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There are a few people in the domain industry that seem to get lots of good publicity, and Mike Mann is one of those people. This week, Forbes ran an article about Mann’s Cashless.com startup, and it’s well worth a read.

At the moment, the business has not yet launched, and the domain name is parked at Smartname. However, a major fundraising effort is under way, and Mann hopes to begin staffing the company soon.

According to the article, Mann “intends to raise $1 million in seed funding over the next three months” from friends and family. The company will launch in south Florida as a testing bed, and should it prove to be a hit, the expectation is that it will expand and further fund raising efforts will be made beyond friends and family.

Knowing Mann’s deep connections from within the domain industry, should Cashless.com be a big hit, there may be a lot of money flowing back into the domain space. Based on Mann’s track record, I wouldn’t bet against him. I don’t think the guy sleeps, and if he does, it’s next to his computer.

This will be a company to follow.

Thanks to TNT for originally sharing the article.

Dutch Boyd is more well known for being a professional poker player, but he’s also a domain name investor who has been active on NamePros and DNForum. I saw that he recently put one of his poker tournament prizes up for sale on Ebay.

According to the listing:

“Up for sale is this Men’s Bellagio Gold Poker Tournament Bracelet. It’s 14k gold, made in Italy, weighs in at 83 grams and just over 2.6 troy oz. I won this bracelet from a Bellagio NL Holdem poker tournament in 2008. I don’t believe the Bellagio awards gold bracelets for their tournaments any more, so these aren’t being made again. It’s a nice looking bracelet, but I’ve never worn it. So I’m selling it to raise some Christmas cash.”

I know next to nothing about poker, but I think it would be cool to own a little piece of poker history. According to Wikipedia, Boyd’s “total live tournament winnings exceed $1,900,000.” There are plenty of domain investors who haven’t made that much money from their domain investments.

Anyway, if you are interested in buying Boyd’s  Bellagio poker tournament bracelet, the auction ends in a little less than two days. The high bid is $2,400 and there is not a reserve price on this auction.

It’s not every day that you see a $10 million domain name expire. According to the current Whois entry and its Directnic landing page, Fund.com expired at the end of September, and it has not been renewed as of yet.

According to a report from back in 2008, Fund.com was sold for just under $10 million USD. Some people (like Andrew Allemann) questioned whether the $10 million purchase / sale was legitimate. Domaining.com lists the Fund.com sale as the second largest domain sale of all time.

If you are interested in purchasing Fund.com, the name is scheduled to goto auction on NameJet in a little under a month. There are 166 bidders so far, with a high bid of $10,000 (not an affiliate link). If it were to go to auction, I certainly would think the name would end up being the largest sale on NameJet.

Although I would think it is most likely that the domain name will be renewed by the current owners, one complication is that the Whois email on file is a @fund.com email address. With its expiration and change to Directnic DNS, I believe that emails to this inbox will no longer work.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

h/t to TLD.org who first reported it today.

It’s very likely that you already know the story of Cowboys.com. The short version is that a representative for the Dallas Cowboys allegedly won it at auction for $275,000 but thought the price was just $275 and backed out. A group of domain investors later scooped it up in the silent auction for $370,000. You can read fuller versions here, here, and  here.

Not much was done with the Cowboys.com domain name over the last several years, aside from very minimal monetization (from what I recall) and putting it up for sale via Sedo. According to a press release distributed this morning, that is changing:

“Baltimore, Maryland based Cowboys.com Group LLC is launching a western theme based website to take advantage of the fastest growing segment in online dating. The website www.Cowboys.com will be the new home for gay & straight dating people looking to find themselves a cowboy. “We are extremely excited to have decided on a direction for this property. Gay dating is a primary target for this website however, we will also serve the needs of straight daters as well,” said Darren Cleveland, President/CEO of City Advertising whom is part of the owners group.”

It’s an interesting turn of events for this domain name. I am sure that it will likely surprise some of the Dallas Cowboys fans who type in the domain name assuming it’s property of the NFL Cowboys.

The Dallas Cowboys could have owned it for $275,000, and the debacle is still one of the more head scratching things that I have seen since I’ve been involved in the domain space.