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.

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.
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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. 

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 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.  

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.

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.

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?

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. 

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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."