New gTLD Archives - Page 57 of 95

Google’s .How: Huh?

Elliot Silver

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February 4, 2015

Google recently unveiled a website for its .How domain names, which can be found at Get.How. I think the website looks pretty sleek, and visitors can easily search availability for .How domain names. According to Sedo, .How went into General Availability on January 28th, and .How domain names are now available for the general public to purchase. nTLDStats.com shows just 344 registered .How domain names so far, as of February 2.

On the top menu of the Get.How website, there are a few links, including on that would seem to aim to answer the question, “What is .How?” In my opinion, I think the answer that is provided misses the mark.

Instead of explaining

.Club Reports Credit.Club on Page 1

New gTLD

Elliot Silver

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January 30, 2015

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The story about how Bruce Marler got Credit.Club is interesting, and it has been covered in a variety of news outlets, blogs, and forums. Marler already built a website on the domain name, and it appears to be doing well in Google already.

According to a tweet from .Club Registry CEO Colin Campbell, the Credit.Club website “hits first page of Google after only two weeks for term credit club.”

Howard Lefkowitz Shares Insight About His New Company

Elliot Silver

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January 27, 2015

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Howard Lefkowitz is something of an icon in Las Vegas. As the former CEO of Vegas.com, Lefkowitz has tremendous experience building and managing a great brand, and he has a massive rolodex of contacts in Las Vegas and in the travel industry.

While attending NamesCon, I had the opportunity to have dinner with Lefkowitz, and we chatted about his new company, One Degree World. To me, one of the most interesting aspects of this travel technology company is that it is in the process of launching quite a few websites on new gTLD domain names, such as Vegas.Ninja and Paris.Buzz. During the conference, it was also announce that One Degree World agreed to buy Vegas.Club for $100,000.

Following NamesCon, I was in touch with Lefkowitz and asked him several questions about his new company. Lefkowitz answered my questions, which I have shared below.

My opinion is that the new gTLD domain names need

Crain’s Covers .NYC Domain Name Auctions

New gTLD

Elliot Silver

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January 24, 2015

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Yesterday afternoon, Thornton McEnery of Crain’s New York published an article about .NYC domain names: What’s he smoking? Podiatrist foots $60K bill for marijuana.nyc. The article covered the recently concluded auctions for .NYC domain names, which grossed just under $750,000 in total sales, netting “roughly $300,000” for the government of New York City.

McEnery published a list of 1,011 domain names that went to auction. Nearly half of these domain names sold for $10, and the largest sale was Marijuana.NYC at $60,920. I don’t know if the sale price included an additional registration fee or not (for instance if a buyer who won an auction for $10 only had to pay $10 or a registration fee on top).

I took the .NYC list that was published and ran all the domain names through GoDaddy’s bulk domain checker as .com domain names to see how many of these names were unregistered in .com (MarijuanaNYC.com for example). Out of the 1,011 .NYC domain names sold at auction,

Uniregistry to Registrants: Configuration Error in Your Favor

Elliot Silver

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January 20, 2015

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I recently received an email from an upset domain investor who had at least one new gTLD domain name removed from his account after payment was already submitted. There was apparently an error that occurred somewhere along the line, and he was unable to keep the domain name(s). I’ve also read about this happening to others. It seems that when a registry or registrar makes an error, the error is corrected by way of refunding the registrant and pulling the domain name back.

According to an email that was sent to domain registrars, this is not the case with Uniregistry. As a result of a “configuration error at the registry,” domain names that were registered by registrants when they should not have been able to be registered will be retained by the current owners. Instead of refunding the buyers as they would be permitted in the terms and conditions, the company is letting its registrant keep these domain names that would have been reserved and sold for a premium price.

Some of the domain names that would have been retained by Uniregistry include the following:

Coffee.Club Promoted at NamesCon

New gTLD

Elliot Silver

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January 14, 2015

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When I arrived at the NamesCon exhibit area on Monday morning, one of the first things I noticed is that Coffee.Club and the .Club Registry are heavily promoting the Coffee.Club business. The popular coffee stand located between the registration booth and the exhibit hall now has Coffee.Club branding, and the pair of companies have been handing out passes for free cups of coffee to conference attendees (regular cost is around $4 for a large cup).

In addition to the rebranding of the coffee stand, the coffee that has been served inside the exhibition hall has Coffee.Club branding as well. Just about everyone drinking coffee at NamesCon is using a Coffee.Club cup. Because of an existing contract with a coffee provider, the coffee that is being brewed is not from Coffee.Club though.

I think this is smart marketing for two reasons.