This afternoon at NamesCon, Escrow.com announced its annual Masters of Domains awards to the ten highest grossing domain brokers from the prior year. The award is based on the dollar volume of brokered transactions closed via Escrow.com. Award winners were presented with a trophy to honor their achievement.
The winners of this year’s Escrow.com awards are:
The Internet Commerce Association (ICA) has announced that the winner of the 2019 Lonnie Borck Memorial Award is industry attorney John Berryhill. John is regarded as one of the absolute best domain industry attorneys, and I think he is deserving of the award. In fact, I am quite sure I was not alone when I nominated John to receive this award.
For many years, John has represented and advised domain name owners in UDRPs, litigation, legal disputes, and other matters involving domain names. John’s insight and intelligence is almost always accompanied by his humor and wit (except at 3:45am on day 2 of the Pan-Mass Challenge). In addition to the exemplary legal work he does on behalf of his clients, John has regularly shared his legal advice on domain forums, often to people who might otherwise not be able to afford his legal expertise.
Topcoin is something I have received on every paid Uniregistry transaction, but I never used any nor did I really know how to use Topcoin. In December, Uniregistry announced that it would remove Topcoin from its platform. I never made an effort to acquire or use Topcoin, so it wasn’t a big deal to me.
Public Interest Registry (PIR) is a non-profit organization that is responsible for the management of the .org domain name registry. PIR is looking to hire a Vice President of Business Affairs, and this job opening could be a good opportunity for someone in the domain name industry. In fact, the first line item in the education and experience requirement section specifically mentions domain industry experience:
“10+ years’ experience in Channel Services or Marketing within the domain name industry”
In addition to domain industry experience, the section covering knowledge and abilities also mentions the domain name industry:
Nike posted a job opening related to domain names, and I thought it could be of interest to someone with domain industry experience. The job title is Domain Specialist, and it looks like the position will be based out of the company’s corporate office in Beaverton, Oregon.
One of the many job qualifications specifically mentions domain name experience. I presume someone who has been in the domain industry, particularly as an investor and portfolio manager, would have this expertise that most others do not have:
“In-depth knowledge of the domain industry and experience managing a domain name portfolio consisting of a wide variety of registrations”
There are many more qualification requirements for this position that go beyond domain industry expertise. In fact, it would appear that the domain industry experience may be more easy to learn than some of the other qualifications. For instance, the company specifically mentions being a paralegal or working with domain names for a Fortune 500 company as another qualification. I presume Nike was not
According to a press release that just hit the wires, Web.com acquired Tucows’ ownership stake in NameJet. With this acquisition, I believe that the auction platform is now solely owned by Web.com.
As you may recall, NameJet was initially a partnership between eNom and Network Solutions. The platform was owned by Demand Media, which owned eNom, and Web.com, which owned Network Solutions. Tucows acquired eNom in early 2017, and with its acquisition of the registrar, it also acquired a stake in NameJet.
My quick thought is that this will be good news for NameJet and its users. I presume that having two different publicly traded companies own NameJet could have been difficult to get things done. This should help streamline things for NameJet leadership, and hopefully it means Web.com will continue to invest in the platform. I am sure there are plenty of improvements that could be made, and having one owner should help in that regard.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the eNom expiry stream now that Tucows doesn’t have an ownership stake in the NameJet auction business. I believe Tucows has been sending its expired domain names to auction at GoDaddy Auctions. I think the majority of domain names I win on NameJet are registered at eNom, so that will be something to watch.
I am sure there is more to come….
The press release is below:
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