Domain News

Many web developers, designers and now domainers are flocking like an army of little blue birds to Twitter, a social status service that allows you to share what you are doing in 140 characters or less. Over the Holidays, NameCheap.com ran a wildly successful trivia contest promotion which amassed them a huge number of followers. This is the story of their success on Twitter.

About how many Twitter followers did @NameCheap have before your contest began?

Maybe 30. We set it up and used to to answer basic questions and offer specials, but it wasn’t something used regularly.  (NameCheap now has 4,221 followers!)

What has the response from contest participants been?

Overwhelmingly, they loved it. Many people asked for more contests. It was blogged about quite a bit as well, with some participants even showing how to answer the quickest. Even the CEO of Twitter, Evan Williams, mentioned how much he liked the idea.

What was the total amount of domain names that were won?

Over 600.

Who organized all the Christmas trivia questions? I’m sure they deserve some recognition.

Our Marketing Specialist Michelle Greer wrote them.

Have you seen a significant increase in new customers during the contest?

Our website got 47% more new visitors.

What are your future plans for the @NameCheap twitter account?

Possibly more contests. Definitely updates on our service and basic support.

I see NameCheap is on Facebook as well, how has your experience been with that network?

Good. It puts names and faces behind our customers.

How do you think social networking will affect domaining in 2009?

It allows us to offer more hands-on support with our customers and will help us understand how we can offer what our customers want. It will also help connect domainers with other domainers as well as potential buyers for their domains.

Thanks for answering these questions NameCheap! Be sure to follow @DotSauce and check out this List of Top Domainers on Twitter too!

This article is from DotSauce Magazine - The Domain Industry’s HOTTEST Publication!

Interview With @NameCheap: The Most Popular Registrar on Twitter

Original post by Mark Fulton

According to Businesss Week and other sources, Verizon has one a legal battle against registrar OnlineNic in a default judgement. The decision awarded Verizon $50,000 per domain name (663 in total).  Andrew at DomainNameWire points out that this is one of several cases Verizon has brought up against domain name companies. Most of the past cases were settled, most likely for less than $33 million.

One has to wonder why OnlineNic,  a US based registrar, failed to negotiate settlement terms or even participate in the legal proceedings like others who have been sued by Verizon. Verizon representatives point out

OnlineNIC did not appear in court or send a lawyer to defend against the charges.

OnlineNic has a US presence and a US address listed in the whois. However, I believe the company is owned by parent company China Channel based in China.  I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know the intricacies of collecting on a judgment like this.  I imagine that their presence in the US makes them just as susceptible to suit as any other company.  Anyone of our readers in the legal arena care to comment ??

(c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com

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Original post by Adam Strong

According to Businesss Week and other sources, Verizon has one a legal battle against registrar OnlineNic in a default judgement. The decision awarded Verizon $50,000 per domain name (663 in total).  Andrew at DomainNameWire points out that this is one of several cases Verizon has brought up against domain name companies. Most of the past cases were settled, most likely for less than $33 million.

One has to wonder why OnlineNic,  a US based registrar, failed to negotiate settlement terms or even participate in the legal proceedings like others who have been sued by Verizon. Verizon representatives point out

OnlineNIC did not appear in court or send a lawyer to defend against the charges.

OnlineNic has a US presence and a US address listed in the whois. However, I believe the company is owned by parent company China Channel based in China.  I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know the intricacies of collecting on a judgment like this.  I imagine that their presence in the US makes them just as susceptible to suit as any other company.  Anyone of our readers in the legal arena care to comment ??

(c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com

DomainFest Global: January 28th to 30th in Hollywood California. Register by December 31st and save $100.

Original post by Adam Strong

As mentioned in an ongoing radio conversation with Andrew Allemann of DomainNameWire on Radio GoDaddy, Bob Parsons, CEO of GoDaddy announced that he has taken the entire portfolio of 33,000 names owned under the Standard Tactics company (see the original story on DNW) and has listed these for sale on TDNAM with a starting price of $10 and a valuation number.

Parsons admitted that the domains were being held for “research purposes“. He also stated that out of the 33,000 names Standard Tactics has taken over, only 8,000 made money. Parsons later stated that the portfolio made roughly $40,000 USD per month, which he called “nothing to sneeze at“.

Andrew has published his review of the show here along with the other topics discussed, such as the 60 day transfer lock and trademark names being listed on TDNAM.

(c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com

Help plan DomainConvergence 2009, participate in the survey.

Original post by Frank Michlick

According to Golem (German) Lycos has sold the domain registrar United Domains to United Internet for about 34 million Euros (appx. 45 million USD) in cash. 7 million Euro will be held in escrow for any potential liabilities. The final purchase price will be determined once the purchaser posts their final results for 2008. United Internet is the parent of companies such as 1&1 and the Adlink group, which also encompasses Sedo.

According to United Internet’s press release United Domains offers registrations in over 100 TLDs for 180,000 customers and 1,1 million domains. United Domains also operates dopoly, a wholesale registrar. The company is run by the founders Florian Huber (CEO), Alexander Helm and Markus Eggensperger, who will still own about 15% of the company.

The purchase still needs to be approved by the cartel office, completion is expected for the first quarter of 2009.

(c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com

Help plan DomainConvergence 2009, participate in the survey.

Original post by Frank Michlick

TORONTO, Dec. 8  - Tucows Inc., (AMEX:TCX, TSX:TC) a global provider of domain names, email and other Internet services, today officially welcomes Hover (http://hover.com) to its family of web services.

Hover is a hassle-free domain management service that makes it easy for anyone to buy a domain name, set up a personalized email address and connect a domain name to all of their web services - in seconds.

“Many providers will sell you a domain name, but none make it really simple to use those names,” said Ross Rader, General Manager, Hover. “Our goal is to make domain names as easy to use as they are to buy.”

Hover’s features include:

• Hover’s innovative URL forwarding tools make it incredibly easy to manage your personal identity online:
• Use Hover to point other people to various web pages. For example, rather than sending someone a link that looks like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCutOJ5YfMk , you can use Hover to create “shortcuts” that look like this:
• http://awesomelawncare.com/tips or http://howto.awesomelawncare.com.
• Hover helps users create personalized email and email forwards that share the same personalization as the domain name. This helps get rid of ugly email addresses like: lawncare99@hotmail.com, replacing them with personalized addresses like sales@awesomelawncare.com
• They also include simple, easy-to-use domain management tools like WHOIS privacy and DNS management all included at no extra charge.

Hover offers three options for selecting domain names:

1. Use a simple search that offers helpful domain name suggestions to easily find that perfect domain name. At launch, Hover offers .COM, .NET, .ORG, .INFO, .BIZ, .US and .CA, with more options coming soon.
2. Bring an existing domain name that you registered with another provider to Hover and take advantage of Hover’s advanced features and easy-to-use management tools.
3. Choose a “Personal Domain” based on your first and last name for the ultimate in personalization. Hover offers access to over 39,000 surnames for web addresses and email.

Hover is the only domain name management service to offer a free trial, allowing users to check out some of the Hover tools before paying.

Paid Hover accounts all include:

- A domain name
- Unlimited domain and link forwarding
- Easy POP, IMAP and webmail upgrade options
- Unlimited customer support via email, web and telephone
- Customized, ad-free and iPhone-compatible Hover page
- Easy-to-understand pricing with no confusing upsells or add-ons.

Hover is clear and open with users about their rights and responsibilities as a domain name owner. There are no over-complicated domain ownership rules or shifty practices. Instead Hover provides easy-to-read terms and conditions, an interactive Domain Name Timeline and other tools to give customers the information they need to manage domain names without a hassle.

“With Hover we’ve taken more than 12 years of experience selling domain names and combined it all with the latest web technologies to make domain name registration simple and less confusing,” said Elliot Noss, President and CEO, Tucows. “There’s no reason that the average person should feel intimidated, or confused when buying a domain name. Hover delivers on its promise to make a domain name as easy to use as it is to buy.”

Hover takes a “best practices” approach to domain sales, using Tucows wholesale services provided by OpenSRS as its foundation. Tucows Retail Services is unifying its ItsYourDomain (IYD) retail, NetIdentity and Domain Direct domain registration services on Hover. Customers of IYD (It’s Your Domain) were transferred to Hover last week. Domain Direct and NetIdentity customers can look forward to being transferred in early 2009.

This article is from DotSauce Magazine - The Domain Industry’s HOTTEST Publication!

Hover.com Provides Innovative Domain Name Management Services

Original post by Mark Fulton

As unconvered by Domain Name Wire, Godaddy has joined the ranks of registrars that participate in the participate in Domain Warehousing practices. Domain Warehousing means the practise where a registrar keeps domains for themselves after the original registrant fails to renew the domain. Tucows, one of the registrars that is more open about following this practise, came under a public crossfire after Michael Berkens of The Domains reported about Tucows selling names which they had taken over when the original registrant failed to renew the domains. eNom, which has been following similar practices hiding the domain names from their portfolio behind whois privacy, has recently launched a sales site for those domains as well.

Apparently GoDaddy is going out of their way in order to hide the fact that they too, take over expired domains from registrants. They set up a company aptly named “Standard Tactics, LLC“, which takes over some domains that have not sold on GoDaddy’s TDNAM site and continues to monetize them.

Read the full details over at Domain Name Wire.

Original post by Frank Michlick

Domain name registrar NameCheap.com has decided to add some social media to their marketing mix and also spread some holiday cheer by giving away domains and hosting. From December 1st through December 25th, NameCheap will be giving away $17,000 worth of domain names and hosting packages. The giveaway involves an hourly trivia contest that the company will be holding at Twitter.com.  The hourly trivia contest requires any one wishing to participate sign up for a Twitter account, follow Namecheap and be the first to answer the questions.

This seems like a great contest and an easy way to score free domains and hosting. There’s no cost to sign-up at Twitter and follow Namecheap.  While you are at Twitter don’t forget to follow Domain Name News too

Press release can be seen after the jump

NameCheap.com to Offer $17,000 Worth of Domains, Hosting and Transfers, Free on Twitter.com

NameCheap.com, a leading provider of domain names and web hosting, will be giving over $17,000 worth of domain names in the “Twitter Trivia Holiday GiveAway”. Up to three domain names, hosting packages or transfers will be given away each hour 24 hours a day from December 1st through December 25th.

In order to win a free domain name, hosting package or domain transfer, Twitter users simply have to answer a trivia question pertaining to the holiday season. The first users to answer correctly win. Like every domain or transfer at NameCheap.com, winners will also get free WhoisGuard Protection to keep their identity safe and a free Comodo PositiveSSL for more secured transactions online. The questions will start off easy and will progressively become more difficult. The Twitter user who answers the most questions correctly will also win an iPod Nano.

“NameCheap has always relied on word of mouth for marketing. We’ve always put our focus on creating an easy to use interface as well as partnering with other companies to make our offerings more attractive. Rather than launching huge SuperBowl ads, we’d rather use means like Twitter and Facebook to better interact personally with our new and existing clients. We’re confident that once people see our user control panel as well as get a free WhoisGuard subscription and SSL with us, they will make NameCheap.com their domain registrar of choice” said Richard Kirkendall, NameCheap’s CEO.

“I didn’t hear about NameCheap from an ad. I first heard about them in a web professionals’ Google Group. A company like NameCheap who relies on word of mouth marketing is a perfect candidate for social media. I’m glad Richard and his staff embraced the idea so freely. This contest was actually Richard’s idea and I think it’s a wonderful way to interact with and reward their clients” said Michelle Greer, NameCheap’s marketing consultant.

To participate in the Twitter Trivia Domain Name Giveaway, follow NameCheap at www.twitter.com/namecheap.

NameCheap is an ICANN accredited domain registrar founded in 2000 by Richard Kirkendall in Los Angeles, California. Millions of domains are registered, transferred and renewed at the site each year, making it one of the leading registrars in the world. Customer support is available 24/7 via LiveChat, Twitter, or the NameCheap HelpDesk.

(c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com

Saws.com , Medicinas.com , Coed.com - All For Sale at Aftermarket.com Online Domain Auction November 20th . Click here to register for the auction.

Original post by Adam Strong

OpenSRS, the registrar brand of Tucows (AMEX:TCX, TSX:TC) has announced the launch of “OpenSRS Storefront” today, which is a fully hosted solution for their resellers. The system basically works like a branded affiliate offering, where the reseller receives a commission for any sales that occur under their brand. The reseller can upload a logo, choose from one of four themes and add their own text on the home page and about us and contact us pages.

The retail pricing can be set by the reseller. The difference to the wholesale pricing plus a 6% payment processing fee will be paid out to the reseller once they reach an aggregate of $100 in commission. There are no other charges to the reseller, other than a one time signup for for new resellers.

Other registrars such as for example eNom (through PDQ) and GoDaddy (through Wild West Domains) have been offering similar options for an annual fee.

[via email, OpenSRS blog]

Camera.co.uk , Saws.com , Medicinas.com , Coed.com - All For Sale at Aftermarket.com Online Domain Auction November 20th . Click here to register for the auction.

Original post by Frank Michlick

Emails from NetworkSolutions to their client base reveal that Network Solutions is taking measures to alert and keep customers informed on the recent NSI phishing scam.  It appears as well that NSI is taking necessary defensive measures to combat any unauthorized access to customer domain names resulting from the phishing attempts.

The first email sent out informed customers to be aware of the phishing attempt :

Customers who have registered domain names through Network Solutions, as well as several other domain name providers are currently a target of a large scale phishing scam. A fraudster is sending e-mails to customers asking them to log in to renew or edit their domain name registration, and providing a link to a fraudulent site designed to look like networksolutions.com and to capture customer username and password information, or other private information. If you receive a message asking you to log in to your account, we recommend that you type www.networksolutions.com directly into your browser.

In a follow-up email NSI account reps let customers know that they are filtering out access and working to monitor customer log-in attempts.

1. We have put in place additional email filtering to block this traffic.
2. We have been and continue to very closely monitor and perform customer login analysis, to assist in determining if a customer account is suspect for nefarious logins/activity (for those unfortunate customers who trusted this phony email and followed the link to login).
3. Storefront and email messaging is being prepared to notify our customer base of the email phishing activity.

We advise any Customers who did follow these phony links to our Account Manager to immediately update their user id and password.

We want you to know that we are taking every possible measure to protect our Customers from this attack and mitigate its impact. We are working very closely with the Registries as well as ISPs to detect any new domains from which these attacks are coming and shut them down.

It’s good to see NSI working to tighten up security and keep customers informed of issues like this.

(c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com

Visit our Calendar of Domain Industry Events.

Original post by Adam Strong

Tucows (AMEX:TCX, TSX: TC) has just announced the launch of their YummyNames site, which lists domains from their portfolio of names for sale online. The company has before sold individual and groups of names directly and via various brokers and is now formalizing some of their offering under a new brand.

“YummyNames, the public face of our domain portfolio service group, provides an additional means by which to realize the value of our domain portfolio assets to drive continued growth for the Company,” said Elliot Noss, President and CEO, Tucows.

There are “ten thousands of names” listed on the site; Tucows’ portfolio is estimated to contain more than 70,000 domain names. Sample names listed for sale are countryrock.com, divorced.com, lemons.com, listener.com, mygarden.com, thepub.com, tool.com and veggies.com. While the site stats that “These premium domains are priced starting at $500 USD”, it appears that none of the names has actually listed a fixed price at this point. Names are being offered for purchase or lease. The site lists previous clients such as: Bell Mobility, CanWest Global Communications, EMI Music, General Motors, Grand & Toy, Harlequin Enterprises, Johnson & Johnson,  Microsoft, Nestle and RBC Royal Bank.

The Tucows domain portfolio mostly consists of names that were not renewed by registrants, as well as domain names that were purchased as part of the Netidentity acquisition. Some of the names now listed on the YummyNames website were part of those names that were accidentally auctioned off on AfterNIC in June of this year when the auctions were canceled after they had received pre-bids their conclusion.

Tucows joins a growing list of companies shedding the bulky portfolios and liquidating their domain name assets. Fabulous began selling off their expiring names through Namejet earlier this month, LiveCurrent announced the sale of domain assets yesterday, ppc company Oversee.net has sold portions of their portfolio recently, and domainer Rick Schwartz, who typically is not a liquidator put some of his domains up for sale sold a good chunk of his inventory at the last TRAFFIC auction as well.

[via Press Release]

(c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com

Visit our Calendar of Domain Industry Events.

Original post by Frank Michlick

Looking to save some money on domain names?  The prices for domain registrations and renewals recently got bumped up for all registrars.  Here is some good news that will help put some money into your piggy bank.

Name.com has some of the lowest prices for .COM domain registrations and that price just got lower for DotSauce readers.

The fine people at Name.com have provided DotSauce an exclusive updated Name.com promo code.  You saw it here first!

Enter promotion code ghu5km for $1.50 off .COM domains!

This will bring the price down from $8.99 to just $7.49!

Look here for other Name.com coupons and listings of expired coupons.

This article is from DotSauce Magazine - The Domain Industry’s HOTTEST Publication!

Sponsored By midFlux.com! Providing affordable and accurate domain appraisals. We also provide domain articles and valuable information to help you with your domain needs.!

Name.com Promo Code: Exclusive $1.50 Off .COM Domain Registration

Original post by Mark Fulton

The .ME domain registry has just announced that the registration length requirement has been reduced to 1 year!  If you missed out on the landrush now is the time to register .ME domain names at GoDaddy for just $19.99.

The .ME domain name extension has grown wildly popular in just a short amount of time since it’s launch in April.  Many websites have been developed, branded and promoted.

There have been some serious .ME aftermarket sales at high profile live auctions.  Get in on the action by snagging your great .ME domains.

These great new domain names are here to stay!  It should be easy enough to earn your small investment back within 1 year.

You can buy .ME domains at GoDaddy for just $19.99!

This article is from DotSauce Magazine - The Domain Industry’s HOTTEST Publication!

Sponsored By BigBangNames.com! Introducing a $100 No Reserve Auction format on .COM Domain Names. It also features “Killer Dot Bomb” auctions for Websites also in a no-reserve format.

Sponsored By midFlux.com! Providing affordable and accurate domain appraisals. We also provide domain articles and valuable information to help you with your domain needs.!

Great News! Register .ME Domains for Just 1 Year

Original post by Mark Fulton

Michael from DomainRaiders has an interesting tutorial to share with us today.  Yes, it is possible to register a domain name virtually instantly with a simple text messaging service!  He wanted me to share it with DotSauce readers and I am happy to oblige.  Enjoy…

Have you ever been away from your computer (eek!) and thought of the perfect domain to register?  If you don’t have a smart phone, or your registrar is impossible to use on a mobile, then I have the perfect solution for you.  After five minutes of set up, you’ll be able to register a domain at Dynadot by sending a simple text message.  If you don’t have a Dynadot account, create one before you get started.  If you have one but it doesn’t have any pre-paid credits, go add some.

Step 1: Register a keyword with TextMarks.com.

TextMarks allows you to register a keyword for their short code, 41411, and allows you to have a custom script receive the data.  I’ll be using “txtreg” for this example, but there are plenty of other good ones available.  Just pick something you’ll remember in the heat of registration.

When you go to the site, click the “Create” tab at the top.  Pick your unique keyword, in my case I’m doing “txtreg”.  In the second part of the form, select the radio button next to “Respond to a keyword with text from a web page”.  In the URL text field, put “http://www.yourdomain.com/regg.php?user=p&req=?.  That’s a zero on the end, not the letter O.  Replace yourdomain.com with the domain name you will be uploading the processing script to.  Now click the “CREATE” button.

The next step will ask you to create an account at TextMarks.  You’ll enter your phone number, user name, and email address.  Make sure the phone number is valid, as they’ll send your temporary password to your cell phone so you can log in.  Once you’re done with that, you’re ready for Step 2.

Step 2: Modify and upload the processing script.

Go to http://idevlabs.com/regg.phps to view the script.  Copy and paste everything into Notepad or a similar text editor, and save the file as “regg.php”.  Now in the script, modify the following:

• Change to be your Dynadot user name.  If your user name is Domainer123, that line should read: = “Domainer123?;
• Change to your Dynadot password.  If your password is 12345, that line should read: = “12345?;
• Change to your cell phone number that you want to be able to use this script from.  It will only work from the number you specify.  Also, you must put your country code in front of the number.  If your phone number is 555-555-5555 and you are in the U.S. (country code is “1?), the line should read: = “15555555555?;
• Change to be a short password you will send in the text message.  This is for added security.  If your password for the app is 597, that line should read: = “597?;

Now save the script again, and upload it to the server you specified when you set up the short code keyword in Step 1.

Step 3: Register some domains like a pro… through text messaging.

OK, so to recap, the short code is 41411, the example keyword is “txtreg”, and the example short pass is 597.  All you have to do is send the following text message to 41411:

txtreg Domain.ext 597

The script will shoot you back one of three messages: “The domain was registered.”, “The domain was not available.”, or “You are not authorized to access this application.”  The first two are self-explanatory.  If you receive the third message, you are either trying to access the service from a phone that you didn’t register in the script (or you entered the number incorrectly in the script), or you entered the wrong password in the text message.

This script supports the following TLDs: com, net, org, info, biz, mobi, tv, co.uk, asia, me, name, ws, us, cn, cc

This article re-printed with permission from DomainRaiders.com

This article is from DotSauce Magazine - The Domain Industry’s HOTTEST Publication!

Sponsored By BigBangNames.com! Introducing a $100 No Reserve Auction format on .COM Domain Names. It also features “Killer Dot Bomb” auctions for Websites also in a no-reserve format.

Sponsored By midFlux.com! Providing affordable and accurate domain appraisals. We also provide domain articles and valuable information to help you with your domain needs.!

How To Register Domain Names Through Cell Phone Text Messages

Original post by Mark Fulton

Register.com is giving away domain names , 1 per company. There appears to be no-strings-attached to the promotion. This isn’t an affiliate link either . . . probably should be eh ?  Click here to get a free domain name.

If you care for our 2 cent opinion over here at DNN, we feel that Register.com needs to spend some time and energy on creating a better user interface for their domain management and providing better pricing. The renewal rates will kill you on these “free” domains and you’ll have to jump through countless hoops to move the domains away, if you decide not to stay with the registrar. One thing Register.com does have going for them is a pretty good customer support team. I feel sorry for them though when they have to field all the complaints about the UI on the user side. We’ll probably save ourselves the headache and hassle. Afterall, “There’s no such thing as a free domain name.”

(c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com

Domain Convergence, October 6-8, 2008, Niagara Falls

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Original post by Adam Strong