This Week’s News Round Up

There was quite a bit of news that happened this week that will have an impact on domain investors in one way or another. I didn’t get a chance to write about much of it due to spending a few days in Boston with some guests, so I wanted to give a bit of a summary with links to their sources.

This isn’t going to become a regular feature of my blog, but I want to make sure you’ve seen the news. If I missed something important, please share it with me in the comment section.

– Media Options partnered with Internet Media, Pty on DNX.com, a domain name auction platform that is very different from other auction websites. DNX offers reverse auctions (also called Dutch auctions) with several features that make it more interesting. Pairing this auction format with premium inventory should make this worth watching.

– Sean Sullivan announced the launch of REParking.com, a platform that promises to help better monetize real estate and related domain names. The domain owner will “receive compensation not only for clicks, or CPC’s, but for all form leads, and live call leads that are generated. The REParking platform tracks live call leads, form leads and CPC’s on a domain level.” I don’t earn much PPC revenue from my RE domain names, so I would be interested in learning about how others find the performance of the platform.

– ICANN made a number of announcements regarding gTLD applications and gTLD strings. Domain Incite, The Domains, and Domain Name Wire all have excellent coverage of the news.

– Aftermarket.com is now offering parking to its clients. I wrote an article with much more information about the company’s parking service.

– Afternic and NameJet are teaming up on the .Buzz gTLD. Although I don’t really get .Buzz right now, I think it’s wise for gTLD applicants to have companies like NameJet and Afternic to work together to help sell their domain names. I will not be surprised to hear more agreements like this down the road.