Oakland Athletics Migrate to Athletics.com

Elliot Silver
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6

The Oakland Athletics baseball team announced that it will begin using the Athletics.com domain name for its website. The baseball franchise, or quite possibly Major League Baseball, purchased the Athletics.com domain name back in May of 2012, in a deal that had been reported in initially by Jamie Zoch of DotWeekly and written about further in Domain Name Wire. The purchase price of Athletics.com was not revealed.

The decision to rebrand the website from OaklandAthletics.com to Athletics.com was made to keep all of the team’s branding and social media the same. Here’s how the team announced the news today:

“In an effort to ease fan access to the official club website and, in turn, conform with most other Major League clubs’ sites, the A’s have announced “athletics.com” as their new brand domain.

The switch, from the original “oaklandathletics.com,” is effective immediately, and it “will make accessing the Athletics much easier and faster for fans,” the team said in a statement.

Moreover, the name matches that of the A’s official social media accounts, including @Athletics on Twitter.”

In 2009, just about 73% of MLB teams owned the matching team name .com domain name. Since that time, a number of teams / MLB were able to buy their .com domain name, including Athletics.com, Angels.com, Rockies.com, and Cardinals.com.  It appears that there are only a handful of teams remaining that do not own the exact match .com for their franchise website. Those team name .com domain names include: Rangers.com, Rays.com, Twins.com, and Giants.com.

Kudos to the Athletics and Major League Baseball for buying and using Athletics.com.

Bitcoin Keyword Domain Names Owned by End Users

Elliot Silver
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46

During the last several months, I’ve noticed quite a few “coin” domain names selling at various aftermarket venues like Sedo, GoDaddy, Afternic, and NameJet. Most of the names that appear to be selling seem to be of the brandable variety rather than exact match keyword domains.  I think a big reason for this is that most of the primary keyword .com names are already owned by end users.

The reason that the best exact match keyword domain names are owned by end users already is likely because Bitcoin and other crypto coin currencies have become popular during the last few years, and the domain names weren’t picked up by many speculators. In addition, because of the growth trajectory of Bitcoin, major players in the space had more money to spend to acquire aftermarket coin domain names (see BitcoinWallet.com and Bitcoins.com links below for more details about those domain names).

Some examples of exact match Bitcoin and other coin related domain names that are (or appear to be) owned by end users are listed below. Many of these domain names are already developed or are pending development:

Some examples of brandable coin domain sales that have recently sold via aftermarket domain sales venues include the domain names listed below. I don’t know if these were speculative investments made by domain investing companies or if they were purchased by end user buyers seeking to build a brand:

  • CoinShield.com (NameJet)
  • CoinEscrow.com (GoDaddy)
  • BitcoinLive.com (NameJet)
  • Bitcoin2014.com (Sedo)
  • CoinCard.com (NameJet)
  • HappyCoins.com (Afternic)
  • CoinTraders.com (Afternic)

One reason we are seeing names with the “Bitcoin” term selling is because I don’t believe there is a trademark that would allow one company or individual to use the Bitcoin keyword exclusively. Despite the Bitcoin “brand,” I don’t think there is a real trademarked brand that would prevent others from buying and using Bitcoin within their domain names.

I believe we will continue to see coin related domain names selling in the aftermarket. It will be interesting to see if sales for some of the highest value “coin” domain names, like Coins.com, Coin.com…etc. These domain names were probably originally destined for websites related to the hard currencies, but perhaps that will change.

Find Out Who Owns a Domain Name

Elliot Silver
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19

One of the most frequent questions I am asked by people who don’t invest in domain names is “how do you find out who owns a domain name?” When there’s a website, parked domain name, or any other type of landing page, finding out exactly who owns a domain name may not be that simple for someone who doesn’t have know where to look.

The answer, however, is fairly simple. The Whois database is a sort of similar to a phone directory in that it contains information about the ownership of a domain name. Whois records show the (registrant) owner’s name or company name, a contact person, phone number, postal address, email address, and some other bits of information. Although some of the information may not get you to the best person (ie the IT department at a major company), it does give information about the domain registrant.

Sometimes, a domain name is registered privately. Most domain registrars

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Louis C.K. Discusses His .Net on The Daily Show

Elliot Silver
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0

I saw a funny video this morning that I want to share with you. On The Daily Show with Jon Stewart that aired earlier this week, comedian Louis C.K. was a guest. Towards the end of his appearance, Stewart instructed people to visit Louis C.K.’s website, and he was promoting the .net version, LouisCK.net rather than LouisCK.com. At the moment, LouisCK.net forwards to LouisCK.com, and you’ll probably be amused when you hear why he is doing it.

Jon Stewart’s reaction is funny, and I think you’ll enjoy their dialog.

If you want to skip through the interview to get to the discussion about the .net and the expired LouisCK.com domain name, skip to the 6:56 mark. Otherwise, enjoy the video in its entirety.

Thanks to Adam for sharing this with me.

How My Business Model Differs from Other Domain Investors

Elliot Silver
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0

For as long as I’ve been serious about investing in domain names, I’ve learned that there are many different business models domain investment companies utilize successfully. There are differing levels of risk and reward for varying business models, and while most people employ similar models to each other, I’ve found that mine is fairly different compared to most other companies who operate in a full time capacity.

Some people seem surprised when they hear I only own a few hundred domain names. Across the five domain registrar accounts I use, my two companies probably own fewer than 400 domain names at any given time, yet I make my living as a domain investor. My domain portfolio is a fraction of the size of most other professional domainers, and I’ll share some insight into how I operate and why having a more trim portfolio is helpful to my business model.

My focus has almost always been to

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Peace Corps Domain Name Expires

Elliot Silver
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0

PeaceCorps.comIt looks like the Peace Corps has accidentally allowed one of its important domain names to expire. Although the Peace Corps uses PeaceCorps.gov for its website (and most likely it’s email addresses as well), the PeaceCorps.com domain name expired within the last week and it is pending renewal.

If a visitor goes to PeaceCorps.com right now, a Network Solutions landing page will appear, and there is a message in the top right corner stating, “peacecorps.com expired on 01/06/2014 and is pending renewal or deletion.” The organization should be able to renew the domain name to reactivate it as it was before.

Should the domain name not be renewed in the next few weeks, it will most likely be

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