Congratulations to my friend Jessica Bookstaff, who was recently elected Chairman of Associated Cities, the premier organization that represents over 100 city .com domain names. Jess spent time on the Associated Cities Board of Directors, and she follows in the footsteps of former chairman Dan Pulcrano, founder of Boulevards, whose company owns one of the finest geographic domain portfolios assembled.

Jess has a history of leading successful geographic domain businesses. Two of her main websites, PigeonForge.com and Durango.com, have tremendous records of growth. In fact, since acquiring PigeonForge.com in 2000, the site has grown an astounding 1,400%. Jess has always graciously given advice to fellow geo domain owners, and she is one of the brightest individuals in the industry.

I wish Jess luck as she takes on this well-deserved position.

Received this email from Mike Mann this afternoon:

“First off I have never done domain tasting, nor did BuyDomains.com when I managed it, and our new domain trading and building platform, DomainMarket.com, doesn’t either. When we and others first began thinking about it around 5 years ago it was bad protocol at best, and really considered a Denial of Service (DoS) attack against the Netsol/Verisign registry system since robots slam the systems to buy thousands of name at once; so it was against NSI/VRSN rules and possibly illegal too.

However once Verisign realized how many domains would ultimately be registered to their benefit (eventhough I imagine 99% of the inventory is never paid for and is re-deleted back to the unregistered pool of potential new domains) they decided domain tasting for 5 days to measure the PPC traffic and value and buy the statistical gems was OK.

However domain tasting is indiscriminate and buyers end up having their robots purchase other peoples’ clear trademarks, as well as a lot of lewdly suggestive names, or names that once resolved to questionable content. So again its nothing Id want my team to take part in.

In the past I thought nobody should do it. Today I think it should actually be done by others carefully for one simple reason: It’s good for the economy. People are typing in and clicking on legacy domain links for expired domains, and if they get a 404 error it’s a waste of time, energy and bandwidth - and nobody gets paid, however if it lands on a tasting speculators PPC page or monetizable site then someone is getting paid, and they can pay their employees, taxes, and tips at the local restaurant, etc. So domain tasting while lame in most respects is still good for the economy.

I’ve rethought this subject and I think it’s good for others as long as they don’t buy trademarks or domains that they deem offensive. Outside of moral considerations they need to be concerned about being sued or harassed somehow, which could have negative financial consequences, balanced by the value of the trickle down economics accidentally applied to attorneys and their caddies.

Thats all, LMK what you think. Cheers“

Like an elephant in the room, the 4 letter domain craze can’t be ignored anymore. While most of the average names were worth anywhere from $10-40 for many years, the values seem to have risen to between $150-200+ within the past few weeks. Everyone seems to want to get their hands on these names, and although I don’t see a reason for the rise in value other than speculation. I’ve seen all the arguments about why they have considerable value and why people are buying them so rapidly:

- End users want them because there are many acronyms
- Many stock symbols are made of 4 letters
- Easier to recall than longer domain names
- They are rare
- There aren’t any left to register

The impetus came a few months ago when a domain investor decided to buy the remaining LLLL.com domain names that were available to register. When people saw that these names were no longer available for the registration fee, they began paying much more to acquire these names. The values rapidly rose, and now we are at price levels that I believe may be unjustified.

Although I own a few of these names and I have friends that own them as well, I think the hype is Read More »

This morning’s article in Domain Name Wire is an important read for anyone who has money invested in domain names. There are many serious threats to our industry, and if we don’t take some sort of action, the threats could be detrimental to the survival of this industry. When significant money is being made in an industry, there will always be outsiders who want to get their hands on some of the money, and if we don’t get together as an industry, it will be much easier for them to do it.

On a personal note, I am a Professional Member of the Internet Commerce Association, and I encourage everyone with the financial means to join at a level that is comfortable. I’ve met Michael Collins, the Director of the ICA, and I know he is working tirelessly to help protect the industry. The sooner we band together and protect our assets, the better it will be for everyone in the industry.

The domain industry has made the news again this week, this time with an article appearing in Investors Business Daily (found on CNN). With the domain industry maintaining its strength, mainstream news outlets are taking notice and beginning to cover the industry. These positive articles discuss how the industry is becoming more mainstream, which will continue to make venture capital companies more comfortable when investing millions of dollars.

Here are a few other recent articles that have appeared in mainstream press:
Christian Science Monitor
The Telegraph (UK)
International Herald Tribune

While much of the world’s economic systems are going through tumultuous times, the domain industry appears to be strong. The continued success and growth of the industry is leading to greater focus as it’s becoming an alternative to traditional investing vehicles. As more venture capital firms invest in the domain space, I believe we will see similar articles in the mainstream press. With the domain industry becoming less secretive, the fruits the industry bears may become even more lucrative.

It’s always neat when I wake up and there’s an article of relevance to me in the New York Times. Page One of this morning’s New York Times Business Section features an article about the domain industry, focusing on the growth of the industry while many other industries (especially physical real estate) are stagnant or losing value. The article comes on the heels of DomainFest in Los Angeles, which featured live and silent auctions ending with somewhere around $4 million in domain sales.
Read More »

As discussed on TheDomains.com, Oversee.net received a commitment for a $150 million investment from Oak Hill Capital Partners. The transaction is expected to close by the end of January 2008. Oversee.net recently made news with their acquisition of domain registrar Moniker, and the transition to working as one collective unit has already begun. I received an email this afternoon with the subject, “SnapNames and Moniker Collaborate on Internext Domain Auction.”

According to Conde Nast publication Portfolio.com, “the funds will be used to boost growth and to acquire technologies that will enhance its suite of services.”

Let’s hope future acquisitions continue to help individual companies build upon the strong foundation of its buyer.

Say you want to buy the domain name HelloElliotsBlogReaders.com at Network Solutions, and you search the availability of that name. You see the name is available, but you would prefer to buy it at Godaddy. Ten seconds later, you look the name up at Godaddy to complete the registration, and POOF, the name is no longer unregistered, and it shows up as being registered by:

Domain Name: HELLOELLIOTSBLOGREADERS.COM

Registrant:
This Domain is available at NetworkSolutions.com
13681 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 300
HERNDON, VA 20171
US

It now appears that Network Solutions is registering domain names that are looked up on their Whois system as a “defensive measure” against people who may be able to screen their searches, affording searchers the time to register their names without worrying about them being picked off. This seems like a drastic measure to try and stop an apparent leak in the system. The problem is that by doing this, Network Solutions is preventing customers from registering the domain name at the registrar of choice. The name is still available to register, but only if done at Network Solutions.

As DomainNameNews points out, just imagine the possible litigation they could be risking if someone searches for hundreds of trademarked domain names.

Read more details at Jay’s Domaintools blog.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, and also reported in Tech Crunch, Liberty Media has paid $100 million to acquire a controlling stake in BodyBuilding.com. Liberty Media is an investor in Internet holding company, IAC, parent company of Match.com, Chemistry.com, Ticketmaster.com, and many other category leading websites.

Bodybuilding.com hosts both a fitness social networking community/forum with 100,000 participants, and it is an e-commerce website with body building supplies, vitamin supplements and fitness clothing. According to the Tech Crunch article (citing ComScore figures), BodyBuilding.com received over 2 million unique visitors in November.

Domain investors often cite Hotels.com as one of the few companies that built an entire business around a category killer generic domain name. While this is certainly true, I think there are many other companies, like BodyBuilding.com, that have built strong businesses around a category killer generic domain name. A category killer domain name doesn’t necessarily have to be mainstream to become a $100 million business. Sometimes niche category killer domain names can be just as effective, as long as a solid business plan is in place.

According to this just distributed press release, Oversee.net has acquired domain registrar Moniker. I assume this is the news to which Rick Schwartz was referring this morning. More information about this can be found on Moniker’s homepage.

It will be interesting to see what will happen with the two major domain conferences (DomainFest and TRAFFIC) and their live auctions. Domain Sponsor (an Oversee.net company) is a founding partner of DomainFest, which features the SnapNames Live Auction from January 22-23, and TRAFFIC features the Moniker Live Auction on February 20 in Las Vegas.

I am sure we will soon learn more about how this news will impact the industry.