Tony sent me a photo of this billboard he passed in Puerto Rico. As you can see, it seems to be advertising a website on a .WS domain name, but I can’t tell which website it is.

I looked at Wink.ws, Smile.ws, Laugh.ws, Love.ws, and a few others, and it doesn’t look to me like it is advertising any of those. I suppose I could be wrong though.

What .WS website do you think this billboard is advertising?

Update: Looks like this is a Coca-Cola advertising campaign. Apparently, there are a variety of Emoji characters involved, and they forward to Coca-Cola’s Puerto Rico website. AdWeek has more details about the Coke ad campaign.

I have not sold many numeric domain names, but I have witnessed the rise in values of numeric domain names during the last few years. I believe much of the rise in value of these domain names has been fueled by Chinese investment in that sector.

Mitch Watkins from TLD Registry emailed me this afternoon to share some information about the Chinese Domaining Masterclass that is being offered at NamesCon. One of the sessions that was just announced is called All About Chinese Numeric Domains, and for people interested in numeric domain names, this is a good session to attend.

Here’s what this session entails:

People from around the world read my blog, and I am sure that everyone has special Christmas traditions they share with their families and friends. I read about Morgan’s special Christmas celebration, and it sounds like he and Daina had a great day. I am curious how you spent Christmas and what your special Christmas traditions are.

Yesterday, I spent the day with my wife and daughter, and we made a big breakfast, watched a couple of kid-friendly movies, and capped the day with a big sushi dinner. Christmas is one of the few days it seems like nobody does any work, and I didn’t really do any work either.

Since today tends to be a slow day, I invite you to share some of your Christmas traditions. I hope you had a special Christmas!

There have been quite a few notable financial .com domain names sold in the past few years for large sums of money. I understand there have been  other private deals that aren’t included among the public sales, and there have also been several large deals that involved underlying businesses.  For instance, MutualFunds.com and MutualFund.com were recently acquired  for an undisclosed price.

Some of the recent (past 5 years) notable (and public) financial .com domain name sales include the following:

• Invest.com – $5,000,000 (unconfirmed)
• Investing.com – $2,450,000
• PersonalLoans.com – $1,000,000
• ReverseMortgages.com – $600,000
• Finances.com – $500,000
• Dollars.com – 381,150
• Payment.com $250,000
• Consolidation.com – $220,000

In my article about the reported sale of Invest.com for $5 million, someone asked

Bidz.com was once a thriving online jewelery retailer. I know a couple of people who were regular customers of Bidz.com, although I don’t think I  was ever a customer of the company. According to jewelery industry website JCK, Bidz.com “was second only to Blue Nile in the jewelry e-tail space and regularly recorded more than $100 million in annual sales.”

Earlier this year, the company ceased operations, and it was announced that the company’s assets would be liquidated. The  National Jeweler  publication has additional details about the reasons for the company’s liquidation.

Hilco Streambank has been retained to sell  (pdf)  the Bidz.com brands, trademarks, domain names, and other intangible assets. The company has set a