New gTLD Archives - Page 69 of 95

Steve Banfield Interviewed on SocalTECH

Elliot Silver

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May 2, 2014

Steve Banfield is the SVP and GM of Registrar Services at Rightside, and in that role, he works closely with eNom and Name.com, as well as resellers such as Namecheap. Although Rightside is a new company, it was created with the domain name services arm of Demand Media, and it is in the process of being completely spun off from DMD.

Steve Banfield is in a fairly unique position within the domain industry, as he is intimately familiar with new gTLD registry operations as well as registrar operations. Rightside has applied for and will be managing several new gTLD extensions via its Rightside Registry arm, and it owns domain name registrars and manages domain name resellers. Off the top of my head, I can only think of one other person (Frank Schilling) that is as intimately involved with both registry and registrar operations.

With all that said, I think an interview with Steve Banfield that was posted today on SocalTECH.com is well worth a read, specifically for people who are involved in the business of domain investing. Some of the topics Banfield discusses in the interview include:

Name Administration Parked Lander Promoting New gTLDs

Elliot Silver

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April 29, 2014

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I stumbled across an interesting landing page that I want to share with you. KidsActivities.com is a domain name owned by Frank Schilling’s Name Administration. It had previously been parked with traditional pay per click revenue generating links as well as an orange “for sale” call out at the top of the landing page. Right now, it’s almost completely different.

In place of the PPC links, Schilling has put a call to action to encourage visitors to search for domain names ending in a new gTLD extension. The main message on the page says, “KidsActivities.com This name is taken in .com, but it may be available in other extensions.” Below this message is a search bar to search for available extensions at Uniregistry, the domain registrar owned by Frank Schilling. On the top of the landing page, there is a message announcing it’s for sale, but it’s much less of a call out than the standard orange bar found on most other DNS-parked landing pages.

I reached out to Schilling to inquire about the new landing page, and he was kind enough to share some more details. “We are trying many different implementations to see what works best,” Schilling told me. “Some of these names will

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NameJet Auction 20 .Dance Domain Names

Elliot Silver

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April 24, 2014

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Dot Dance NameJet is teaming up with the .Dance Registry to auction 20 premium reserved .Dance domain names. Although I am not into dance or dancing (as my wife can attest), it looks like a few of the best .Dance combos will be up for auction.

In my opinion, the three most relevant .Dance domain names in this auction include:

Line.Dance (Never done it)
Swing.Dance (Tried it once at Rustler’s Roost when I was a kid)
Pole.Dance (Vaguely heard of it)

The minimum bid for each auction is $69, and the auction page says “each of the domains are priced with low reserves and will sell.” You can place your backorder for the domain names at any time, and the auctions will close in a little more than three weeks from now. The renewal prices are reported as “around $60-80, depending the registrar.”

It seems that many (perhaps most) new gTLD domain registries are protecting their top tier domain names and not making them available for people to hand register. This is probably smart on the part of the domain registries, and it makes auctions like these more interesting because domain investors are able to see what values the domain names have in the secondary market.

.Club Explains Landrush in Infographic

Elliot Silver

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April 23, 2014

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If you’re like me, you may have been a bit confused when you first heard about what a “domain landrush” is. I have to assume that most people in the general public don’t have any idea what a domain landrush is, and I think domain registrars could probably do a better job explaining what the term means. For example, it doesn’t seem like registrars are using the “landrush” terminology in favor of calling it “pre-registration.”

For those of you who still don’t know what a domain landrush is, I want to share this infographic from the .Club Registry that explains how the domain landrush process works. Some new gTLD extensions will run landrush in a different way, especially as it relates to running auctions for domain names that have more than one applicant (.Club is working with Sedo to run these private auctions).

The .Club landrush concludes on May 1, when .Club domain names become available to hand register on a first come, first served basis.

5kCP7

New gTLDs: Any Purchase Inquiries Yet?

Elliot Silver

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April 22, 2014

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I know the new gTLD domain names haven’t been available for that long, but I am curious if you’ve had any end user buyer inquiries for any of them yet. Although end user inquiries would obviously be more desirable than inquiries from other domain investors, I think any inquiry would be a good sign.

I still only own four new gTLD domain names, although I will probably only purchase a few more in the short term. I plan on only hand registering the domain names I do purchase as opposed to paying a premium for them via the registry or through the aftermarket.

Since buying these domain names, I received

Saturday Updates!

Elliot Silver

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April 19, 2014

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We are taking our daughter to her first Red Sox game of the season today. I didn’t really like it when the Red Sox introduced Wally the Green Monster as a team mascot, but it makes me smile every time Hailey yells out “Wally!” when she sees him on tv. If you are celebrating Easter, I hope you have a great holiday and are spending it with friends and family. The Spring is coming!

Here are some weekend updates:

Speaking of Easter, holiday weekends can be good times for domain investors to
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