GoDaddy Founder & CEO

Broadcast & Cable magazine reported that the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), in a letter to ICANN CEO Dr. Paul Twomey, called the proposal premature and counterproductive. ANA represents 9,000 brands that spend $100 billion annually on advertsing and marketing. 

ANA Executive VP Daniel Jaffe said, "Presently, ANA’s members expend substantial sums of money monitoring domain name abuse, defensively registering domains (sometimes in the hundreds or even thousands) and prosecuting squatters and other violators. 

These new costs are likely to escalate substantially" if ICANN moves forward with its plans. Jaffe added that ANA does not think ICANN has shown a demand that justifies the "massive burdens" the plan would impose and should reevaluate the plan.