The Internet Commerce Association (ICA) will present their 3rd annual Lonnie Borck Memorial Award during the 2019 NamesCon conference in Las Vegas January 27-30. As a way to honor the late great domain investor with a golden heart, the award is presented to an individual for and indelible contribution to domain investor rights.  The ICA has invited everyone in the domain community to take part in the process by using this form to submit suggestions for nominees. To get the widest participation possible, you are also encouraged to share the link to the nomination form with your colleagues, on your blogs, or social media. Suggestions for nominees will be accepted through November 1, 2018. After that the winner will be chosen from amongst the nominees by members of the ICA Board. 

Last January the 2018 award was presented to Kathy Kleiman, a pioneer advocate for domain registrant rights from the very beginning of the UDRP process. In 2017, the first award went to David Weslow, of law firm Wiley Rein, for his pro bono representation of Heidi Powell as she attempted to protect her registration of HeidiPowell.com.

Lonnie Borck

The 2nd annual Name Summit conference will be held at the Westin Times Square in New York City November 5th & 6th, 2018.  The digital branding event will bring in dozens of thought  leaders and mentors who will share the many different ways that digital marketing is transforming online business and the real estate market. This year’s show will emphasize domains and their continued importance in owning your content and promoting your brand. Panel discussions will cover the latest trends in digital branding, SEO and geo domains and will also showcase new real estate related domain extension like .realestate, .rentals and .homes. 

NameSummit CoFounders Steven Kaziyev and Jason Schaeffer have lined up nearly 50 expert speakers, including Gary Malin (President of City Habitats), Scott Durkin, (President of Douglas Elliman) and Global Luxury Real Estate powerhouse, Luciane Serifovic. Attendees will also learn from YouTube expert Roberto Blake how to leverage the YouTube platform and create messaging that converts customers. Kevin Wood, President of www.ByOwner.com, will also be sharing his strategies on video and how it can create the largest return on investment when establishing your brand via social media marketing.  

Escrow.com, the secure online payment system so familiar to domain buyers and sellers around the world, has just introduced a new feature that opens the door to price negotiations conducted

directly on their trusted platform. It's called Escrow Offer™ and it allows sellers to negotiate a price for domains names, as well as a wide range of other goods including cars, boats, aircraft, domain names, jewelry, fine art and more - all through a convenient Pay Now button.

A company press release said Escrow Offer is a tool that can be easily integrated into the checkout payment system of websites, online stores, mobile apps, classifieds sites, or just about any online business that handles financial transactions over the Internet and called it "the easiest way to introduce the power of price negotiation into online platforms." Online sellers can review offers, and either accept, reject or counter them. Negotiations proceed until a deal is reached and the secure escrow process begins.

Escrow.com can be used for transactions involving anything of value, including domain names, vehicles, machinery, aircraft or any other item of value that a business or an individual might want to buy or sell safely and securely online. You can find out more about Escrow Offer here.

Div Turakhia  gained famed in the domain industry over a decade ago after he had major successes with previous companies, Directi and Skenzo, (we profiled Div in a 2008 DNJournal Cover Story). As successful as he was with domains, Div was just getting warmed up. He went on to found Media.net, grew it into an ad tech giant, and finally sold the company to Shuzhi Technology in 2016 in a deal valued at $900 million. After that sale Div stayed on as CEO of Media.net but after so many years immersed in business (he was a millionaire by the time he was 18) he has finally decided to take a year or two off to stop and smell the roses. 

That decision was officially announced today when Div revealed he was turning the CEO role over to longtime friend and colleague Vaibhav Arya who has been serving as Media.net's Chief Technical Officer. Turakhia, who will stay fully hands on through the end of the year, will continue to help Shuzhi as a special advisor. He leaves the company in good hands and great shape. Media.net, who has over 1,300 employees worldwide, just completed the  highest revenue quarter in company history and is projecting this financial year to be its highest revenue year to date.

“This transition has been in the works for years,” Turakhia said. “Arya has been the CTO from day zero and we have succeeded based on the strength of our technology. Arya’s leadership, dedication and tech abilities are world-class. We are having another record-setting year because of his outstanding work.”

Arya said, “I’m incredibly humbled and privileged to be appointed the next CEO of Media.net, and I want to thank the Board and Div for their overwhelming support, and the confidence that they have placed in me. I am fortunate that the entire team here will be continuing with me. I have worked with each of them since the company’s founding in my capacity as CTO, and across the long transition to take over as CEO. My team and I look forward to continuing to invest in innovation and build Media.net for the long-term.“

Div Turakhia

Vaibhav Arya
CEO, Media.net

Namecheap, the world’s second largest retail domain registrar with over 10 million domains under management (and one of the fastest-growing American companies according to the 2018 Inc. 5000), unveiled their first

Namecheap Domain Insights and Trends Report, this week. The report was designed to provide some unique insights  into the domain industry for business owners, developers, entrepreneurs and technology analysts. 

Based on proprietary NameCheap data (collected over the the past decade) that encompasses registration activity among millions of their customers, the report breaks out NameCheap's Top TLDs of The Year in Many Categories, Most Popular TLDs Around The World, Top ccTLDs, Trending Business Industry-Specific TLDs and more. 

The report also includes the most popular TLDs at NameCheap so far in 2018. Those are:

The report noted, "It’s no surprise .com is still far and away the most registered top-level domain (TLD) in 2018, but this year Namecheap saw more non .com registrations than ever before. There has been a surge in popularity among some newer generic top-level domains (gTLD) like .club, .space, .online and .app as Namecheap’s large customer base of web and technology professionals, business owners and entrepreneurs are launching more active domains utilizing these newer extensions.

The 2018 Namecheap Domain Insights and Trends Report also includes:

• The Most Registered TLDs of the Decade

• Most Popular TLDs By Category (Technology, Lifestyle, Finance, Sports, Travel, Food & Beverage, Real Estate, Multi-Media and more)

• Top 3 Non .com TLDs Around The Globe Since 2017

• Trending 2018 Industry-Specific TLDs

• Domain Ownership Data; and more.

You can Download the full report to see look further into those topics. Namecheap said that certain TLDs were excluded from some data results but each list includes any such TLD exclusions as well as the time periods covered by the respective list.  

On Tuesday  DomainIncite.com reported that Akram Atallah, the President of ICANN's Global Domains Division (the # 2 position at ICANN) had left that position to become the new CEO at Donuts Inc., the world's largest operator of new gTLDs with over 240 domain extensions in their portfolio. That report has now been confirmed in a press release posted on the Donuts corporate blog. Atallah will assume his new duties on November 12, 2018. 

Donuts said current CEO Bruce Jaffe is stepping down and will continue to act as a senior advisor to the company during this transition.  Erik Brooks, managing partner at Donuts parent Abry Partners and a Donuts board member, said, “We thank Bruce for his stewardship of Donuts, during which in his tenure as president and CEO, the company raised over $100 million in debt financing to acquire Rightside, and successfully engaged in a process to sell Donuts to Abry Partners."

With respect to Mr. Atallah, Brooks said, "We are delighted to welcome Akram to Donuts. His deep experience in managing global

Akram Atallah
CEO, Donuts Inc.

organizations and rapidly-growing technology companies will be essential to driving Donuts’ next phase of growth. We are confident that Akram’s proven track record in and outside the domain name industry will broaden Donuts’ reputation as the innovative industry platform for new top-level domains and will enable the company to pursue rapid growth along multiple pathways.”

As ICANN's GDD President Atallah oversaw the management of generic domain operations, domain name industry engagement and web services. He stepped into that role after initially serving as ICANN’s Chief Operating Officer. Atallah said, “I am thrilled to join the Donuts team. I relish the challenge of further expanding overall awareness of the company’s incredible top-level domain (TLD) assets, discovering new ways to use and leverage TLDs, and through its growth and success making Donuts a recognized, global innovation platform for people and organizations to create and manage their digital identities.”