I grew up in southern New Hampshire and I skied in NH’s White Mountains many times, so this story was interesting for business and personal reasons. It’s also something that Dark Blue Sea should note because of a domain name in its portfolio.

According to ABC television affiliate WMUR, it looks like the owner of the Mt. Washington Hotel (a landmark hotel in the region) is fighting to prevent other lodging businesses from using the term, “Mount Washington.” The interesting aspect of this is that there is a mountain called Mount Washington where the hotels are located, hence the geographical descriptor.

If you live on the East Coast, you’ve probably seen the bumper stickers that say, “This car has climbed Mt. Washington,” and that’s the term that is being battled for right now (specifically related to lodging according to the article).

One reason this is interesting from a domain standpoint is that the company could come after seemingly generic domain names like MountWashingtonHotels.com, which happens to be owned by DBS subsidiary Protopixel.

Although Mt. Washington isn’t that big, imagine if a hotel/resort named the  the Las Vegas Resort or the Europe Spa tried to trademark those regional terms with regards to lodging. High value domain names like LasVegasHotels.com or EuropeVacations.com could conceivably come under pressure from the trademark owner if they were permitted to do so.

This may be a big leap, but if a precedent is set legally, I am sure others will attempt to follow suit. It’s just some food for thought.

Photo: Flickr

When I am looking to purchase a domain name in the aftermarket, one thing I try to research is whether the domain name was on the market before, and if so, the price listed on other websites. When I want to flip a name for $25,000, there’s nothing worse than a potential buyer telling me he saw it listed for sale for $15,000 on another website – even though it may have been a very old listing.

One piece of advice I have to Fabulous / Dark Blue Sea – as well as other domain investors who may do the same thing – is to NOT list the asking price in the Whois information. When a company like DomainTools archives Whois lookups, it archives this information forever, and I can see what Fabulous or Protopixel (a DBS subsidiary) had it listed for at one point when I am doing my due diligence on previous ownership.

Although many buyers don’t really care about a previous sales price when they want a particular domain name, it can never help in a negotiation (unless of course you got a significantly better price). When selling to other domain investors, this can be used as a negotiation point for a lower sales price.

As I quickly scanned my email, I saw something from Network Solutions that caught my eye. The subject was “HORSESTABLE.ORG is Available – Register it Now!” Since I own HorseStable.com (I sold HorseSupply.com earlier this year), I thought it would be smart to register the .org, to give a potential buyer some added value.

Since I don’t generally register domain names at NetSol, I emailed my Godaddy representative and asked him to buy this domain name on my behalf. He replied that the domain name has been registered for a while to Protopixel Pty Ltd, one of Dark Blue Sea’s entities.

I looked back at the email I received and I noticed that it was imploring me to buy this premium domain name in the aftermarket, which I believe is part of the Domain Distribution Network. I’ve seen plenty of upsell efforts at registrars like Godaddy working with the DDN, but this is the first time I was emailed directly instead of a point of sale attempt.

Although I felt the subject was a bit misleading with them suggesting I “register” it now, it’s still a smart direct marketing tactic. Had I been an end user client (most of their clients are), I may have opted to buy it.

This is a great example of a well-targeted direct marketing effort.

You can learn quite a bit of information from public companies who must disclose just about every thing that could have an implication on the value of the company. Because of this, it’s a smart idea to follow the filings of various domain companies so you can read up on company filings, rather than rely on blogs and other news outlets who may or may not report on certain events/filings.

Some publicly traded companies that are required to make public filings that are related to the domain industry include the following (please let me know if I missed any company):

Google
Yahoo
Microsoft
Marchex
Top Level Domain Holdings
Tucows
Dark Blue Sea
Verisign
Banks.com

In order to follow these companies, I set up a stock portfolio in Yahoo specifically with domain industry related stocks. This allows me to see where they are trading as well as news reports and SEC (or other) filings. Don’t simply rely on others’ interpretations of news – and don’t get delayed news reports that fly under the radar (domain sales for example).

Follow these and other related companies and be more informed as a result.

I received an email from Fabulous this morning containing some great news for domain investors who use Fabulous as their domain registrar. Fabulous announced that they are offering two new features and additions that will benefit domain investors, one of which I had requested on my blog a number of months ago. Let’s discuss the two new features available to Fabulous clients:

1) Whois Privacy

Over the years, a number of people have asked Fabulous to provide privacy protection on their Whois data. While Fabulous allowed just a few domain names to have privacy in the past, they are now giving everyone privacy – for FREE. While the cost of privacy protection various from a few cents per domain name to several dollars at other registrars, there is no cost at Fabulous.

Every domain using the Fabulous Whois Privacy Service will be given a unique identifier, and all email and phone messages related to domain names will be automatically redirected to the domain owner. This is surely going to either cause other registrars to lower their prices considerably or risk losing domain registrations.

To show how popular this is elsewhere, just have a look at DomainTools’ Registrant Search Tool for “Whois Privacy Protection Service, Inc” which was found in about 2,131,377 domain names. Also, a search of Moniker’s “Moniker, Privacy Services” was found in 527,369 domain names. They are laying down the gauntlet with a popular added value service.

2) Fabulous Security Key

Basically the way the key works is that you will log into your account as per normal, using username and password. To activate the Security Key, you will go to the Manage > Security page, select “Fabulous Security Key”, then insert the USB device and click the button.

You can then select what areas of the account you want to protect with the Security Key. Once this has been setup, to gain access to those sections of your account (Sales, Transfers, Name Servers, Pushes) that are protected, you will need to insert the Fabulous Security Key, and click the button. The Fabulous system will verify that you are authorized to visit that section of the account and allow you to make the necessary changes.

With domain theft seemingly at an all-time high and reported on domain forums and elsewhere daily, this will give domain owners added protection over their portfolios. I don’t believe another company is offering a security system that is as comprehensive as Fabulous. (UPDATE: Name.com was first to market with this, and they have been offering a security key fob for the past several months). Not only will a hacker need to steal someone’s login and passcode, but they will also need to have the security key fob, making domain theft virtually impossible.

Incidentally, In December of 2007, I wrote a post called Registrar Security: A Call to Action, where I requested security key fobs at registrars. From my post:

I think a security key fob with a changing passcode (similar to what Paypal offers) could help secure a domain registrar account. I would pay a premium for this service, and I am sure others would as well. Having good security is a unique selling point that distinguishes some registrars from others. Having the best security system in place before competitors would certainly give one registrar a major competitive advantage. Most registrants wouldn’t want multiple security key fobs, so consolidating all domain names at the most secure registrar would be the most likely outcome.

This is great news from Fabulous, and domain owners will benefit.

Just about all the domain names I own that get type-in traffic are developed. As a result, I don’t do much parking. Well, I do park a lot of domain names, but 99.9% of them don’t make much money, and I don’t even consider PPC a revenue stream for my businesses. For years, I’ve been very happy using Fabulous for parking, and I still am happy – especially with their great customer service.

However, I’ve decided to do some testing. Generally, when I buy a domain name, I park it for a few days or weeks while deciding whether to develop or re-sell. More often than not, these domain names generate some money because they are better than the standard inventory of speculative domain names I own. I would usually add them to my Fabulous account and the default nameservers would automatically send the traffic to Fabulous.

During the past couple of domain conferences, I’ve had the chance to speak with Sig Solares, CEO of Parked.com, and over the past couple of years, I’ve spoken with a number of happy customers of Parked.com. I haven’t heard a bad word about the company, and it seems that people are very happy working with Parked.com and it’s knowledgeable and friendly account team. With that said, I am going to be doing some testing of their platform over the next few months to get to know the company better and to see how my domain names do with them.

If I had relied on parking revenue as even a small source of my income, I would have been testing already, but I don’t so I haven’t. However, I like what I hear about the team at Parked.com and their company, and I am excited to give them a try as I continue to acquire domain names in the aftermarket.