You don’t always see startup founders discussing how much they spent to acquire their domain name and why they felt it was necessary to do so.
Will Nitze, Founder of IQBAR, shared that his company acquired its brand match IQBAR.com domain name for $26,250. This was an upgrade from the call to action EatIQBAR.com domain name it had used since inception. IQBar.com was created in 2007, and it appears to have been owned by a business that owns many domain names.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT service has really taken off in the last several months. With its growth, third party companies and developers have been creating plugins within the ChatGPT platform offering various types of information and services.
GoDaddy recently launched its ChatGPT plugin called GoDaddy Name Search, and anyone can use the free tool to search for domain name ideas. Unlike visiting GoDaddy’s website to search for domain names, users can type in a descriptive idea for their business, and the plugin will return domain name suggestions based on availability. Users can click through on the domain names they like to hand register them via GoDaddy’s website.
Mr. Beast is one of the most popular YouTube personalities. In fact, I’m probably not in his target audience, but I find myself watching his viral videos from time to time. My kids and their friends also love watching Mr. Beast.
Mr. Beast’s newest video on YouTube caught my attention because of an in-video advertorial related to domain names. Mr. Beast switched the domain name extension for his merchandise shop from a .com domain name to a .store domain name. Mr. Beast’s store moved from ShopMrBeast.com to MrBeast.Store.
In looking at the historical Whois records at DomainTools, I can see the same company that owns ShopMrBeast.com has owned MrBeast.Store since at least 2019. The domain name was created in 2017, but it was registered under Whois privacy until 2019.
In the description section of the video, it is clear this is a promotion. It says, “Go buy my merch at https://mrbeast.store and if you’re looking to set up an online store, it should be on a .Store domain. Thanks for sponsoring this video!” I assume this is a paid promotion from Radix, the operator of the .Store domain registry. Not only does it seem like a solid ad buy from the registry, but I am sure Mr. Beast’s domain extension change will bring quite a bit of exposure to .Store domain names.
The video is embedded below, starting at the point he discusses the domain name change:
When I read that all Dan.com BIN listings will be added to GoDaddy’s Afternic network, I didn’t see much of a downside for domain sellers. It means there’s more exposure for domain names for sale than what is received now. At second glance, this listing migration could pose an issue for many sellers, and at the least for me, will be a bit of a time suck.
I have never been great at deleting stale (old and no longer valid) listings from marketplaces. Up until last year, I didn’t use Sedo much, so Afternic and Dan.com were the only marketplaces where I had domain names listed with BIN prices. When I sold a name at Dan.com or in private, I would immediately delete the listing from Afternic.
When I sold a name at Afternic, I would remove it from Dan.com when I could remember to do that. My thinking was that nobody would find the Dan.com listing since the nameservers would change after it sold and it would redirect elsewhere. Since people generally find my Dan.com landing pages via direct nav, it wouldn’t be likely that anyone would see the names I had sold.
Abdu Tarabichi emailed me a link to the Domain Days Dubai event website. Domain Days Dubai is scheduled to be held November 1-2, 2023 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Marriott Resort Palm Jumeirah will play host to the two day domain industry event.
The general agenda outline was posted already, with individual panelists and keynotes to be added in at some point. While the primary focus of the event is domain names, I can see there are panels related to blockchain, web3, and digital assets. I know of a few domain investors who spend a considerable amount of time in Dubai, and I believe Dubai is known as a hub for the digital asset space.
According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, The Liverpool Football Club and Athletic Grounds Limited is the complainant in a UDRP filing against the FSGBumSniffer.gay domain name. The complaint is WIPO Case D2023-2814, and no, even though I am an Arsenal supporter, this article is not a prank.
