Afternic.com
has announced an interesting new parking program
that will take effect Jan. 3, 2005. The well-known domain
sales venue is teaming up with two of the top-ranked PPC
parking providers in the industry; Fabulous.com
and DomainSponsor.com
to produce the new program called Afternic Choice.
It will allow Afternic members to park their domains with the
new partners or with the company's current in-house program
and retain a For Sale sign that points to their Afternic
listings regardless of where they choose to park. They will
also continue to earn Afternic referral commissions regardless
of which parking provider they choose. Different domains can
perform quite differently from one provider to another, so
this solution will allow Afternic customers to easily pick and
choose their parking provider for each domain on a mix and
match or global basis... In
one of the biggest internet business deals to date,
Ebay has purchased Rent.com in a transaction
worth a reported $415 million. Rent.com, a thriving
site that allows landlords to advertise properties for lease,
has annual revenues of about $40 million. Ebay will pay
$30 million in cash with the remaining $385 million coming in
the form of Ebay stock. Though there's no way to separate the
value of the domain name alone from the underlying business,
the publicity surrounding a $415 million deal that involves
a high profile domain name should only help strengthen the
value of quality domain names overall...Having
returned to the top of the drop catching game, SnapNames.com
has made a move to solidify their position by gaining
exclusive auction rights to domains expiring at BulkRegister.com.
A similar arrangement with NetworkSolutions.com
had already restored fortunes at SnapNames, a company that
pioneered the drop catching business. They had lost ground
when competitors rolled out high revenue auction systems that
gave them the resources to acquire more names than Snapnames
could with their inexpensive flat fee model. Snap finally
switched to its own auction format and leapfrogged the
competition by forging the new exclusivity agreements... Sedo.com,
a frequent leader on our weekly domain sales charts,
went out of their way to announce the
lowest sale ever on their site Dec. 13. Sedo wanted
everyone to know Logifact.com went for just $60
to publicize their new reduced commission structure. The old
$60 minimum fee is out, replaced by a flat 10% charge across
the board (thus the seller of Logifact.com paid just $6).
At the same time Sedo announced the addition of a special
section on their site where all domains are priced below
$300... A new
online radio show called Domain Masters,
dedicated to teaching listeners how to register and build
websites, monetize website traffic and protect online brands
is now airing each week on WebMasterRadio.FM.
The show airs Wednesdays at 7pm U.S. EST. The
premiere show aired December 15th and featured interviews with
Dr. John Berryhill, an attorney with the intellectual
property firm of Dann, Dorfman, Herrell, and Skillman P.C.
and Noel McMichael, Vice President of prominent Search
Engine Marketing firm Marketleap.
WebMasterRadio.FM was launched November 17, 2004 at the WebMasterWorld
Conference in Las Vegas. This 24-hour free internet
radio station produces original programming and specialized
content for domainers, webmasters, SEO�s, and those just
starting internet businesses...The
new .PW
registry is now open for business. .PW is
the country code for Palau but on Dec. 15 it opened to
registrations worldwide. Billed as the Privacy Web, .pw
has anti-spam features built in to its system...BPath.com
has rolled out a new private label search engine submission
and optimization service that individual registrars can
market on their sites under their own name. One of the first
major registrars to utilize the product is Stargate.com
who debuted it under their own "Hyper Submit" label
Dec. 1. Stargate's VP for Business Development Don Welbourn
said the company was attracted to Bpath�s solution
because of "the seamless integration into our website and
the fast implementation�.
..Strategies
for successful internet marketing will be the theme
of a conference in Ft.
Lauderdale
, Florida Tuesday, December 7th at
the
Sheraton Design Center Hotel (seminar runs from 8:00am to
10:30am). The Keynote speaker will be Jay Berkowitz,
CEO and Author of
the
new book �The Ten Golden Rules of Internet Marketing�.
Berkowitz said, �I will share strategies that any business
can use to drive more traffic to
their website and to convert
the
site traffic to sales. In addition, attendees will learn how
to get their site ranked highly in Google searches, how to run online
advertising campaigns with positive return on investment and
how to take advantage of
the
ten leading trends in internet marketing.� Attendees can
call (954) 949-7579 or visit this link
to register...
Sedo.com
is predicting big things for the UK's .co.uk domain extension.
The popular sales venue has acquired Domain.co.uk to
use as a platform to promote the extension. In a new press
release Sedo said an average of 80,000 new .co.uk domains have
been registered monthly in 2004. The aftermarket is booming
too. They said 2004 marked the first year five-figure .co.uk
sales had been reported...The
largest domain transaction of all time was announced Nov. 23,
2004. Seattle
based Marchex, Inc.
said they have reached an agreement
to buy a portfolio containing tens of thousands of domains
from Name Development Inc. in a deal worth just over $164
million. Name Development appears to be a corporate entity
holding domains owned by Yun Ye's Ultimate Search, a
pioneering company in the pay per click (PPC) field.
Marchex said the deal is expected to be finalized in the first
quarter of 2005... SnapNames.com
has filed a lawsuit against ICANN
claiming "tortious interference with implementation of a
"waiting list service" (WLS). The 21-page lawsuit
was filed in California Superior Court in Los
Angeles on Nov. 18. There is a link to the full suit on Bret
Fausett's blog here...America.us
has moved from the registry's reserved list
into the hands of one of the major .us investors, Chris
Zouzas. The domain is obviously a perfect match
for the extension and would have to rank among the very best
possible .us properties. At this time, Zouzas told us he
could not detail how managed to pry the domain away from the
registry and at what cost. |
