I just received an email from regarding the Sex.com domain name, which had been scheduled to be auctioned tomorrow morning in New York City. According to the email sent to me, legal action has been filed, and the domain auction will apparently not take place as previously scheduled as a result. The news was released by Mike Mann via Facebook and Twitter (see screenshot below).

Here’s the news release that was sent to me:

Woodland Hills, California – Creditors of Escom, LLC (“Escom”) today filed an involuntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition against Escom in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California (San Fernando Valley Division).

Petitioners took this action to protect their interests and to maximize value for all other creditors and equity holders. The filing will stay the public auction foreclosure proceedings previously scheduled for March 18, 2010, which petitioners believe would have diminished the value of Escom’s assets.

For more information, please contact:
Lawrence Morrison, Esq.
Meister Seelig & Fein LLP
(212) 655-3582

Domain investor launches March Madness bracket selection challenge with $1,000 on the line.

Brackets.com is giving away $1,000 in cash prizes during the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament, which begins on Thursday, March 17th. You can print out an official bracket and enter to win $250 – with no entry fee.  The person who has the most points will win $250, the second place finisher will win $150, and the third place finisher will win $100.

Entrants who aren’t good at making college basketball picks can still win. Brackets.com is offering $500 to the person who refers the most valid users.  In addition, to help build awareness, Brackets.com is offering prizes for inbound links from different websites. Higher pagerank websites are worth more points, and the leading referrer will win $250, the second place finisher will win $150, and the third place finisher will win $100.

Full contest details are available on Brackets.com. The tournament begins tomorrow, so sign up today.

Brackets.com is a recently launched venture from 260.com, a domain investment company founded by Tony Peppler.

The United States Chess Federation seems to have let it’s exact match domain name expire, and it’s now scheduled to hit the Snapnames auction block. USChessFederation.com expired on February 8, 2010 and it is scheduled to be auctioned on March 18th. The auction currently has one bid.

Although the US Chess Federation uses USChess.org for it’s primary website, this domain name has been owned by the organization since February of 2000. From the looks of it, it appears that they either didn’t realize they owned this domain name or they simply forgot to renew the domain name, since they originally registered it for ten years back in 2000.

I really don’t know how someone would be able to use this domain name legitimately. It’s one thing if the domain name was USChess.com as that could be used as a website for US chess players, but this one seems too specific to be used by someone other than the US Chess Federation.

I have obtained an exclusive sneak peek at some of the domains available through the Domain Madness 2 Auction, being held from from March 16th to the 23rd. The second annual conference will feature an online auction, with a live countdown show at 3pm CDT from the Palms in Las Vegas on the 23rd. A link to the auction will be added as soon as it’s set.

From the looks of it, there are some great names up for auction, and knowing the guys running it, I would imagine the reserve prices will be reasonable. More details to come…

Partial DM2 inventory:

• FreeMovies.com
• Mad.com
• GolfEquipment.com
• Balloon.com
• FootballUniforms.com
• Music.net
• InternetHistory.com
• Strawberries.com
• Hook.com
• VideoRoulette.com
• Vampires.com
• BaseballPlayers.com
• Holdings.com
• TaxTool.com

People always ask me how I find time to write articles on my blog as well as articles on my various websites to keep them up to date and driving traffic. For my blog, it’s pretty easy. When I was in an office with co-workers, if I saw or did something interesting, I would jump over to their office to discuss. Since I don’t have co-workers any longer, I use my blog as an outlet. Writing content for my blog is pretty easy.

However, writing good content for my other websites is not as easy. Although I enjoy some things related to the topics at hand, I am not familiar enough about all of them to write good content. On my geodomain names, I frequently publish press releases or articles that were submitted by readers. This is easy enough, but it doesn’t happen enough to keep the website updated with a variety of interesting information.

One thing I’ve been doing successfully on DogWalker.com would be easy enough for others to do and I want to share this (not unique, but good) idea. When people sign up for listings, I thank them and offer them the opportunity to do an interview or submit an article on any dog-related topic. This has been a big hit and is greatly appreciated. The articles are posted on the DogWalker.com Blog.

Surprisingly, many people have articles they’ve written but haven’t published online yet, and they are very happy to share them.  I have articles on a range of topics either published or scheduled to be published in the coming weeks. There are exercise articles, tips for training dogs, an article about how to help dogs who are afraid of fireworks…etc.

I have been posing the articles and linking to them on Digg and Facebook, which helps drive more traffic and awareness. In addition, a couple of submitters have posted links to the articles on their websites. It’s really a win win for all parties. Since I am using Wordpress for my platform, publishing the articles takes under 5 minutes each, and the benefits are considerable.

If you operate a website where you have advertisers – especially small businesses, you should consider offering to feature your advertisers in a guest article or interview. It adds good content (for free) and can help build your relationship with the advertiser while bringing more traffic to your site.