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.

It’s that time of the year again! For people and companies in the US (LLCs for example), estimated taxes are due quarterly. Because the typical September 15 due date falls on a weekend this year, Q3 estimated taxes are due  to be postmarked on Monday, September 17, 2012.

I don’t love writing checks to the US and NY governments, but it sure beats not having to pay taxes!

If you haven’t sent your third quarter estimated taxes in yet, now is the time to do it.

The following is a guest post from Dynadot, a domain registrar that is celebrating its 10 year anniversary with a big sale. The company made a large donation  to help support my fundraising effort for the  Ronald McDonald House. If you could make a donation in any amount, it would be greatly appreciated!

Back in 2002 Dynadot’s founder Todd Han was looking for a domain name and found himself dissatisfied with the control panels of major registrars at the time. So he decided to start his own registrar and on September 3, 2002 Dynadot was officially incorporated.

For the first three years, Todd ran Dynadot from his home, writing the software, keeping the books, and doing customer service. In 2005 he hired his first employee and since then he has built a dynamic team of diverse and quirky people that support Dynadot and its customers everyday.

Flash forward to 2012 and Todd and the entire team here at Dynadot are so excited to be celebrating our 10 year anniversary! If you ask Todd to look back on the last 10 years, the moment that stuck out as one of his happiest was the first order that was Dynadot ever received. According to Todd, he was “so excited [he was] jumping up and down in [his] home office.” The order was only $7.99, but it meant everything to Todd.

That moment is the inspiration behind our anniversary sale. For the entire month of September, we are rolling back our prices to 2002 levels – or $7.99 for new 1 year registrations and transfers for .COM, .NET, & .ORG. We hope you will celebrate with us by taking advantage of our special pricing before it expires at the end of the month, 9/30/12 23:59 PDT.

Now check out our interview with Todd Han about the past 10 years in the industry and what he sees coming in the next 10 years.

What registration trends have you seen in the past 10 years?

Sometimes running a business in the domain industry feels like riding a roller coaster. There have been booms and busts. Companies have come and gone. Entire business models have appeared then disappeared. Through the last 10 years, we have focused on our core business of domain name registration. We have emerged from the turmoil with a loyal customer base and excellent financials. Whatever challenges the future brings, we are well positioned to meet them.

What do you predict for the next 10 years?

Domain names will increase in importance, displacing phone numbers, mailing addresses, and Facebook handles as the dominant addressing scheme. Before deciding on a name for their child, new parents will check to see if the matching domain name is available. The aftermarket will continue to grow as businesses realize that a good domain name is the best advertising investment they can make.

What do you think about the new proposed gTLDs?

I suspect most of the new gTLDs will struggle. Establishing a new TLD in the public consciousness takes huge amounts of money and time. Running out of good names in .COM does not really lead to spillover into other TLDs. It leads to increased aftermarket activity and more creative naming inside .COM. That said I would love to see a new gTLD give .COM some competition. And of course we will offer all the new gTLDs on our website.

If you want to see more from our interview with Todd, visit Dynadot’s blog and don’t forget to get your .COM, .NET, or .ORG domain for our special anniversary sale price while you’re there!

Here is the link to Dynadot’s anniversary blog post.

Without looking at the Whois (unless you’ve already done that) guess who owns the EmptyChair.com domain name.

If you guessed Mike Berkens, you’d be right. If you guessed that he was watching Clint Eastwood’s speech at the Republican Convention and immediately jumped on to his computer to hand register it, you’d be wrong. Mike’s company has owned EmptyChair.com since at least 2005, according to the Whois history tool.

It seems that the “empty chair” phrase is catching on and has become a hot trend. Apparently, some people put out empty chairs on their lawns yesterday as a sign of frustration at the jobless rate. A union leader apparently threw an empty chair after pretending to speak to Clint Eastwood in the chair.

In any case, if you want to purchase EmptyChair.com, you are in luck. According to the landing page, which does not have any PPC links on it, you can now buy the domain name.

“The hottest political term coming out of the Republican National Convention is now available for immediate purchase!

This domain is priced at $50,000.“

It’s serendipitous when you own the domain name of a hot trend. Hope Mike makes a nice sale.

Let’s say you have a great idea for a website, and now you need to buy a domain name. Just how do you go about doing that? Let’s take a look at what you need to know when you want to buy a domain name.

Where to buy domain names:

Domain names are sold by companies called domain registrars. These are companies that are licensed by ICANN, the governing body that regulates each top-level domain (TLD). You may have seen advertising for domain registrar companies such as