Domain Industry News

Houston.com: Donate to the American Red Cross

It is sad to see the devastation in Houston, Texas in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. People living in the fourth most populated city in the United States are facing serious problems as flooding has spread throughout the area, causing catastrophic property damage and loss of life.

In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, the owner of Houston.com (Domain Capital) is doing what it can to help the American Red Cross raise critical funds for victims of the hurricane. If you visit Houston.com, you can see a message letting people know how they can help those in need in Houston:

Help those affected by Hurricane Harvey.

Visit www.redcross.org, call 1-800-RED CROSS or text HARVEY to 90999 to make a $10 donation

I am sure Houston.com is receiving a considerable bump in traffic from people who are either looking to read news or updates about the city of Houston or from people who are looking to help those in need. It is good to see a company use a domain name like this to help others.

Whoisology Announces New Features

Users of Whoisology will be happy to learn about some new features the company recently rolled out. Subscribers to Whoisology’s newsletter received an update this evening announcing the additions they can expect to see.

Here are the highlights of the new features:

Bulk Whois – “lets you download the whois details of up to 5000 domains at once. You can download from the current archive or any of our past archives going back to 2012. The domain & email reports start at $5 per 1000 domains.

Search result filters

Twentieth Century Fox Hiring Domain Name Manager

Twentieth Century Fox posted a job opening on LinkedIn that might be of interest to someone with domain industry experience. The company is looking to hire a Domain Name Manager. The listing says that domain industry experience and ICANN knowledge is preferred but not required, so this might be the perfect job opportunity for someone with experience in the business of domain names.

Here are some of the listed responsibilities for the person who is hired for this position:

Fully Responsible for the day-to-day domain registration and ongoing management of the corporate domain portfolio.
Follow through from registration process through invoicing for all domains and business portfolios.
Translates approved objectives into work plans and procedures; enforces applicable policies and recommends procedural changes if sees fit.
Clearly documents and communicates workflow or system changes to the rest of the team and to our vendors.
Creates a review plan for the business owners to audit their domain portfolio and understand their digital business strategy.
Interacts with peers, attorneys, business managers, and vendors on a daily basis in order to share information and improve cross-departmental processes.
Ensures the ongoing training of client requests and process improvement on the domain process and system.

The person hired for this position will work out of the 20th Century Fox offices in the

Efty Hits 1 Million Milestone

Efty announced a milestone on Twitter this morning: the one millionth domain name was recently added to its platform. The person whose domain name was the millionth name won a free year of Efty. The software company was founded by Doron Vermaat and Lionel Petitaux in 2013, and Domain Sherpa’s Michael Cyger invested in the company in 2015.

Efty offers domain investors a variety of landing pages they can use to sell domain names. There are several different creative options, and users have the ability to choose a “make offer” landing page or a landing page with a “buy it now” option. The company also offers

DNDisputes.com a UDRP Monitoring Tool

I think it is important for domain investors to follow UDRP proceedings. Not only can it keep investors abreast of current UDRP filings, but reading decisions can give insight into how panelists make their decisions. I am a regular user and fan of UDRPSearch.com, and I just learned about another UDRP tracking and monitoring tool: DNDisputes.com. I don’t think there can be too many tools tracking UDRP filings and decisions.

The team from DNDisputes.com emailed me last week to introduce themselves. I believe I visited their website during the brief time UDRPSearch.com was down a month ago, but I did not use it enough to become familiar with it. In response to their introductory email, I asked them a few questions about their website, and I want to share what they had to say in response to my questions.

As an industry writer, I especially think the tracking and statistics section are helpful. I also think it can be helpful for people whose domain names are subject of a UDRP, especially if they plan to handle the response on their own (I don’t particularly think it is the best idea to not use a lawyer when a valuable domain name is subject of a UDRP though).

Do you track all UDRP providers?

Mike Mann Seeking Investment Capital

Mike Mann posted a tweet on Twitter yesterday that seems to imply he is seeking investment capital for his domain name business:

People who follow Mike on Twitter know that he regularly reports high dollar domain name sales. Yesterday, for example, he shared that he sold GeorgiaBride.com for $24,888, a domain name he acquired for $20 at the end of 1999. While sales with huge returns like these are great, the cost to run a business with hundreds of thousands of domain names must be quite high.

I believe Mike’s company owns hundreds of thousands of domain names (DomainMarket.com says it has 288,839 domain names listed for sale). I have to think that the renewal fees are into the seven figures each year. I would also imagine Mike is actively buying new domain names to bolster his company’s inventory, and that is also expensive.

Even though Mike reports

Recent Posts

.Com Doesn’t Matter in Some Countries

0
If you've been fortunate to spend time traveling to other countries, you'll quickly learn that .com is less important to businesses in some countries....

Saw.com Announces $100 Million in Domain Name Deals

1
The Saw.com domain name sales brokerage and sales platform announced a milestone this morning. The company surpassed $100,000,000 in domain name deals. I presume...

That Company May Cease to Exist

1
I received a strong offer on one of my one word .com domain names last week. I declined, but in the process of doing...

Auction Platforms Shouldn’t Benefit from Default Bidders

13
If the winning bidder for a domain name auction does not pay and the auction platform offers the domain name to the next highest...

LTO is Betting on the Buyer and the Platform

2
When you agree to a lease-to-own (LTO) domain name deal, you’re making two bets: one on the buyer’s ability and willingness to complete the...