According to a Facebook post from Drop.com.au, a drop catching service specializing in .com.au domain names (Australia ccTLD), the Broker.com.au domain name sold for $100,000 (see update below):

Once this sale closes, it will be the largest .com.au sale of the year. It will also tie Deals.com.au and Poker.com.au for the 5th largest publicly reported .com.au sale of all time, according to NameBio. This $100,000 sale will be the second largest

When I mention a “domain hack,” most people understand what it means but some don’t fully get it. A domain hack is when a word or phrase is created by combining the keyword and the domain name extension. Domain name hacks are commonly found in ccTLD (country code) domain names, but they can be found in a domain name with any extension.

Here’s a great domain hack someone found and posted on Twitter:

Don’t know which I love more, the Reg plate or the domain name 😁 pic.twitter.com/YGHBUzuIAp

— Giarc (@jardinec) June 4, 2018

One of the more surprising trends to me of late has been Emoji domain names. Over the last couple of years, these domain names have become somewhat popular amongst domain investors. Emoji domain names are not available to buy in many extensions (such as .com), but it seems like some registries have benefitted by making them available to register.

According to a press release this morning, the .FM registry is allowing people to buy Emoji domain names in the .FM extension. .FM is the ccTLD extension for for the Federated States of Micronesia, but I do not believe there are any geographic restrictions for people who want to register .FM domain names. The registry set up a special landing page for people to search for available .FM domain names, which can be found here: https://Get.fm/Emoji

Here’s what the CEO of the company that operates the .FM registry remarked in the press release:

Did you know the “top food takeout app” in China operates on a .ME domain name? According to Seeking Alpha, the company, Ele.me, raised money in May of last year at a valuation of “between $5.5 billion to $6 billion.” The company made news today when it was announced that Alibaba bought out Baidu and other investors that own the company. Crunchbase shows that the company raised over $3 billion in funding.

As you are likely aware by now, the .ME domain name extension is the ccTLD for the country of Montenegro. Interestingly, it does not look like Ele.me owns the typo Eleme.com domain name. It does own the eleme.cn ccTLD for the Chinese market, but surprisingly, the domain name does not seem to resolve. It looks like someone else

Apparently CNN has a text-only alternative method to tune in to its website, created specifically for people who may have a weak Internet connection on their iPhone. The publication is using a .IO domain name for this, as mentioned this evening in a tweet:

In Hurricane #Irma’s path with a weak phone connection? Stay up to date with the text-only version of our website https://t.co/yw1InfchB0

— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) September 9, 2017

For some reason, if you visit CNN.io and not the Lite.CNN.io web address that is promoted, you won’t reach a resolving website. In my opinion, they should forward the main domain name to the “lite” version, at least until they need to use it for something else.

It looks like CNN has owned the CNN.io domain name since 2013, but I don’t recall seeing them promote the url before this evening. In fact, I just did a Twitter search for “lite.cnn.io” and it looks like the first mention of the url was this evening’s tweet.

For those who are in Irma’s path, I wish you the best. Hopefully, you come out unscathed.