Beginning this Wednesday and continuing after, I will be introducing a new category to my blog called “5 With…” Each post in this category will be a 5 question interview with a respected person in the Internet and Domain Investment business. These short interviews, which should take about 5 minutes each to read, will hopefully give some insight into the people we frequently see making headlines. I hope they are informative, revealing, and fun!
Bank Launches .mobi Website
In one of the first examples of a large company utilizing (and actually marketing) the .mobi extension, Bank of America launched bofa.mobi. The Bank is heavily promoting this with a retail merchandising campaign, including bofa.mobi window decals in their large branches in Manhattan.
I think this is a positive development for the .mobi extension, as the Bank could have simply used their standard domain name and detected the type of browser the visitor was using. They could have also gone to market with the domain name and only used it for protective purposes, so consumers or other companies couldn’t use the name. A heavy endorsement of this website is a positive sign for the staying power of .mobi.
I have one security concern with this, and I hope the Bank is mindful of it. What if someone set up a malicious website on a similar domain name that only had two lines asking for an account number and password? Since we are talking about mobile devices with small screens, unknowing consumers could accidentally submit their banking information, unaware that this wasn’t the Bank’s website. It’s one thing if someone did this with typos of the full Bank of America name and/or used the Bank’s logos, as that would be a federal offense. My concern is if they weren’t this sophisticated.
Bank of America needs to do a very good job of training their customers about what to look for on the bofa.mobi site so they know if they accidentally navigate to another website in error. They should also buy as many .mobi typos similar to their bofa.mobi domain name, so nobody has the opportunity to set up a malicious website.
I don’t have much of a stake in the .mobi extension with only two .mobi names in my portfolio, but I believe this is a good endorsement from a major corporation.
NameJet Launches, Partners with Net Sol
NameJet, which launched yesterday, is a new company entering the competitive deleting domain acquisition area of the domain business. In a partnership with Network Solutions, NameJet will be responsible for acquiring and auctioning Network Solutions’ deleting domain names. According to TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington,
“NSI, exercising a change in control termination clause, notified Snapnames/Oversee today that they were terminating their agreement and simultaneously launched Namejet with a rival registrar eNom (eNom is owned by Demand Media).” – Source: TechCrunch
This development was reported on Jay Westerdahl’s blog on October 1st. His report included information about a trademark application made by Network Solutions for NameJet.
It looks like starting the Snapnames Seller Program was a smart move for Snapnames, but I hope they don’t lose their active bidder audience, which is the reason I personally listed many names with Snap. So far, I have had success with the program, and I must say their customer service is fantastic.
Hunting for Gems at SnapNames
Even though it can be a lot of work to search through names to order at Snapnames, it is definitely worth the effort. I recently won an auction for VideoCameraWorld.com for about $110. I was only bidding against one other person, so apparently this name either slipped by everyone else and I found a gem, or other people don’t think this name is as valuable as I do. Some recent –Wold.com sales as report by DNSalePrice.com include:
PerfectWorld.com – $30,000
NudeWorld.com – $23,530
DesignerWorld.com – $21,000
WineWorld.com – $20,000
I know VideoCameraWorld.com isn’t worth as much as those gems, but I believe it is worth much more than $110. Keep on looking through Snapnames – its worth the effort! This is one of the most fun aspects of the domain investment industry.
Follow-Up on USPS FakeChecks.org Campaign
Yesterday I blogged about the USPS’ new anti-scam campaign directing people to FakeChecks.org. The whole point of my post wasn’t to criticize the Postal Service – I think the campaign is smart and the message is good. However, I believe there is a good chance many viewers will end up on the wrong website, not owned by the USPS.
A perfect example can be found on the KETV 3 website, a Santa Barbara news station. Directly from their website:
“According to the US Postal Service, scam victims lose $3,500 on average and are often responsible to repay banks for the money lost. The Post Service met with officials and residents to issue warnings and give tips on how you can avoid being scammed. The US Postal Service and Postal Inspection Service have set up a website at www.fakechecks.com so you can report fraudulent activity.”
Whether we like it or not, many people automatically assume a domain name is a .com no matter what the extension is. This confusion could potentially lead people to the wrong website, as can be seen by this inadvertant news article.