Domain Magnate

DomainPulse reports:

China (.cn) has overtaken Germany (.de) to become the world’s largest country code for domain names. With an average of around 400,000 to 500,000 .cn domain names registered each month it would be safe to assume there are more than 12,300,000 names registered compared to 12,098,279 .de names registered at the time of writing.

The two ccTLDs (country code top level domains) are much larger than any of their competitors with the next ccTLD being .uk (United Kingdom) with 6,880,775 and close to three million .nl (Netherlands) domain names.

Of all TLDs, ccTLDs and gTLDs, only .com is larger than .cn and .de, followed by .net, while .org and .uk are roughly equal in fifth position.

The success of Germany’s country code has been due to few restrictions on the eligibility of registrants for .de domain names and a low price. Although France has a similar population, there are currently only 1,153,637 registrations.

These extraordinary registration rates are a result of extremely low reg fees in .cn domains. Regular domainers from all over the world can buy .cn domains for just $0.13 at a variety of sites. A predeposit is usually required.

Bigger resellers can get the domains for even cheaper paying just pennies on the dollar.

My guess is once the reg fees rise there registration counts for .cn will fall dramatically, unless we start seeing some high sales to support the tld growth

Some great domains are up for grabs at myid .ca auctions. Also a few more high sales from previous auction.

Gamble.ca, VP.ca, InternetAccess.ca, Bond.ca, Diplomas.ca, WebsiteHosting.ca, Macau.ca, and Bass.ca are some of the domains Offered.

More than 105 high quality dot ca (.ca) domains are being auctioned at MyID.ca including fabulous rare and previously unavailable gems that were registered as far back as 8 years ago in 2000.

Some premium domains on this auction list include Gamble.ca (Ultimate web destination for gambling and gaming), VP.ca (Unbeatable high profile two letter corporate domain), Diplomas.ca (Ideal for online education) and the creme-de-la-creme of financial domains, BOND.ca. read more »

DomainMagnate.com presents an interview with Rich from Quad Letter Domains

- Name, age, location?
Richard Shorten, 25, United Kingdom

- What are your top 3 domains?
I have lots of names spread across many different niches and lately have focussed heavily on quad letter domains so its difficult to single out specifics…

- Username on main domaining forums?
My username is rjs_essex and I frequently visit Namepros and am a moderator on AcornDomains.co.uk. Such a boring handle, my initials and county in the UK but I guess if I change it now no one would recognise me or know who I was!

- How long have you been into domaining and how did you get into it?
I’ve been in the domain business for about 4 years now. I started out buying a domain to host a website for a small business idea I had – starting up as an on call IT technician for the private sector. If I had had the time I would probably still be doing it but it never really took off. I started looking around the web for ideas and was also inspired by a family member who started out in domaining back in 2000. read more »

I got like 5 messages for my various sites asking for phone number with interest to purchase the website. However the emails looked unprofessional so it’s quite clear this is not a real inquiry.

Update: I got many reports from others who received same messages and I could only speculate but they never reply, so I’m thinking they are just collecting phone numbers and sites. What for? Maybe to offer some hosting or other products, or spam you with some related offers. Maybe for some sophisticated scamming attempts..

There is a dnf thread about this. Anyone knows what they want?

Business Proposal

Thursday, June 5, 2008 5:29 PM

 

 

From:

read more »

Here is an interesting comparison of reported cvcv sales.

Last week:

3 Months Ago : read more »

Here are the results from recent .asia auctions:

TOP 10 AUCTIONS
sex.asia $83,334
sexshop.asia $53,607
sushi.asia $22,500
cooking.asia $21,500
ace.asia $20,501
water.asia $19,388
outdoor.asia $19,019
promotion.asia $17,600
arts.asia $15,500
sales.asia $13,500

read more »

DomainNameNews reports:

MacRumors.com is reporting a rumor that Apple is the new owner of the domain name Me.com. It’s unclear why the company purchased the domain name, but rumors center around it possibly being used as a rebranding of the popular .mac services. The speculation was first started by John Gruber at DaringFireball.net when he noticed that the domain name was using MarkMonitor services. MarkMonitor.com is a company that many large corporations, including Apple, use to manage their domain names. The initial rumor was shortly followed up by a MacRumors reader who pointed out that the Netcraft page lists, Kenneth Eddings, an Apple employee as the DNS administrator.

The domain name was previously being used as a social network site by a company that re-branded in December 2007 under the new name Snappville. The domain name whois records reflects the change in ownership to MarkMonitor around that same time. If Apple purchased the domain, it was likely for a sizeable amount, as a 2 letter dictionary word .com is extremely rare. One would think that the proceeds of the sale would have provided enough funds for the seller to create a better brand name, other than Snappville (which has a ton of likely typos). read more »

Moniker confirmed that the sale didn’t occur! The haaretz article about the sale was based on false info,

With America.com in the low reaching only $1.7M, Israel.com sold for $5.88MM today through moniker, hitting it’s $5.5 MM reserve. While it will top the annually sales chart the domain is priceless to any Jewish person and holds a high sentimental value. With Israel’s 60 years of independence celebrations two weeks ago now was a good time to sell the name.

The internet domain name “Israel.com” was sold over the weekend for $5.88 million. The buyer’s identity has not been revealed.

At the beginning of May, the internet domain registrar Moniker announced that the domain name “Israel.com” will be auctioned at a starting price of $5.5 million. The auction began on May 23 and ended six days later.

Today, the domain holds a generic Website providing general and tourist information about Israel and its heritage. It is yet unclear what the new content will be following the sale of the domain. read more »