The
organizers of the popular T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
domain conference
have added a third show to their 2006 calendar. It will be
held in California's Silicon
Valley Jan. 30-Feb. 1 at the Marriott in Santa
Clara (4 miles from the San Jose airport). Meanwhile T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
West in Las Vegas is slated for May 2-5, 2006
and T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East is currently penciled in for October
2006 at a site to be named on Miami Beach...The
most extensive mainstream press article ever
written on the domain business appears in the December 2005
issue of Business
2.0 magazine. Writer Paul Sloan spent
several months researching the piece and interviewing
successful domainers for his inside look at the industry. It's
a fascinating read that is sure to generate more interest in
domains among Internet investors... Country
code domains have really been coming on strong
in the resale market this year. That boom in the aftermarket
is also having a positive impact on new registrations. There
were over 108,000
.co.uk registrations in October 2005, the biggest
month for the United Kingdom's extension since July
2000...DNJournal.com
has just introduced a sister publication
designed specifically for newcomers to the domain business at NameNewbie.com.
The site offers details on how to get started in this rapidly
growing industry with advice covering choosing, buying and
selling domains, monetizing names and networking to jump start
your new business.Spain's
.es country code had always been heavily restricted
but that changed November 8 when the extension became
available for open registration anywhere in the world with no
residency requirements. Xavier Buck, the General
Manager of one of Europe's top registrars, EuroDNS.com,
told us less than 100,000 .es domains have been
registered, so many thousands of high quality keywords are
available... Sedo.com
hosted a special one-day domain event on
November 9th in central London. The aim was to
get as many domainers together as possible for a day of
information exchange and discussion focusing on the UK
domain market. Guests had the opportunity to meet the Sedo team and event sponsors, discuss partnership and integration opportunities and meet many of the UK's leading domain portfolio owners and domain-associated
businesses...One
of the world's largest Spanish language domain networks,
ClickDiario.com
and over 30 related vertical websites, has been sold to
Japan's LiveDoor
Co. Ltd. LiveDoor
picks up 45 million unique visitors a month from the
acquisition. ClickDiario Network CEO Matias de
Tezanos said “our client base will benefit from
Livedoor’s integrated offerings, international reach and
financial strength. We look forward to becoming part of the
Livedoor team... A
new website that compares prices for
domain name registration and related services has opened at Midano.com.
The site also lists free service providers in several
categories and will feature interviews with industry leaders
like Encirca.com Founder and President Tom
Barrett who is the first to be spotlighted there... Those
who have been playing the drop game for some time
will remember DropWizard.com. The company exited the
crowded drop-catching space last year and is now selling off
about 500 .com, .net and .org domains,
plus about 300 .ca names (Canadian country code) that
they had caught for their own portfolio between 2000-2003.
Instructions for getting their sale list of one-word and high
quality two-word domains can be found in a thread at the DomainState
forum... SnapNames.com
has added another powerhouse partner to their
popular expiring domains acquisition service. Register.com
is now on board so any domains with that registrar that go
unrenewed can be acquired exclusively through SnapNames by
placing a back order and winning the subsequent auction there
(if only one person places a back order they get the domain
for $60). SnapNames has had a similar arrangement with Network
Solutions for some time. Having partnerships with
both of these long-time registrars gives SnapNames access to
many of top domain drops... Many
people in the domain industry are lending a hand to victims of
Hurrricane Katrina. BulkRegister.com,
for example, is automatically renewing all domains set to
expire through September 16, and those already expired, that
are managed by BulkRegister members based in areas affected by
the storm. The action is designed to assure those displaced by
the hurricane that they will retain ownership of their
domains, and that they will continue to function.
BulkRegister’s members in areas hit by Katrina manage
thousands of domains, many of which provide access to the web
sites of important businesses. If such domains were to expire,
the web sites associated with them would become inaccessible,
resulting in lost business and the possible loss of the domain
name itself...CentralNic,
the London-based registry that offers a series of
geo-specific domains (two-letters followed by .com) has lined
up another important registrar to handle their product. DomainSite,
a fast-growing ICANN-accredited domain name registar,
has introduced the CentralNic
offerings that include US.COM, EU.COM, UK.COM, CN.COM,
RU.COM, DE.COM & twelve others that represent the
world's most populated countries. "Our names open up the
entire domain space again and they work within the existing
Internet infrastructure," said Joe Alagna,
CentralNic's North American Manager. "People all over the
world want descriptive domain names that end in dot com, but
most often they can't get what they want because the easiest
(dot com) domains are taken. We not only give them a dot com
domain, but we also give them a name that relates to their
specific country or region. Our momentum over the past two
years has been amazing"...In
the biggest domain sale reported so far in 2005, Sedo.com
has brokered the $750,000
purchase of Website.com. The price eclipses
the $700,000 paid for Local.com in March...Register.com
says it is the first company in the online service industry
to receive J.D. Power and Associates’ prestigious Call
Center Certification. In
an era where many customer support functions are automated and
getting a live person on the phone to assist you is
increasingly rare, the Register.com call center handled
more than 1.2 million telephone, e-mail, and fax inquiries in
2004. Seventy percent of calls (which are toll free) were
answered in 50 seconds or less and 85 percent of issues were
resolved during the first phone call. Prior to certification
the call center facility had to pass a detailed J.D. Power
audit of the company's recruiting, training, employee
incentives, management roles and responsibilities, and quality
assurance capabilities. J.D. Power and Associates also
conducted a random survey of Register.com customers who had
recently contacted its call center. For certification status a
call center must perform within the top 20 percent of customer
service, based on Power's cross-industry customer satisfaction
research. |
