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Sep 24

Moniker and Transamerica to Enter Mediation

Lawsuit heads to mediation.

Moniker and Transamerica will enter into mediation to try to resolve their legal battle.

Transamerica sued Moniker, claiming that Moniker owned domain names that infringed Transamerica’s trademarks and set up fictitious entities to hide its ownership. Transamerica later amended the complaint to suggest that Moniker didn’t own the domain names, but enabled the real owners hide their identity.

Earlier this week Moniker filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, citing that the complaint only applies to registrants of the offending domain names. It said there is no cause in the complaint that should apply to Moniker, Moniker Privacy Services, or Oversee.net.

After filing the motion to dismiss, the two parties agreed to enter into mediation to try to settle the issue. The mediation is scheduled to take place December 2, 2009 in Miami.

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Sep 24

Elephant Traffic Releases Online Interface For Direct Navigation Traffic - Looking For More Premium Domain Names

elephant-traffic Elephant Traffic has launched its new online service for direct navigation advertising - offering domainers a risk-free monetization method for high quality, high traffic generic domain names.

The Elephant Traffic service allows domainers to use their traffic for direct navigation advertising, offering the traffic from the domain names to advertisers on a cost-per-visitor basis and re-routing visitors to the advertiser’s site of preference.

The company currently uses thousands of domain names including Ads.com, Fly.com, Paint.com, Laptops.com, Desktops.com, AutoInsurance.com, ArcadeGames.com, Flight.com, and InteriorDesign.com.

“One of the most surprising things about internet use is that 14% of online searches are done by using direct navigation,” said Wei-Hai Chu, CEO of Elephant Traffic. “Elephant Traffic gives advertisers the ability to capture this highly targeted traffic quickly and easily using a streamlined interface.”

The only problem facing Elephant Traffic at this moment, however, is the need for more domains.

“Our launch in London this week definitely was successful, with hundreds of advertisers putting in requests for traffic,” said Daniel Goris, the Commercial Director of Elephant Traffic, to DNN. “Now we call on the domaining industry to supply us with the traffic we need. Travel, finance and gambling traffic are especially sought after, but in general any product or service related traffic is welcomed by us with good premiums paid on top of your parking revenues.”

Elephant Traffic sells traffic to advertisers based on a pay-per-visitor auction model, meaning every visitor may be sold for a different price and that it will always be the highest price possible. The minimum price is typically set at 25% more than the current RPM* and any unsold traffic is directed back to the parking account of the domainer.

According to Goris, domainers will see a revenue share between 60-85% of what the advertiser pays and will be able to monitor revenue and domain settings in real-time.

Interested domainers can email Elephant Traffic at domainer@elephant-traffic.com including the generic domains with current RPM and number of unique visitors per month.

Note: To a certain extent, Elephant Traffic will need DNS control over the domains.

[via Elephant Traffic]

*Revenue per thousand visitors.

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Sep 24

ICA Refused to Sign Letter Urging Initiation of New gTLDs

As mentioned yesterday, a group of businesses — mostly consisting of registrars, new gTLD candidates, and new gTLD consultants — sent a letter to ICANN urging the Board of Directors to initiate the new TLD system without further delay. While 61 businesses endorsed the letter, the Internet Commerce Association (ICA) declined the invitation replying that “ICA would not be serving its members responsibly if we joined in a call for ‘full speed ahead’ when multiple critical details remain in flux.”

“We have yet to see ICANN’s 3rd version of the Draft Applicant Guidebook (DAG) for new gTLDs and have no idea what changes and additions it contains,” stated ICA Counsel Philip Corwin. “…ICANN has also repeatedly stated that it will not open the application window until all the overarching issues related to new gTLDs have been adequately resolved, and ICA supports that position.”

Additionally, “ICA cannot be a signatory to any letter that endorses the IRT [Implementation Recommendation Team] process or its recommendations, much less one that implies they are an improvement over current rules such as the UDRP.”

ICA Counsel Philip Corwin received the request to endorse the draft letter from Jothan Frakes of Minds+Machines.

[via ICA]

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Sep 24

Economist: ICANN Will Be Set Free This Month

According to The Economist, deal between ICANN and U.S. government is imminent.

The Economist is reporting that ICANN will likely be mostly set free this month, signing a four page “affirmation of commitments” with the U.S. government.

The Joint Project Agreement, which currently governs some of the government’s relationship with ICANN, is due to expire at the end of this month. The new “affirmation of commitments” is due to go into effect the day before the JPA expires.

According to The Economist:

[The agreement] gives ICANN the autonomy to manage its own affairs. Whereas prior agreements had to be renewed every few years, the new one has no fixed term.

The agreement sets up oversight panels that include representatives of foreign governments to conduct regular reviews of ICANN’s work in four areas: competition among generic domains (such as .com and .net), the handling of data on registrants, the security of the network and transparency, accountability and the public interest—the only panel on which America will retain a permanent seat. But there are no penalties if ICANN fails to heed its new overseers short of a termination of the accord.

ICANN’s other agreement with the U.S. government — to run Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) — runs through 2011.

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Sep 24

Sedo Acquires ParkingPanel.com

Sedo today announced it has acquired the parking company ParkingPanel.com, a domain monetization service provider that is well known for working with large domain portfolio owners and hosting companies to increase revenue.

Sedo will be incorporating the ParkingPanel.com brand into its own, transitioning ParkingPanel.com’s members to Sedo’s platform by the end of the month.

“This is an excellent opportunity for Sedo to extend our parking program’s industry leading services to ParkingPanel.com’s customers,” said Tim Schumacher, the CEO of Sedo. “We look forward to a smooth integration of the ParkingPanel.com brand into Sedo’s community of domain buyers and sellers. This acquisition is another example of Sedo’s commitment to sustain growth and increasing our membership throughout the year.”

The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

[via Sedo]

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Sep 24

.ME Registry Giving Away Premium Domain Names (sort of)

The .ME Registry has announced a new program for the non-auction allocation of premium .ME domain names to successful companies and organizations that have big ideas for development.

In order to apply for a domain, potential recipients need to submit a creative and viable business proposal for the development and use of a premium .ME domain. The business plans will be reviewed and approved by the leadership of the .ME registry before a domain name will be allocated.

“The .ME Registry embraces ideas for innovative uses of our domain extension,” said Predrag Lesic, the Executive Director of the .ME Registry. “Our goal is to lead Web users to active and relevant content, services and information. We see the potential and value of expanding a .ME world!”

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, the criteria for the non-auction allocation of these premium .ME domains takes the wind out of the sails pretty quickly:

The name must be used as the primary URL for a web site, a product site, or a service site.

The web site, product, or service cannot contain or promote sexually oriented material or advertising.

The applicant (i) cannot intend to use the name for personal use, (ii) cannot apply as an individual, and (iii) cannot be a sole proprietorship.

The applicant must be able to demonstrate significant traffic, or make an offer of a one-time payment of no less than EUR 20,000 (does not include annual registration fees). Significant traffic means average daily unique visitors of no less than 15,000 (or minimum of 450,000 per month). A proportional mix of traffic and one-time payment is also acceptable, for example, 7500 unique visitors per day and a EURO 10,000 one-time payment.

Applicant must agree to other terms of the template agreement including a minimum 3 year term and restricted rights during that minimum term.

I’m curious, are there currently any .ME domains with 450,000 unique visitors per month? If a company feels confident about developing a .ME domain to this level, this is certainly a great deal. But what if one falls short? Isn’t €20,000 ($30,000) a steep price to pay? Especially considering the top .ME sales are Date.me for $70,000, Cloud.me for $22,500, Teach.me for $20,100, Ask.me for $20,000, and Buy.me for $17,500.

[via EarthTimes]

What do you think? Does the non-auction allocation of premium .ME domain names make sense?

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Sep 24

Sedo Acquires ParkingPanel

Sedo acquires another domain name parking company.

In a long rumored transaction, Sedo has acquired domain name parking company ParkingPanel.com for an undisclosed price.

ParkingPanel was launched in 2006, but ran into a few roadblocks. In March of 2008 it lost its advertising feed and was forced to look for an alternate provider. It announced its relaunch in August of 2008. But, like many small domain name parking companies, it has faced a tough slough in today’s domain parking environment.

Sedo will incorporate the ParkingPanel.com brand into its own, and transition all of ParkingPanel’s customers over to Sedo. This transition should be completed before the end of the month.

Sedo acquired another small parking company, RevenueDirect, in February of 2009 for $825,000.

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Sep 24

Selling Your Domain Names Fast – Good Tips

NameMedia presentation is worth watching.

This week NameMedia presented a webinar “How to Sell your Domain Names Fast, and for Maximum Value.” The webinar is now available for playback on the Afternic web site.

I just watched the thirty minute webinar, expecting it to be one big pitch for NameMedia. And although that’s certainly there, the webinar has some good data and information. If you don’t know much about Afternic and BuyDomains, I recommend watching the entire webinar. If you have been in the industry for a while, I still recommend watching the first section, which has some good data and ideas:

-91% of AfternicDLS buyers are end users

-Pricing your domains results in 10x higher sales velocity: “usability studies show that businesses view priced names as a more legitimate business proposal than non-priced names…perception that “make offer” domains will have their asking price materially increased once a prospective buyer indicates interest.”

-Categorized domains sell with 3x the sales velocity of uncategorized — categorical search tool is frequently used at BuyDomains

-Respond to all offers — you never know what large buyer is behind a $75 offer

-For sale notices on your parked pages have minimal impact on parking revenue

-Include a phone number in your domain sales notice on your parked page. NameMedia’s close rate for phone leads are 2x email/web leads. The average sales price from phone-based inquiries is $200 higher than other leads.

-Set realistic prices — more than 80% of end user acquired domain names are purchased from $500-$5,000.

-”Unless you own high value generics, domain sales is a volume game — play it that way”

-NameMedia’s sales people average 4-7 domains sold a day at about $2,000.

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