About a week ago, I was driving in my car listening to Kiss 108, the Boston-area radio station that plays the most popular music hits. I recognized but couldn’t place the singer’s voice, and as I continued on the drive, I realized it was Rob Grant’s daughter, Lana Del Rey.

It turns out that Lana’s song, Summertime Sadness, is one of the most popular songs in the world right now. Billboard ranks it at #15 and rising on its Billboard Hot 100 chart. Summertime Sadness is ranking higher than songs by Macklemore (Can’t Hold Us, #18), Justin Timberlake (Mirrors, #20), and even One Direction (Best Song Ever, #21).

It’s been fun following along with Lana Del Rey’s career, and hopefully her hit will continue to rise on the charts.

I would guess that more money from the domain industry flows through Escrow.com than just about any other company (Google, Yahoo and similar giants aside). In addition to its domain business, Escrow.com is also the recommended escrow service of Ebay, Cars.com, and other companies whose customers have large transaction. The company continues to grow, and several months ago, the company announced that it had surpassed $1.5 billion in secured transactions.

Despite this milestone and these endorsements, I think Escrow.com remains relatively unknown. I often do business with people who haven’t used Escrow.com before, but based on the company’s reputation, they don’t hesitate to create an account and transact. Being able to advertise in a Super Bowl commercial would certainly change this.

Escrow.com is participating in a

Back in April, I wrote about the Dynadot scholarship contest, and five finalists have been chosen. The winner of the contest will  receive a $2,500 college scholarship.

Two of the finalists may be names you recognize because they are both domain investors: Jacob Fedosky and Brian Diener, both of whom also operate blogs that cover the domain name industry. In 2011, Brian was the winner of a prestigious $10,000 college scholarship awarded by Go Daddy. Brian attends Emory University and Jacob attends Texas Tech University.

Here’s how you can help one of the finalists win the $2,500 scholarship for college:

Check out their blog scholarship entries and select your favorite to win! One vote per person and don’t forget to share your vote and help out these great students! Voting ends August 31, 2013 23:59 PDT.

You can read more about the Dynadot scholarship contest and vote for a winner on the contest homepage within the Dynadot website. As you can see, voting is open until the end of the month, and people are allowed to vote once.

Good luck to the finalists!

Marchex is a publicly traded company that owns many great domain names, and the company is pursuing a big change in its organization. According to a note on the Marchex website, “Marchex is pursuing the separation of our business into two distinct entities to increase strategic focus, build on our unique assets and accelerate growth. Upon closing of the transaction, Marchex will be divided into: (1) Marchex, a pure play mobile advertising company focused on calls, and (2) Archeo, a premium domain and advertising marketplace.”

A domain marketplace was recently launched in beta on ArcheoDomains.com. Although I don’t know the extent to which the marketplace is being advertised (if at all), if you visit a Marchex-owned domain name like Georgetown.com, you’ll see a note in the top corner that says “This domain may be for sale. Click here for more information.” Clicking the link will take you to

One of the best ways to read “unfiltered” domain industry news and to learn about industry developments is to follow the blogs of various companies in the industry. Some companies promote and share their blogs more than others, and that means there’s plenty of information and insight that isn’t  dissected  or distributed on domain blogs or forums on a regular basis.

Listed below are companies in the domain industry of various sizes that operate corporate blogs. Some of these blogs are completely focused on promoting special offers and deals, and others offer insight into how their products can be used by clients. A number of these blogs aren’t specifically related to domain names, but they might be of interest nonetheless.

Domaining.com does a great job of listing domain industry blogs, so I didn’t include any of them in the list below. If I missed a blog, I invite you to share it in the comment section.

Domain Brokers / Domain Brokerages: