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Sunday Update

Elliot Silver
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Today is a straight up lazy football watching day. If I do anything but watch football and maybe answer some emails, I will be a bit disappointed in myself. Here are some Sunday updates.

– The Chocolate Show I went to was not what I expected. I hate waiting in line for anything, but I ended up waiting in line for 45 minutes to get in (wouldn’t have waited if my wife wasn’t there). It was crowded inside and was not really much of a tradeshow. I didn’t even mention my domain name to anyone.

– So far so good on DomainQuestions.com. Lots of traffic producing good questions and answers. I need to work on some spam issues though… I have been deleting them as I see them though but it’s annoying to deal with. If you have any questions, comments, bugs, or any feedback about the site, please let me know.

– It might not be that smart of me considering this is what I do for a living, but I don’t really follow the activities of ICANN. George Kirikos of Leap of Faith Financial Services does follow ICANN closely, and he provided some comments on the DAGv5, which was supposedly the final version. All I can say is what a clusterf**k this seems to have become.

– I heard Andrew’s Austin Domainer meetup was a lot of fun. Wish I could have been there, but maybe next year.

– With TRAFFIC San Francisco and Domain Roundtable in Nassau happening in March, I think many people will have to choose one or the other. If you’ve thought about it, which conference are you more likely to attend?

Fox Rothschild Website Needs WWW Redirect

Elliot Silver
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The father of one of my best friends was featured in a newspaper article this morning about being a state powerbroker. A couple of years ago at a dinner, I told him he  should own his exact match domain name, so I bought it on his behalf and forwarded it to his attorney profile at Fox Rothschild, one of the nation’s best known law firms.

After reading today’s article, I wanted to make sure that his domain name was still forwarding correctly, and I was perplexed (and slightly embarrassed) when I saw that the domain name forwarded to an error page.  The domain name had previously resolved to his profile, but that was no longer the case this morning.

I did some checking, and it turns out that at some point in time Fox Rothschild stopped redirecting its WWW traffic to the website. Instead of a redirect if visitors forgot the www or if someone linked to the site sans www, all traffic that doesn’t have www goes to an error page that says “The page cannot be displayed Explanation: There is a problem with the page you are trying to reach and it cannot be displayed.”

This is a common error for webmasters, and it’s something we all need to think about when developing our websites. I already added the www to the domain forward, so his domain name resolves correctly now.  Hopefully someone from Fox Rothschild will fix this error ASAP. Time to check on your websites to make sure you’ve got it covered.

Overstock International to Rebrand as O.CO

Elliot Silver
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OverstockI was speaking with a friend on the phone after my post about FB.CO, and it was mentioned that Overstock has indicated that the company will rebrand its International websites as O.CO. There is a small reference “soon to be O.co” below its logo.  At the present time, O.CO forwards to the Overstock website.

I think this could be very big for the .CO Registry, domain registrars selling .CO domain names, domain investors who have .CO domain names, and companies who have built websites on .CO domain names. The key to any TLD’s success is consumer awareness and that comes most rapidly when large brands actually use the extension rather than have it simply be a forwarder or other form of brand protection.

If Overstock actually “uses” O.CO and doesn’t just forward O.CO to something like Overstock.com/international, this will be very big news since Overstock is one of the more popular brands online.

I’ve mentioned this a number of times, but as a disclaimer my company owns a grand total of 6 .CO domain names (Bahamas.CO, cmm.CO, Elliot.CO, Torah.CO, Another.CO, and Beeb.CO), and .CO has been an advertiser.

Could FB.CO be The Next Facebook Domain Name Acquisition Confirmation?

Elliot Silver
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Facebook .CO Domain Registry

Earlier this afternoon, I speculated that FB.com could possibly be used by Facebook for the expected launch of the Facebook mail client/platform next week.  About an hour ago, Andrew Allemann published an article that confirmed Facebook was the buyer of FB.com after a Whois update.

I am now going to take a guess that Facebook may have acquired or worked out a deal for  FB.CO from the .CO Registry. This is more of guess than was the FB.com purchase since the Whois still maintains the default “Restricted and Reserved names .COInternet”, but here’s why I am speculating:

If you visit FB.CO right now, you’ll see a MediaTemple server default page. If you visit many other 2 letter .CO domain names, they don’t resolve to anything. Strange that this appears to be pending set up but the other names don’t have any DNS settings at all.

Just before the O.CO acquisition for $350,00 by Overstock was announced, I had been looking at one letter .CO domain names to see if I noticed anything. As I recall, the e.CO domain name had a page announcing the upcoming auction, but just about every other domain name didn’t resolve… except for O.CO.  That name had a Media Temple server default page.

So… will Facebook or the .CO Registry have an announcement about FB.CO on Monday?  If Facebook did acquire FB.CO in addition to FB.com, did they do it for protective measures or to do something different?  Monday is going to be a very interesting day,

Could Facebook Launch a Mail Service on FB.com? ** Updated **

Elliot Silver
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Facebook.At the end of September, I wrote an article speculating that perhaps Facebook purchased FB.com in private. There hasn’t been any public acknowledgement about whether the company bought it or not (or who may have bought it if Facebook didn’t), and the domain name still does not resolve.  See update below.

Multiple websites are reporting that Facebook will be holding an invite-only event in San Francisco on Monday, November 15th, and it is expected they will announce a new email system or platform that Techcrunch has dubbed “Facebook’s Gmail Killer.” According to the folks at Techcrunch, this project has been referred to internally as “Project Titan.”

This is pure speculation, but it would be pretty neat if they launched this mail service on FB.com (if they own this domain name now confirmed that Facebook owns it). Assuming it is a mail service they intend to launch on Monday, they could also use another name like FacebookMail.com (which they already own), or they could just tie it in with Facebook.com.

In my opinion, launching a mail service on FB.com would be a great idea. I am sure there are still plenty of people who still think Facebook is just for social networking, despite the company’s growth and evolution. By using FB.com, they could somewhat disassociate from the Facebook brand, which could make a mail service @FB.com look more professional and serious. I think it would look strange to receive a job application from someone emailing me from Facebook, perhaps somewhat unprofessional in my opinion.

Google moved away from the Google name when it started its GMail platform, and I think it would be a smart idea for Facebook to use FB.com for mail, if they did in fact acquire the domain name.

**8:45pm Update**

As Andrew pointed out within the last hour, the Whois information for FB.com has changed, and Facebook is now listed as the owner (see screenshot below).  Additionally, FB.com is now forwarding to Facebook.com.


Domain Name Implications as Company Fights Over New Hampshire Geographical Trademark: Mount Washington

Elliot Silver
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Mount Washington in New Hampshire

I grew up in southern New Hampshire and I skied in NH’s White Mountains many times, so this story was interesting for business and personal reasons. It’s also something that Dark Blue Sea should note because of a domain name in its portfolio.

According to ABC television affiliate WMUR, it looks like the owner of the Mt. Washington Hotel (a landmark hotel in the region) is fighting to prevent other lodging businesses from using the term, “Mount Washington.” The interesting aspect of this is that there is a mountain called Mount Washington where the hotels are located, hence the geographical descriptor.

If you live on the East Coast, you’ve probably seen the bumper stickers that say, “This car has climbed Mt. Washington,” and that’s the term that is being battled for right now (specifically related to lodging according to the article).

One reason this is interesting from a domain standpoint is that the company could come after seemingly generic domain names like MountWashingtonHotels.com, which happens to be owned by DBS subsidiary Protopixel.

Although Mt. Washington isn’t that big, imagine if a hotel/resort named the  the Las Vegas Resort or the Europe Spa tried to trademark those regional terms with regards to lodging. High value domain names like LasVegasHotels.com or EuropeVacations.com could conceivably come under pressure from the trademark owner if they were permitted to do so.

This may be a big leap, but if a precedent is set legally, I am sure others will attempt to follow suit. It’s just some food for thought.

Photo: Flickr

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