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Grocery chain wins first .XXX UDRP case

(February 8, 2012)

HEB gets HEB.xxx. HEB Grocery Company, headquartered in San Antonio, is the first complainant to win a uniform domain name dispute resolution (UDRP) case for a .xxx domain name. Atlanta resident Eric Gonzales registered the domain name after he claims to have contacted the grocery chain to see if they were going to register it. [...]

2012 Domain Name Wire Survey…the results are in

(February 8, 2012)

A look at who took this year’s survey. Domain Name Wire’s 7th annual domain name industry survey has concluded with over 1,500 participants. I’m busy collating and analyzing the results, which will be posted on Domain Name Wire throughout the month of February. Here are data about the participants in this year’s survey: 1,593 survey [...]

.Kyoto top level domain in the works

(February 7, 2012)

.Kyoto may join .Tokyo as top level domain. It appears that .kyoto may be one of the location specific top level domains that will hit the web in coming years. The announcement is in Japanese and all translations I’ve seen are rather jumbled, but it appears that GMO Registry is behind the effort. [Update: I've [...]

Best Buy promotes “phone freedom” in Super Bowl, but not new domain name

(February 6, 2012)

Company protected brand with domain purchase but doesn’t use it yet. Best Buy’s Super Bowl commercial yesterday promotes what Best Buy calls “Phone Freedom”, although it doesn’t call it that by name in the ad. But it helps explain why the company paid $2,588 to buy PhoneFreedom.com last month. I received an email promotion from [...]

How Twitter was named and bought Twitter.com for $7,500

(February 2, 2012)

Biz Stone discusses the naming of his company. Today at DOMAINfest in Santa Monica, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone talked about how they named the company and bought the domain for $7,500. Stone and his co-founders wanted a name that showed “urgency”. They came up with Jitter, but thought that sounded negative. One of his partners [...]

Tucows launches Ting mobile phone service

(February 2, 2012)

Tucows branches out, enters mobile phone business. Tucows, which owns one of the world’s largest domain registrars, officially launched mobile phone service Ting today. In a press release, Tucows CEO Elliot Noss said: “What people are forced to put up with from mobile service providers just doesn’t make sense. It’s too complicated, too opaque, too [...]

KeyDrive acquires Moniker and SnapNames

(February 1, 2012)

Oversee.net sells off domain marketplace, expiring domain, and registrar companies. KeyDrive, which owns domain name registrar Key-Systems as well as NameDrive, has acquired SnapNames and Moniker from Oversee.net. Combined, KeyDrive says it is now the sixth largest ICANN accredited registrar. Rumors about the acquisition have been swirling around DOMAINfest this week. KeyDrive has now updated [...]

Last chance to take 2012 Domain Name Wire survey

(January 31, 2012)

12 hours left to take this year’s domain industry survey. Time is running out to take the seventh annual Domain Name Wire survey. The survey, which asks users to answer questions about domain name registrars, domain parking, and expired domains, concludes January 31. Results will be published in February. Participants from 47 countries have already [...]

Another new TLD application round within one year?

(January 31, 2012)

ICANN wants to open another new TLD application round early next year. Is this plausible? A lot of companies are applying for dot brand top level domains not because they want to right now, but because they think it might be their only chance. At least for the foreseeable future. But is this the case? [...]

Amazon.com’s Quidsi about to launch home decor shop Casa.com

(January 27, 2012)

Casa.com is next online store from Amazon.com’s Quidsi unit. Mi casa su casa… Earlier this month I scooped that Quidsi, the company behind Diapers.com, Soap.com, Wag.com, and YoYo.com, was working on a new store called Casa.com. Quidsi has now published a “coming soon” page to Casa.com and launched a Facebook page. The site will offer [...]

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