I saw an interesting post on the Skype community message board that I want to share with you. Apparently Skype is not yet recognizing gTLD domain names that are sent amongst users via instant message.

According to this merged post  on the Skype message board that was started over a month ago and has a few comments:

“When a gTLD, such as “http://test.repair/” is linked in Skype, the link does not display as a link and others cannot click it.

To reproduce:
Try to send a message with “http://test.repair/” in it.”

I tested this using one of my new gTLD domain names, and it appears that the commenters are correct. I typed both g.holdings as well as the http version, http://g.holdings, and there was no hyperlink created. For comparison purposes, I tested this in Twitter, and a hyperlink was created for g.holdings right away.

Since the gTLD domain names have been available for quite some time already, and there are over 400,000 new domain names registered, I hope that Skype looks into this issue and rectifies it. Interestingly, as you can see from the messages in the Skype community thread, the Skype message board recognizes new gTLDs as valid urls, but it seems that the instant message aspect of Skype does not.

The .Club Registry posted the keynote speech given by Jeff Sass at DomainFest. Sass is the Chief Marketing Officer for the .Club Registry, and the topic of his keynote was “Why Brands are the Key to Your gTLD Success.” For those of you who couldn’t attend the conference, I thought you might find this interesting, especially if you are interested in marketing.

In case you are wondering, it does not come off as a sales pitch, and I found it to be interesting. At the very least, it gives you some insight from someone who is very active in the new gTLD domain name space. If you have any follow up questions after watching the keynote, I will try to get in touch with Mr. Sass and ask him to respond.

I am still hoping the Gary Vaynerchuk keynote is uploaded, and if I find it, I will share it with you.

Domain Incite and TheDomains have reported on the retrieval of some new gTLD domain names that were sold by registrars and in the accounts of domain owners. This is something that all of us should keep in the back of our minds when investing in and/or developing gTLD domain names, as I assume this is covered in the terms and conditions we agree to when registering domain names.

As someone who frequently buys domain names in private and who prefers to quickly re-sell domain acquisitions, the primary issue I thought about when I read this news is the implication of what could potentially happen if the original buyer had already flipped one of the domain names, and a domain name was retrieved from the account of an aftermarket buyer. Unless the seller refunded the buyer because of this issue, the buyer would be out of luck. In a situation like this, I would hope the seller would give a refund – I know I would without question, even though the claw back was not my fault.

Another issue is what happens in the event