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The
Lowdown
February 2022
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Welcome to the The
Lowdown from
DN Journal - your source for notable news
and information from all corners of the global domain name
industry!
The Lowdown
is compiled by DN Journal
Editor & Publisher Ron Jackson. |
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Drive.us
Sold for $99,999 in Biggest Verified .US Sale Ever
Reported
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Since
the current domain sales boom began
(soon after the start of the global pandemic that
forced countless businesses to create or
strengthen their online presence) we've gotten
used to seeing big sales in an increasingly wide
variety of TLDs. While .coms continued to
command the most money, TLDS like .io,
.co, .xyz and and a few others have
flirted with, or even surpassed the six-figure
mark. Now,
in the biggest .US sale we have ever been
able to verify, the ccTLD for the United
States of America (and the first ccTLD created
on internet in 1985) has thrown its hat into the
ring. Veteran domain investor Keith Trost
just sold Drive.us for $99,999 in a
Buy It Now transaction on the Afternic
platform (we've seen the documentation). |
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Keith,
who had the year's 4th highest reported domain
sale in 2020
with NAS.com at $720,000, doesn't
yet know who the Drive.us buyer is. As of this
writing, the domain is resolving to a GoDaddy
parking page, however the public WhoIs record now
shows a registrant email address tied to Mark
Monitor, a firm well known for managing domain
asserts for some of the biggest companies in the
world. So, odds are good the new owner's name,
when it is revealed, will be one that is already familiar
to a lot people.
The
$99,999 paid for Drive.us is a big jump from what
the highest publicly reported .US sales fetched last
year when Yellow.us and
PPE.us went for $20,000 each and Task.us
attracted $18,000. With the bull market
sending prices for one-word and short acronym
domains in .com into the stratosphere, short
domains in some other TLDs will likely continue to
attract buyers who either can't afford the
term they want in .com or can't get it at any
price due to it being in use and off the
market. The rising tide may not be lifting all
boats, but it is certainly lifting a lot more
than it used to. |
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(Posted
February 21, 2022) To refer
others to the post above
only (and not the full
Lowdown column) you can use this
URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2022/dailyposts/20220221.htm
*****
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Finally!
31 Months After Their Last In-Person Event
NamesCon Global Set to Return This Summer
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The
domain industry got some great news
today when organizers of its biggest event, NamesCon
Global, announced they will return to
staging the show in person this summer. The
event will run Wednesday, August 31, 2022
through Saturday, September 3 at the Omni
Hotel in Austin, Texas. That is
the same venue where the last face-to-face
NamesCon event was held in January
2020. When we all headed home from
that show we never could have dreamed it would be
over two and a half years before we would
have an opportunity to meet in person again. |
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Just
a few weeks after it ended, the Covid 19 virus
reared its ugly head and began wreaking worldwide
havoc, forcing NamesCon to make a quick switch to virtual
conferences, the last of whish was held in September
2021. While those were well-produced
and widely appreciated replacements for the temporarily
sidelined traditional format, there is no way to
duplicate the benefits of spending time
together in person. That made this some of the
best news we have gotten in a long time.
The
decision was made possible by current trends
showing the pandemic is finally receding in most
locations around the U.S. It is certainly not
over yet but, barring the appearance of
any especially virulent new strain, looks to be
controlled enough to to allow most people,
following sensible precautions, to safely travel
and get back to a lot of the things we used to
take for granted. That being the case, NamesCon
has opened registration
for the show with $349 early bird tickets
available for those who register within the
next 30 days. We most definitely plan to be
there and are excited to see as many of you as
possible in person again this summer! |
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(Posted
February 17, 2022) To
refer others to the post
above only (and not the
full Lowdown column) you can use
this URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2022/dailyposts/20220217.htm
*****
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Paul
Nicks Moves Up to President, Domains at GoDaddy
After Guiding Booming Aftermarket There
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It
was great to see news that came out
late Friday afternoon about Paul Nicks being
promoted to President, Domains at industry
giant GoDaddy.
Paul has been with the company since 2007 and for
the past six years has served as Vice President
of Aftermarket. In that role he has been
instrumental in the dramatic growth GoDaddy
has seen in their aftermarket domain sales efforts
- a category that has become one of the company's
most important revenue sources. Along the
way, Paul has always been an advocate for the domain
investment community and has fostered a more
professional environment in the sector that has
helped it achieve a considerably higher level of
credibility in the business and regulatory
worlds. Nicks
has never been one for personal fanfare and his appointment
to GoDaddy's
top level of management seems to have
followed form as I've seen no formal press release
about it (Elliot Silver at DomainInvesting.com
posted the first report I saw, followed soon
after by additional reporting at DomainNameWire.com).
When your work is consistently that good it speaks
for itself. We have always appreciated it and this
smart move by GoDaddy shows they have as
well. |
Paul
Nicks
President, Domains
GoDaddy |
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(Posted
February 14, 2022) To refer
others to the post above
only (and not the full
Lowdown column) you can use this
URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2022/dailyposts/20220214.htm
*****
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Stable.com
Sells for Over $1 Million in One of the 3 Biggest
Sales Reported Year-to-Date
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We
are less than six weeks into the new
year and we've just had the third 7-figure sale
reported in 2022 come to light. If they continue
at that rate all year, 25 sales would end up being
reported at that level compared to 14 in 2021
and only 2 in 2020. The
latest to ring the seven-figure bell is
seller's Broker Maxwell Cashman at NewReach.com
who just closed a $1,008,925 deal for Stable.com
through Escrow.com. As of this writing, we don't
know who the buyer is as the name is under WhoIs
Privacy at NetworkSolutions and the nameservers
have not yet been changed. Whoever
it is, unless a bigger sale comes in before our
next bi-weekly domain
sales report Wednesday evening (Feb.
16), Stable.com will rank as the 3rd biggest sale reported
so far in
2022, trailing only Galaxy.com
at $1,800,000 and Unlock.com
at $1,228,200. |
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(Posted
February 10, 2022) To refer
others to the post above
only (and not the full
Lowdown column) you can use this
URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2022/dailyposts/20220210.htm
*****
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How
Ulvi Kasimov's Team at the .ART Registry is
Attempting to Create a New gTLD Masterpiece
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A
lot has happened
since ICANN launched their new
gTLD program with just four new
extensions (all IDNs) in October
2013. Fast forward to today and more
than 1,000 new TLDs of all kinds are operating
with varying degrees of success. Breaking out of a
pack that big is not easy but the best operators
have managed to do it by selecting TLDs with
natural appeal and supporting them with strong
management, marketing and funding for what can
be a long haul on the road to widespread
recognition. While it is great to have any one of
those things going for you, in the new TLD space
it has almost always required all three to
reach the top tier of new global domain name
extensions. |
Image
from Bigstock |
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Ulvi
Kasimov
.ART Founder |
The
.ART
registry is one those that have put it all
together and are now, five years after
launch, reaping the rewards from
their hard work and financial investment.
.ART is obviously a great keyword to begin
with, representing a massive market that has
only gotten bigger on the Internet over the
past couple of years with the emergence of NFT
art. It has such great natural
appeal that it became one of the three
most highly contested TLDs when ICANN
opened the rights up for auction.
The
auction winner was Ulvi Kasimov, a
venture investor and patron of the arts,
whose company UK Creative Ideas Limited
(UKCI) became the operator of .ART and
launched the TLD in December 2016. By
the the time .ART went into General
Availability in May 2017 it already had a
user base filled with some of the world's
biggest names in art, entertainment and
business. They included The Louvre,
Sotheby’s, TATE, Centre Pompidou, MAXXI
Museum, Beyoncé, Banksy, Rolex, BMW, Apple,
Google and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, to
name just a few. You can see a fascinating
list of .ART's
top adopters here (.pdf file).
With
so many celebrated supporters and the
built-in credibility of the name itself,
.ART has now attracted over 177,000
registrants, which puts them among the top
3% of all new gTLD registries. They are
also ranked among |
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the
10
fastest growing registries, in part
because the TLD is much more affordable than
it was in its early years when $50 a year
general registrations were common. As of
this writing, at popular registrar Dynadot,
.ART registrations have a base rate of
$12.99 and are just $5.99 for the first
year. |
In
another sign of good health, .ART, who is
headquartered in London with additional offices in
Los Angeles, Moscow and Beijing, has an overall
renewal rate of 63%. That soars to 85%
for the more than 13,000 premium domains they
have sold. While premium domains are a key source of
revenue, accounting for 69% of the registry's
income, only 5% of their domains have carried
a premium price, insuring that the vast majority of
domains are available to registrants around the
world at standard rates.
I mentioned NFTs opening up a whole new world
for .ART but that is just part of the
ground-breaking path the registry is on. .ART is now
a patent holder for its Digital
Twin solution. The .art Digital
Twin is a digital certificate of authenticity
that can be applied to any art or cultural object.
It provides an easy to understand, easy to use
solution for storing valuable artwork information,
including any kind of media that could confirm its
value and illustrate the creativity behind it. Using
the international Object IDTM standard
developed by the Getty Trust, the DNS &
blockchain acts as an expansive, distributed, secure
data holder.
.ART
has also launched its own crypto
wallet solution, allowing you to send
crypto directly to registered domains using .ART
domains. Instead of typing out an incredibly long
crypto address, you have the option to simply type
in an easy-to-remember domain like annieswallet.art
– with a synergetic security of ENS and DNS used
in
parallel.
.ART
also provides a free, easy to use website builder
to help artists establish a memorable web address
and establish a website for displaying their work.
Anyone with a .ART domain can build their
online presence in a few clicks. The relatively
simple web pages can serve as a sort of digital
business card, or as a communication hub that is
used as an entry point for all platforms used by the
owner, from Medium to TikTok.
Mr.
Kasimov said, “This has truly been a remarkable
period. Since its launch, .ART has grown into a
fully-fledged brand acknowledged by the artistic
community, thanks to every single one of our
adopters. Our latest partnerships with CADAF
and Ars
Electronica and the added context of the
pandemic have shown new horizons, so we will
keep up the innovatory spirit. We are already
looking for new tools and novel ways to act as an
activation agent to connect tech, art and
finance – digitally, but on a human scale.”
For
an illuminating complete account of Mr. Kasimov's personal
quest for the .ART TLD, you will want to read
his comments in this exclusive
interview published on the Art.art blog
in 2019. In another interesting read, check
out the
history of the .ART registry here. |
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(Posted
February 8, 2022) To refer
others to the post above
only (and not the full
Lowdown column) you can use this
URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2022/dailyposts/20220208.htm
*****
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Winners
Announced in Radix's #SiteIt Contest - Shark Tank
Judge Helped Attract 6,000 Entrants
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Radix
continues to burnish their image as one
of the most creative marketers in the new gTLD
space. The registry operator administers 11 TLDs
and is continually coming up with new ways to
build recognition for their top level domains.
This week Radix's .Site
Domains announced the winners
of the ambitious #SiteIt contest
they created in partnership with giant registrar Namecheap.
The partners were able to enlist Kevin
Harrington, one of the original judges on ABC-TV's
hit series Shark Tank to judge their
competition, giving it instant credibility and
awareness in the creative community. The
contest invited participants to share their
idea along with a unique .Site domain name
that could be used for their concept. Over
6,000 people wound up registering and
presenting ideas. From those entries, the Radix
team short-listed the finalists with the winner
and runner-up then chosen by veteran
entrepreneur, business executive and network
celebrity Harrington. The winner, Teodor Rupi,
earned a 1-on-1 brainstorming session with
Harrington, $2,500 in cash, a MacBook
Air and a hoverboard. The runner-up, Jaydev
Sachdeva, took home $1,000 in cash and
both also received a Website Starter Kit from
Namecheap. Harrington
said, “As an entrepreneur, it was especially
exciting for me to judge the #SiteIt Contest. I
feel deeply passionate about bringing ideas to
life and truly believe that after the initial
spark, all it takes is a nudge in the right
direction. This contest by .Site Domains and
Namecheap was just the kind of motivation needed
to urge people to share their ideas on the web.”
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Kevin
Harrington
One of the original judges on
ABC-TV's hit series Shark Tank. |
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Winner,
Teodor Rupi said “I’m absolutely
thrilled to have won the #SiteIt contest! I’m
very grateful to .Site Domains and Namecheap for
the experience, and their initiative to motivate
people to share ideas and get a jump start in
making their ideas a reality. The .Site Domains
team's support, prizes and overall experience
reinforced, for me, the value a simple idea could
have once it’s shared.”
Namecheap Global Marketing Manager Elpida
Moutsiou added, “At Namecheap, we’re
always happy to join initiatives to help talented
entrepreneurs and innovators thrive. Through our
partnership with .Site Domains, we reaffirm our
purpose of helping people take their ideas to the
web. We can’t wait to see how the winner and
runner-up utilize our full startup kit to bring
their ideas to fruition on their new .Site
domain.”
The
specific business idea and domain each prize
winner came up with were not released, which is
prudent so no one will capitalize on their ideas
before they get a chance to put them in motion. |
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(Posted
February 4, 2022) To refer
others to the post above
only (and not the full
Lowdown column) you can use this
URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2022/dailyposts/20220204.htm
*****
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