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July 02, 2009

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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.

The 2nd quarter of 2009 just closed so we ran through our domain sales data from the past three months to see how the latest quarter fared against the previous quarter, as well as year 

over year against 2Q-2008. You've undoubtedly heard people talking about how many bargains there are on the aftermarket these days as the recession has forced many to sell assets. The lower prices people are paying showed up clearly in our sales data for the just concluded quarter. 

The total dollar value of all sales reported to us in 2Q-2009 was just $21.1 million, a $7.2 million drop from the $28.3 million reported in 1Q-2009. More disheartening was the fact that the $21.1 million total was worse than the $21.5 million reported in the final quarter of 2008 when most felt the market had hit bottom. In 4Q-2008 fear ruled after the historic 

 

collapse of major financial institutions left consumers too scared to buy much of anything. After a very nice upturn in 1Q-2009 it looked like things in the domain business were looking up but clearly we're not out of the woods yet.

The year over year results were about the same as those from Q1 to Q2 of this year. In the same quarter last year, total sales came in at $27.7 million, $6.6 million more than Q2-2009. 

As is usually the case, a few very high ticket sales impacted the results from one quarter to the next. The 1Q-2009 uptick was fueled by a trio of seven-figure sales; Toys.com ($5.1 million), Fly.com ($1.76 million) and Auction.com ($1.7 million). 2Q-2009 had a pair of seven figure sales; Candy.com ($3 million) and Webcam.com ($1.02 million), plus last week's half million dollar deal for Talk.com. So, the top three sales of 1Q-2009 totaled just over $8.5 million while the top three in 2Q-2009 came in $4 million lower at a bit over $4.5 million. The difference between just those three sales accounted for $4 million of the $7.2 million decline from the first quarter to the second this year.

"Greetings Wal-Mart Shoppers, you'll find 
some great .com deals on aisle number 5!"

While the high end slipped most sales platforms continued to do well at the low to middle end of the market favored by small to medium sized businesses. The situation is very similar to what the recession has brought to the general retail world. Purveyors of low priced merchandise like Wal-Mart are doing better than ever while upscale retailers are getting clobbered. 

As domain buyers have similarly trimmed their budgets, the median sales price of domains has also come down. In 1Q-2009 the median sale price in our database was $2,600 (down from $2,750 a year earlier). In 2Q-2009 it slipped again to $2,488. Keep in mind that we track sales starting at $2,000 for .coms and $1,000 for non .coms. As a result the medians in our database are higher than they would be if we followed sales below $1,000.

This declining price cloud has an obvious silver lining for one group - domain buyers. Many are finding deals on high quality domains that would have been almost unimaginable just one year ago. 

(Posted July 2, 2009) To refer others to the post above only you can use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2009/dailyposts/07-02-09.htm

Click Here

On Monday I posted an item about seeing increased usage of America's .us ccTLD by businesses and organizations in our home area (Tampa, Florida).  As a follow up, today I learned about a highly unusual situation in which a publicly traded American corporation, 

Go America, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOAM), changed their name to Purple Communications (NASDAQ: PRPL) and in the process abandoned their GoAmerica.com website for a .us replacement - Purple.us

The more obvious choice, Purple.com, was registered in 1994 and according to a FAQ on its site, the domain is not for sale. That left Purple 

 

Communications to find the next best option and the Novato, California based company decided that was the .us version of their new name. 

It has been fairly common for foreign corporations, who are intimately familiar with ccTLDs in their home countries, to use .us domains (for example BMW, Club Med, Hitachi and Iceland Air ), but ironically Americans companies scarcely know their own country code even exists. Obviously, rare cases like Purple Communications making the move to .us are not going to change that overnight, but it is another example of the American ccTLD slowly building recognition one brick at a time. 

In another note today, NameJet.com announced that they have reached an agreement with the .cm (Cameroon ccTLD) registry to be the exclusive auction provider for their upcoming land rush. NameJet started taking free pre-orders 

this afternoon and those will be accepted through July 31st.  Auctions will then be scheduled for all domains where there was more than one pre-order application. There are FAQs on the NameJet site that will answer other questions you might have about the .cm rollout.

(Posted July 1, 2009) To refer others to the post above only you can use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2009/dailyposts/07-01-09.htm

I received some interesting news and information about Oakville.com from developer/company president Richard Douglas that makes a pretty good case study on how to efficiently build and promote a geodomain website. Oakville, Ontario is a Canadian city of 

165,000 people (part of the greater Toronto area) located on the shores of Lake Ontario. If you are a sports fan you will be hearing a lot about Oakville next month when the city hosts the 2009 RBC Canadian Open golf tournament. 

In a mutually beneficial marketing move, Oakville.com worked out an arrangement with the 

Royal Canadian Golf Association to promote the PGA tour event on its popular city site. Douglas said Oakville.com has been attracting 1,000 visitors a day and with a flood of visitors coming to Oakville for he tournament July 20-26 at Glen Abbey, that number is sure to spike in the days ahead. Oakville.com is going out of their way to attract them by posting maps for tournament parking locations, ticket information and event details that will be updated throughout the competition. The site also has a directory of Oakville hotels

Photo of Oakville's Lake Ontario waterfront 
from Oakville.com.

Though the tournament will give Oakville.com a chance to showcase itself to visitors, Douglas said those who live in Oakville have already come to rely on the site for its combination of interesting articles, classifieds, and job listings. The site also has an  Oakville restaurants guide that has helped many discover new dining favorites and events calendars that keep residents abreast of everything happening in the city. 

There is also a story behind how the site itself was built. Douglas, who is 

the CTO of the biggest web hosting company in the Bahamas, SecureHost.com, said his team there built a custom platform specifically for geo domain development and Oakville.com is the first of about 100 domains that they are building into fully developed city guides. 

The completely automated Oakville.com site now has about 3,500 pages and has unique content added every day. Douglas said "We have engaged the community through social media and by posting their articles and photos on the site." Douglas shares more information about his mass development platform in a blog he writes about geo domain development and SEO techniques at TooManySecrets.com.
(Posted June 30, 2009) To refer others to the post above only you can use this URL:
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The boom in ccTLDs over the past year has me paying more attention to America's long overlooked official country code extension - .us.  I have always felt there was a great deal of 

potential there and over the years have invested accordingly, but it has been a long and winding road. While ccTLDs are well established in most other countries around the globe, .us hasn't enjoyed the kind of popularity that ccTLDs representing 

 

other major industrial powers (like Great Britain's .co.uk and Germany's .de) have.  The primary factor that put .us behind the 8-ball was the fact that the extension was reserved for government use until April 2002. By the time it was opened up to all Americans (and foreign companies with a U.S. business presence)  .com had already become the default choice for U.S. companies. 

At this stage, I don't think anything is going to change that, but I am seeing more signs that .us is finally starting to find an audience, especially in the small to medium sized business 

Ad on the Neustar (.us registry) website

market. In the seven years since the extension was opened up, the Internet has experienced a phenomenal growth spurt. The number of .coms registered today is 15 times greater than it was back then. As a result, virtually every meaningful keyword, phrase or short acronym you can imagine is long gone in .com. That has forced many new businesses, especially those with limited budgets (which is just about all of them given the current economy), to consider alternatives. 

Since the vast majority of businesses have a local focus, .us is the obvious second choice for many of them and I am seeing that manifested more and more often in the real world. While watching the Tampa Bay Rays play the Florida Marlins on TV Sunday, one of the big signs on the outfield wall was for TampaBay.us, a domain being used by the Tampa Bay Partnership, a highly respected regional organization focused on stimulating economic growth and economic development in the Tampa Bay area. They had no chance to get TampaBay.com because that was taken long ago by the St. Petersburg Times newspaper. 

A couple of weeks ago when I pulled up to the departures gate at the Tampa airport to head to the Domain Roundtable conference in Washington, D.C. I noticed a big web address on the back of the remote parking shuttle bus in front of me - A1Express.us. On my last trip to Chicago I noticed another airport shuttle company with the URL AirportExpress.us emblazoned on their vehicles. .Com became the 800-pound gorilla because .com addresses have always been plastered everywhere you look. By comparison, spotting high visibility .us names is still like spotting a rare bird in the wild, but sightings are becoming more frequent and that bodes well for the extension.

A larger sampling of .us usage in the business community can be seen by doing a Google search using this string: 
site:.us company -state -k12 -cc -ci -co -lib -pdf -pippin
That produces results that, for the most part, are limited to business pages at sites using the .us extension (the -state, -k12, etc. filters throw out the many government, school and non-commercial sites that use .us so names used in commerce are spotlighted). The search returns over 5.5 million pages today. If you use the same string for the two global alternate extensions that were released at about the same time .us was (replacing site:.us with site:.info and site:.biz), the results are considerably lower; 3.8 million for .info and just under 3.5 million for .biz.  

If you throw the extra word filters out all together and just use site:.us, site:.info and site:.biz to see all pages for a given extension in Google, regardless of how they are used, the .us sites still win with 295 million indexed pages vs. 224 million for .info and only 72 million for .biz. I have not previously bookmarked these numbers to see how they have changed over time, but now that I've done so, will revisit them periodically in the future to see what kind of growth we are seeing by this measure. 

If the old axiom that a rising tide lifts all boats is true, then the global boom in ccTLDs should give the .us an additional boost too. In market share it will continue to 

be .com's baby brother but there is nothing wrong with being a profitable niche in any industry and .us is showing signs that it is growing into that role. 

One other note today, and this is a sad one. Khalid, a popular domainer and member of Britain's AcornDomains forum, who was known to many by his user names JeeWhizz and Pixelcraze, passed away Thursday morning. A forum post said he had recently undergone surgery. Khalid is survived by his wife Emma and a 1-year-old baby daughter Abigail. Khalid was also an administrator at a general business forum, A1BusinessForums.co.uk, that also announced his passing.

(Posted June 29, 2009) To refer others to the post above only you can use this URL:
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Veteran web designer and audio/video services provider Danny Pryor just filled us in on some major changes underway at his Fort Lauderdale, Florida company, Rodan Media. Pryor's company produced most versions of the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference website that you have seen in recent years and he has done (and contiues to do) development work for a number of well-known domain portfolio holders.

Pryor said Rodan Media has signed significant new development deals with key players in the domain industry as the company positions itself to become a key content provider, domain developer and producer of high-quality video and audio products for small business and individual clients.

To accomodate its rapid growth, Pryor said the company he formed in 2001 is reincorporating as the Rodan Media Group Corporation. A new President and CEO, Donnie Goodwin, is coming on board with Pryor becoming the Chief Operating Officer and corporate vice president. Goodwin brings a wealth of business experience to the enterprise, having spent 18 years as an investment banker with Merrill Lynch and Paine Webber. Goodwin has also been practicing corporate and criminal law for the past 10 years.

Pryor is a former radio news anchor and 

Danny Pryor at the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. 
Silicon Valley Conference in April.

Associated Press award-winning journalist who turned his attention to website development in 2000. He previously worked for KNUU radio in Las Vegas, WINZ and WIOD radio in Miami and served as news director for radio stations WGYL and WTTB in Vero Beach. He also spent two years at the Metro Networks Miami operations office before shifting his focus to the Internet.

Among other things, Pryor said Rodan is currently working on a mass domain development project that  involves building out nearly 200 domains across a network-style platform of interlinked websites. "These domains will feature news, sports, travel, weather, finance, science, legal, and volunteer information," Pryor noted. A gallery of his company's work can be reviewed on the Rodan Media website.

Rod Beckstrom
Will he be ICANN's new CEO?

One other note today - we told you yesterday that former U.S. cyber security chief Rod Beckstrom was expected to be named the new CEO of ICANN when the DNS oversight body ended their current meeting in Sydney, Australia today. That in fact happened with ICANN Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush delivering the official announcement Down Under. Thrush said, "Rod Beckstrom has exactly the sort of strong personal and technical background that ICANN needs."

Vint Cert, who is considered to be the "father" of the Internet said in a statement, "Rod Beckstrom is strikingly well-prepared to undertake a new role as CEO of ICANN. His experience in industry and government equip him for this global and very challenging job." 

Beckstrom replace Dr. Paul Twomey who earlier this year announced his decision to the leave the post he had held since 2003.

(Posted June 26, 2009) To refer others to the post above only you can use this URL:
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The Associated Press is reporting that former U.S. cyber security chief Rod Beckstrom is likely to become the next CEO of ICANN, replacing Dr. Paul Twomey who recently announced he was leaving the post he has held since 2003. AP quotes unidentified sources as saying the ICANN board may vote to give Beckstrom the job as early as tomorrow when the current ICANN meeting concludes in Sydney, Australia

Beckstrom has been seen at several public sessions in Sydney and has also met privately with ICANN borard members according the the wire service story. Beckstrom was appointed to run the Department of Homeland Security's newly created National Cyber Security Center in March of last year but resigned 12 months later saying that a lack of cooperation from the National Security Agency and insufficient funding led to his resignation. Beckstrom runs a personal website at Beckstrom.com.

Rod Beckstrom
Will he be ICANN's new CEO?

In other ICANN related news, a chilling article from ComputerWorld.com confirms what many in the domain community have feared - that ICANN hopes to replace the current UDRP system with a Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) system that could debut with the new gTLDs ICANN plans to start rolling out next year. The Internet Commerce Association and others have warned that if that happens domain owners would lose the scant protection they currently have from over-reaching trademark interests and reverse hijackers. 

ICA Legal Counsel Phil Corwin has said that if the dangerous URS is approved it could migrate to existing extensions like .com and .net and now, according to the ComputerWorld article, that is exactly what ICANN has in mind. CW quotes ICANN VP Paul Levins as saying “ICANN 

may be able to apply the new rules as existing registrar contracts expire. We may be able to retrofit the features that are in the new GTLD agreements to address abuse.” 

Most people in the domain community have sat on their hands while their rights are steadily being whittled away. If you needed to be whacked across the head with a 2 X 4 to get the message, here is your wake up call. Band together or kiss your assets goodbye. 

(Posted June 25, 2009) To refer others to the post above only you can use this URL:
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Yesterday we told you about a couple of major new domain development partnership deals involving Skip Hoagland. Today we can tell you about another one involving two other giants from the geodomain space - the Castello Brothers - Michael and David - of Castello Cities Internet Network. Like Hoagland, the Castellos are best known for fully developed .com city domains (in their case, PalmSprings.com, Nashville.com and Acapulco.com to name a few). However, also like Hoagland, the Castellos own many top tier generic keyword domains that they have also developed into online businesses (examples include Bullion.com, Daycare.com and Whisky.com).

Their portfolio also includes Suntan.com and that is the domain that will be 

Michael & David Castello
Castello Cities Internet Network
  

developed in their new partnership with Birmingham, Alabama based LZ Domains, LLC. LZ's founders have been involved in the acquisition and development of  premium domains since 1998. LZ CEO Toby Hardy said, ""We are extremely excited about the July rollout of the Suntan.com brand and its robust website. When we analyzed the potential market on the internet for everything from tanning and sun protection to outdoor activities and tropical vacations we realized that the perfect global umbrella brand was Suntan.com. 

Suntan.com is going to quickly replace other sponsors that have experienced significant challenges in today's market conditions.  Whether it's surfing, beach volleyball or visiting your local tanning salon we'll promote and discuss it on Suntan.com. With that domain we have all four corners at the best intersection on the planet," Hardy said.

LZ Domains CEO Toby Hardy

CCIN Chief Operating Officer David J. Castello said, "Since 1995 we have developed intuitive domain names into worldwide brands. The synergistic relationship we have with LZ Domains made this partnership the logical choice to develop Suntan.com." 

(Posted June 24, 2009) To refer others to the post above only you can use this URL:
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Over the weekend Skip Hoagland, who most of your know as one of the key players in the geodomain sector (owner of Atlanta.com, MyrtleBeach.com, BuenosAires.com and many

Skip Hoagland
(Hunting and fishing are a big part of 
this domain investor/developer's life)

others), sent out a press release announcing that his company,  DomainsNewMedia.com, had formed two new partnerships to develop some of his best generic non-geo keyword domains. Today I hooked up with Skip (who is currently in Argentina) to get some more information on what his new projects involve. 

If you read our July 2008 Cover Story on Hoagland you know he has always been a strong advocate of finding qualified partners to develop top tier domains. To do just that with four of his best sporting domains; Fishing.com, FlyFishing.com, Shooting.com and ShotgunSports.com, Hoagland has cut a deal with Argentina based Patagona Publishing and Media to build those properties into category killing web portals. 

Hoagland said Patagonia already manages 50 

hunting and fishing enthusiast websites as well as booking agencies that arrange hunting and fishing trips around the world. Patagonia also publishes coffee table books on these sports. In addition to Patgonia's expertise in the space, Hoagland said he was impressed by the two young U.S. educated leaders of the company and was confident in their ability to build the domains into dominating websites.

In another major partnership arrangement, Hoagland cut a deal with Databanq CEO David Bayer to develop Hoagland's ChamberOfCommerce.com and CVB.com domains (CVB is a major travel industry term for Convention And Visitors Bureaus).  

Hoagland said ChamberofCommerce.com would be built into a brand people will be able to rely on for trusted information on businesses from some 7,000 cities worldwide that are in the company's database. CVB.com will naturally focus on the areas of travel and tourism.

Hoagland said his company is also developing  geo-targeted domains he owns for classified ads and Yellow Pages directories. 

Partnering was a key topic at the Domain Roundtable conference in Washington, D.C. last week. More and more owners of top tier 

Databanq CEO David Bayer speaking at
the GeoDomain Expo in San Diego 4/24/09

domains are deciding the best way to maximize the potential of those names is to marry the best domains with the best possible managers to build full blown web based businesses on them.

Speaking of Domain Roundtable we just published our comprehensive show review article this morning with dozens of previously unpublished photos and details on that major industry event in the nation's capital.
(Posted June 23, 2009) To refer others to the post above only you can use this URL:
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The 35th public ICANN Meeting got underway Sunday in Sydney, Australia where the event will continue through Friday. Those on the scene say it looks to be one of the largest crowds 

ever for an ICANN meeting. Of course there are a number of hot topics that are drawing a crowd this time, including the introduction of new gTLDs and attempts by trademark interests to change dispute resolution procedures that, if successful, could have a huge negative impact on registrant rights. 

Internet Commerce Association Legal Counsel Phil Corwin is in Sydney to stand up for the domain community and he does an excellent job in detailing what is at stake in this 6-minute video interview from Australia that was posted on YouTube by Dyn Inc.

Corwin also wrote about the first full day of ICANN business today in a special report filed at the ICA website - InternetCommerce.org. Corwin said the ICA will continue to issue periodic updates from the Sydney meeting to keep members and other interested parties fully informed. 

ICA Legal Counsel Phil Corwin 

While many in the domain community are opposed to ICANN's plan to roll out an unlimited number of new gTLDs, it does look like it is going to happen and several companies are already hard at 

work offering consulting services to those who want to try to land their own extension. Minds + Machines probably heads that list since they have been chosen to help parties going after .nyc, .eco and .food among others. Famous chef Wolfgang Puck enlisted them to back his .food effort. Minds + Machines is also screening a 25-minute video in Sydney to support their campaign to land .eco.

If you have some money burning a hole in your pocket this is going to be a busy week for domain auctions. The extended online auction tied to last week's Domain Roundtable conference concludes tomorrow at 5pm (US Eastern time). You can check out the full catalog (with more than 250 lots still open) here

MyID.ca will be auctioning off more than 50 premium .ca (Canadian country code) domains Wednesday and Thursday. The catalog includes Job.ca, Theatre.ca, Timeshares.ca, Mike.ca, Newspapers.ca and IceSkating.ca to name just a few. Full information on that sale can be found here.

Meanwhile GreatDomain's latest premium auction will conclude Thursday (June 25) at 12 Noon (U.S. Eastern time). The names on the block there include 70.com, Consoles.com and Funds.net.

Looking a little further down the line, Rick Latona Auctions and Netcom.cm Sarl will team up to sell a group of 45 premium .cm (Cameroon country code) domain names in an online auction that will run from July 7 to July 14. These 

exclusive names, including Casino.cm, Poker.cm and Cars.cm, will not be included in the regular .cm land rush or open registration. Land rush for the soon to be unrestricted .cm extension will begin as soon as the auction ends. Interest is expected to be higher than usual because .cm is a common typo of .com, meaning that many of these terms are likely to get a lot of error traffic. 

(Posted June 22, 2009) To refer others to the post above only you can use this URL