TLD Registry's CMO, Simon Cousins, told me, "We have booked $584,000 in premium domain name sales since our first day of Land Rush, March 20th. Our hybrid live-online auction raised $182,000 and another $402,000 has been privately negotiated in the last three weeks. You'll be seeing fully developed premium domain name sites going live in only a couple of weeks. We're looking forward to congratulating the first premium site to go live."

	Cousins added, "Our strategic partnership agreement with .CLUB is working out great for both parties. The .CLUB machine is giving us strong support in English speaking territories and we're reciprocating in Chinese speaking parts of the world. We are expanding our strategic partnerships with
agreements in the final stages of negotiation with a very complimentary Chinese registry, and another with a complimentary western registry."

Regardless of who is most entitled to bragging rights in China, it is a huge sale - one that we will chart in our next weekly report that comes out tomorrow evening, at which time it will also be added  to our Year to Date Top 100 Sales Chart. Once again, we owe a big thank you to George Hong of Guta.com who found this news and the comments from Xiaomi officials in Chinese media reports today and relayed the information to us.

Debra Domeyer, the CEO at Los Angeles based Oversee.net said, “Rook Media is the perfect company to buy Oversee’s domain monetization business. They value its industry leadership, technology, clients, and talented team. Coupled with Rook’s leadership in Europe, the combined entity has an unsurpassed breadth of product offering and monetization solutions.” 

Rook Media CEO Ash Rahimi Rook Media CEO Ash Rahimi Rook Media CEO Ash Rahimi

Rook Media CEO Ash Rahimi said, "The combination of Rook Media and DomainSponsor is a game changer for our industry. These two companies complement each other’s strengths and will provide our customers with the best US and international domain monetization solution.  With unmatched relationships with the biggest advertising providers in the industry and our combined in-house technology solutions, there has literally never been a better way to monetize domains.”  Oversee said that over 230 million unique users per month visit DomainSponsor’s direct navigation ad network. Rook Media believes the know-how that has allowed them to raise payment standards and realize substantial growth in the monetization space will allow them to serve DomainSponsor's current clients very well. Oversee.net continues to own and operates a portfolio of websites and mobile apps in travel, retail and consumer finance and, with the completion of this transaction, they now expect to focus on more aggressively developing those growth businesses.

It remains to be seen what Oversee will now do with the DomainFest conference that they have staged under the DomainSponsor banner annually for the past decade (the 2014 edition was just held in Hollywood, California). The conference was not part of the deal with Rook and

with Oversee having now divested itself of DomainSponsor, as well as domain registrar Moniker.com and auction platform SnapNames, it would not be surprising if they decided a domain conference no longer fits their business model.  With Easter having just been celebrated Sunday, it is also interesting to note that Daniel Law left a little "easter egg" in the comments he made in our annual State of the Industry Cover Story back in January. Law had already been working on the DomainSponsor acquisition for some time and though he couldn't talk about it openly he did say this about the domain monetization space, "It seems to me that the field is ripe for consolidation and I think one of the further challenges of 2014 will be how to take advantage of and engender this needed maturation, as well as tempering it to be a positive change clearly evident to the outside world." As of today, at least from Rook's standpoint, consider that challenge met in a big way with David essentially acquiring Goliath.

Rook Media COO Daniel Law

Consolidation has been re-shaping the domain industry for years now so it was just a matter of time before that irresistible force arrived in the blog sector of the business. I got a note from one of my favorite bloggers, Shane Cultra of DomainShane.com today to let me know that he is merging his publication with the  AccidentalDomainer.com blog. A new site for the combined entity (designed by Tia Wood) is scheduled to arrive May 1 (if not sooner) at the already familiar DomainShane.com URL. Shane and his friend Aaron of AccidentalDomainer.com, typical of down-to-earth Midwesterners, are not ostentatious types and that is reflected in the name of their upcoming joint effort which is - wait for it:

 

Shane Cultra

Yes, that's the name - Domain Shane + Accidental Domainer. If that doesn't pass the "radio" test I don't know what does :-)  One thing I have always liked about Shane's style is the good-natured humor that is a hallmark of his writing. Looking at the logo above, I realized the guy is even more clever than I realized. I tried to reduce the logo to a normal width but when I did you couldn't read what it said. So I HAD to run the thing in full-blown Cinemascope, giving him three more real estate than he would have gotten with a normal logo. Now tell me this guy is not a shrewd businessman!  In fact, I just noticed I was starting to write in his style in that last paragraph - that's how pervasive his influence is! Before this gets out of hand, I will shift back to my usual Joe Friday mode and give you just the facts behind why this merger is happening.

Cultra explained, "Aaron and I originally became friends because we both loved the same things,  Domain investing and development, and the outdoors. It was later that we realized that Aaron grew up in my original hometown, and that our families are friends and had worked together for years.  We also realized that we may be the two fastest domain investors based on our most recent marathon times. And we both enjoy the domain aftermarket. What domains are up for sale, how much did they go for, who bought them, and what ended up happening with the domains later. We both decided that rather than both of us having half assed blogs we could combine our efforts and produce some quality content. The two heads are better than one approach."

Another thing that sets both Shane and Aaron apart is that they are both real world businessmen. Shane operates a very successful plant nursery and Aaron is in the real estate business. Having a foot in both the brick and mortar and virtual worlds gives them a perspective that a lot of us don't have. That it no small thing since the majority of Main Street businesses still have no online presence. That is is a big market still waiting to be tapped and being able to understand and speak the language of both worlds gives them a leg up in that regard. 

(Left to right) Ron & Diana Jackson (of DNJournal.com) with Shane Cultra 
and blogger Jason Thompson at the 2013 DomainFest conference in Santa Monica.

Regarding the kind of content you can expect on the new blog Cultra said, "Aaron will continue to write his articles about past sales and flips and flops. And I will continue to do my lists (of good names available for purchase). But we will add more detail. Sales results each day and a weekly sales report. Who bought the domains and a look back at how they used them.  We're hoping to expand on the humor, the creativity, and the research that we've both dabbled with in the past."

Sounds like a winning formula to me, but then I was already a fan. Still, I'm looking forward to seeing  how high the new twin-engine effort will fly - and I've always been a sucker for buy one get free deals, especially when I don't even have to pay for one. That makes this the ultimate offer you can't refuse! Best of luck to Shane and Aaron.

Flowers aren't the only things blossoming this spring. New gTLDs continue to sprout in numbers that are threatening to put the daisy population to shame. Six more entered general availability today, with five of those coming from Frank Schilling's Uniregistry.com: .link, .photo, .pics, .gift and .guitars. 

The sixth new entry is .buzz from Arkansas based  entrepreneur Bill Doshier who is doing business under the name Dot Strategy. I met Bill three months ago at the NamesCon conference in Las Vegas and he is one of those immediately likeable people you can't help but root for (something he has in common with Schilling, so it's fitting that both launched their new offerings on the same day). 

Of course, being a nice guy doesn't guarantee people will buy your product, so we will have to wait and see how the registration numbers stack up on these new arrivals. I do think Uniregistry has positioned themselves to do good business with their .link offering as it is the first low cost new gTLD (widely available for $10 or less) and it also has the benefit of being generic enough to be used with almost any keyword. 

The other four Uniregistry releases are two to 

three times higher and are limited to specific verticals so those will likely be more reliant on end users. .Photo appears to have potential, especially given that .photography has become one of the three most popular new gTLDs released to date (along with .guru and .berlin). On the downside, .photo has to compete with both .photography and .photos, which was also recently released. It would be a lot easier road if only one those very similar TLDs existed but this is going to be a common plight in the new gTLD space with more similar (and likely confusing to end user) groupings in the same vertical on the way.

Doshier's .Buzz is taking the opposite approach from .link. with base registration prices at most places I looked in the $35 range - a premium number for domains not carrying a premium label. That alone will make them a much tougher sale (and will pretty much remove it from the the radar of those domain investors who are

dabbling in new gTLDs). 

Also, considering that even with over 100 new extensions available now, we haven't even begun to scratch the competitive surface with hundreds more on the way this year alone. That is going to create a brutal environment for some registry operators, especially those that don't have the resources the bigger players do. It will be interesting to see how they adapt as the pie gets cut into more and more pieces.  

We have several bases to touch today. Let's start the trip around the horn with Verisign's release of their latest Domain Name Industry Brief covering the final quarter of 2013. This report is always packed with interesting information on domain registration trends. 

In the 4Q-2013 report Verisign (the operator of the .com and .net registries) revealed that 5 million domain names were added to the Internet in the closing quarter of last year, bringing the total number of domain names registered worldwide (in all extensions) to 271 million. That is 18.5 million more than the previous year's total, representing a healthy 7.3% jump in year over year global domain registrations.

.Com continues to be the world's most popular TLD (by far) with 112 million domains registered, about five times more than any other extension. 

With the universe of domain names continuing to expand, operators of the hundreds of new gTLDs that have started coming online hope to grab a piece of the pie for themselves. Many operators are battling rivals for some of the more appealing extensions, but one such battle for .PARTY has ended with Famous Four Media winning the rights when its last competitor, Oriental Trading Company, Inc., agreed to bow out (a move that is almost always accompanied by substantial compensation. 

Famous Four's parent, Domain Venture Partners, has applied to operate 57 TLDs and has now won 

DomainNameSales.com (DNS) Vice President of Sales Jeff Gabriel has confirmed the company has sold Mobile.net for $500,000 in the highest .net sale on record. Gabriel credited DNS broker Andrew Mathias for making the landmark sale of a domain that was owned by DNS Founder Frank Schilling. The public Whois record now shows Steven Renner of Minneapolis as the owner of the domain. The previous .net leader was Sex.net, sold for $454,500 in 2006.

Mobile.net was one of three six-figure sales  

DNS made in the opening quarter of this year that Gabriel was able to tell us about (others were subject to non-disclosure agreements). The ones they were able to disclose were BOE.com at $120,000 and 106.com at $107,000. Those will all be charted for the first time when our new weekly domain sales report comes out tomorrow (Wednesday, April 9, 2014. We also be charting many more notable DNS sales from 1Q-2014. 

A couple of notable domain sales events will be happening over the next 48 hours. First up, the new .CO.COM registry opens their 90-day Land Rush period at 12 noon (U.S. Eastern time) tomorrow (Tuesday, April 8, 2014). Unlike many previous land rushes, this one will be all first come, first served (no auctions). So, if you are willing to pay the land rush price (which will vary depending on the domain) you can get it immediately if someone else hasn't beaten you to it. Prices will drop to standard rates (set by the more than 200 registrars that offer .co.com domains) when General Availability begins July 8, 2014. 

.CO.COM CEO Ken Hansen thinks the thing that sets .co.com apart from the hundreds of new gTLDs now coming to market is its .com TLD. Hansen said, "Last year over 30 million .com domains were registered. Most of those names were very long, hard to remember, and not ideal for marketing. When given a choice, many users will opt for the shorter name with a .co.com extension."

.CO.COM CEO Ken Hansen

Hansen thinks .co.com will fair particularly well in the 69 countries where “double dot" extensions (like Great Britain's .co.uk) are already popular with registrants.  

Heritage Auctions has been promoting Wednesday's domain name auction with ads in mainstream publications like this one in the New York Times.

While  .CO.COM is getting ready for their Land Rush, Heritage Auctions, who became the first of the Big 3 mainstream auction houses to sell domains last fall, will be holding their second domain auction online Wednesday (April 9, 2014).  After raking in more than $1.5 million with their inaugural event last November, Heritage Auctions will try to top that with a new catalog of premium domains that includes 103 lots. 

None of the nation's three biggest mainstream auction houses (Sothebys, Christies and Heritage Auctions) had ever offered domains before HA took the plunge and went all in with the launch of a dedicated Domain Name and Intellectual Property Division headed by veteran domain investor Aron Meystedt. 

This is viewed as a landmark event because Heritage has the deep pockets necessary to promote the high value of top tier domains to the mainstream business community (which they have been doing with ads like the one at left in the New York Times). 

Perhaps even more importantly HA has a reputation for identifying and offering high value assets to a wealthy clientele that is now seeing domain names placed on the same top shelf as fine art, rare coins, sports memorabilia and other investment quality assets.

Meystedt believes that the value of domains as corporate "brands" is just as (or more) important than their investment value, so that has been his emphasis in selecting names for Wednesday's event. While an investor may be able to buy a domain for $100,000 and eventually sell it for $500,000, there have been several instances where corporations have built businesses worth $100 million or more around a memorable domain name (a notable example is Business.com. The domain name alone was sold for $150,000, then again for over $7 million and finally had a business built upon it that sold for $345 million).

Frank Schilling's story is well-known, from initially making his fortune as a domain investor (detailed in a December 2007 DN Journal Cover Story) to his expansion into providing domain services for his fellow investors (a move chronicled in a second DN Journal Cover Story in November 2012). He has already produced two big hits as a service provider, first with a disruptive domain monetization service (Internet Traffic), followed by an innovative domain sales platform in DomainNameSales.com.

He is now trying to make it three for three as a domain registrar/registry operator (offering new gTLDs) at Uniregistry.com. At first glance, the registrar/registry operations didn't appear to offer domain owners a way to make money in the way that Schilling's PPC and domain sales platforms did, but with the announcement of a new Uniregistry affiliate program on his blog Thursday, Frank has covered that base yet again. 

Frank Schilling
Uniregistry Founder 

Those who sign up for the program can put Uniregistry links on their own websites, landing pages, social media posts, etc. and earn a commission any time someone clicks that link and registers a domain name. While that is standard procedure with a lot of affiliate programs, Schilling, as we have all come to expect, came up with a way to add significant value to the equation - you not only get paid when they register the domain, you get paid the same commission every time they renew it.

The Domain Name Assocation has finalized its 12-member Board of Directors with the election of five new Directors. The DNA has been operating with an interim board since the trade group was founded last year by ARI Registry Services, Donuts, GoDaddy, Google, Rightside and What Box? to "educate the public about the expansion of domain names" (that, of course, referring to tidal wave of new gTLDs that began arriving this year). Many other members have joined since then and the newly constituted board will represent the full membership.

The newly elected Directors are:

Philipp Grabensee,  Chairman of the Board  Afilias Limited	Bob Wiegand Senior Vice President,  Web.com	Jeff Neuman VP, Registry Services Neustar, Inc.
Stacey King Senior Corporate Counsel Amazon	Vladimir Shadrunov  Director of TLD Projects  Asiamix Digital Ltd.

I wasn't able to make the 2014 Domainfest Conference that is currently underway in Hollywood, California (the first one I've ever missed) but I'm hearing that the new .CLUB gTLD that opened its Land Rush period today can be seen just about everywhere you look at the show. This comes 

as no surprise to me because, among all of the new gTLDs out there so far, none has taken the very high profile that .CLUB has. They were also a major sponsor at the last T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference in Florida and you've probably seen their ads on most of the popular domain industry websites.