Magenta.com Acquired by Deutsche Telekom AG

Elliot Silver
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Magenta.com Whois

The largest public domain name sale reported by DNJournal last week was Magenta.com, which sold for $100,000 via DomainNameSales.com. Although I am sure it will be surpassed because it is only February, this $100k deal currently ranks as the 7th largest sale of the year on the DNJournal year to date sales report. According to DomainTools, Magenta.com is now owned by Deutsche Telekom AG.

If you visit Magenta.com right now, the domain name does not seem to resolve. I assume that is temporary because of the cost of the acquisition.

Deutsche Telekom seems to have

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My Guess on Verisign .Com Renewal Rates

Elliot Silver
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Mike Berkens reported on the Verisign earnings call yesterday. In the article,  Mike’s takeaway was this:

Bottom line Verisign expects those domain names registered in the 4th quarter, which those in the domain investor community, know consisted of a lot of numeric domain names NNNNNNNN.com going into the 8,9 and even 10 digits long, and domain names containing random letters as well as number and letter combo domain names to renew at lower levels, even saying the 4th Q of 2016 might see the number of domain “deletions could exceed additions”:

If I had to take a guess, my guess would be that the renewal rate on these .com domain investments will be higher than some people seem to anticipate.

In my opinion, most people who buy domain names as investments have a longer horizon for their investments. I don’t hand register many domain names, but when I do, I generally plan to keep them for more than one year. Hand registrations are far less expensive for me than aftermarket acquisitions, and I don’t expect to sell the right away. I would guess investments are different than purchases for other reasons, and I would imagine renewal data from Verisign is different for domain names bought as investments.

I admittedly don’t

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Choose a Baby’s Name Based on Domain Availability

Elliot Silver
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It’s a good idea to register your child’s name in a domain name if it is available. This advice is given by people within the domain name business and others, including the Wall St. Journal last year.

After Verisign tweeted the message above, I navigated to a website they operate to help

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Why I Joined the ICA Yesterday

Elliot Silver
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Yesterday afternoon, Nat Cohen explained why the Internet Commerce Association (ICA) adopted a lower tier for individual memberships. I had not attended the ICA event at NamesCon in Las Vegas, and this was the first time I had learned about the lower cost to join the ICA.

After reading Nat’s article, I signed up to join the ICA and paid the $600 membership fee.  Now that I am once again a member of the ICA, I want to share the reasons why I decided to join on behalf of my company, Top Notch Domains, LLC.

The main reason is that I think the ICA does important work on behalf of domain name owners, especially people who own portfolios of domain names. When there are issues that pose threats to domain owners, Phil Corwin, the ICA’s counsel, takes action to protect the interests of domain owners. I understand that sometimes involves lobbying and it sometimes involves spreading the news about something that could be harmful to our business. I think this is important work done on behalf of all of us, and it costs quite a bit of money to do.

I understand that a lot of people may

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As Zika Virus Spreads, People Buy Zika Domains

Elliot Silver
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The Zika virus has been in the news for the last few weeks as it spreads across the Americas. Apparently, the Zika virus can be especially bad for women who are pregnant, and the symptoms for those who aren’t pregnant seem pretty bad, too.

As news coverage of the Zika virus continues to expand, it looks like the number of domain name registrations containing “zika” are also growing.

Using Verisign’s DomainView tool, I was able to see that over 300 .com domain names containing the “zika” keyword have been registered during  the last 30 days. 25 .net domain names have also been registered in this time period. In the last 90 days, over 500 “zika” domain names were registered.

Here is a graphic of the trend from the last 30 days:

zika domains

Here is a graphic of the trend from the last 90 days:

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Rebranding is Expensive

Elliot Silver
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When I am in a negotiation to sell a domain name to a company that would use the domain name by launching a new brand or rebrand an existing business, I often think about how expensive of an endeavor it will be for the company to do so. In addition to their web related graphics, the company needs to update signage, business cards, marketing materials, shirts or uniforms, and other merchandise. This is expensive. Frankly, the domain name would likely cost a fraction of the entire rebrand, even if the domain name is expensive.

On one hand, a domain owner can make the argument in a negotiation that the company should pony up a bit more for the domain name since they are going to have to spend big bucks on the rebrand. On the other hand, reminding a decision maker about the expense of a rebrand might give them second thoughts about buying the domain name in the first place.

I think there may be a disconnect

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