iEstates.com

Francois Carrillo the man behind Domaining.com and other sites in the domain industry just launched a new domain name registrar, DONA.com which is offering what its calling “UDRP Insurance” with every registration, plus is contributing 30% of all profits to the Internet Commerce Association (ICA).

Here is what Francois had to say about the new registrar:

“As you know each day, we are hit by more and more abusive UDRPs from people that try to steal our names.
“It costs a lot of money to defend our assets and I am afraid as more people become aware of this ugly method to get domains, this plague dramatically grows.”

“This is why I am pleased to announce that we’ll offer “UDRP INSURANCE” to everybody registering domains at DONA.com!”

“If you are hit by an UDRP:

- You will get free legal assistance to estimate your winning chances.

- A list of attorneys offering special rates to our members.

- And if you won the UDRP, we’ll reimburse you the legal fees spent to defend you!

This way you no longer have to be afraid about this plague. If you register your domain in good faith, you should no longer spend money defending against domain hijackers.

I am also proud to announce that 30% of the profit generated by DONA.com will be reversed to the Internet Commerce Association (ICA) who defend the domain industry interest at ICANN and Washington.

So when you register names at DONA.com, you are also indirectly contributing to have laws changes to our advantage.

We really need to have our voice heard to influence ICANN and governments to change rules and better defend our rights. It’s
critical and urgent that we unite and have a strong association to defend us. Without big changes things can only get worse, much worse…

Our rates are not the cheapest but are very competitive, watch here and compare with your registrar.”"

The registrar is a Enom.com reseller, with .com rates of $11.15.…

According to an email just sent out by the organizers of the TRAFFIC conference, after a several year absence, the TRAFFIC conference is returning to Las Vegas.

The conference will be held right after the Memorial Day Weekend 2013.

This time the conference is being held at one of our favorite hotels the Bellagio Hotel.

Sounds like a great choice of dates and venue and we are already looking forward to it.…

Sedo  announced the results of its Q1 2012 Domain Market Study.

During the first quarter, Sedo powered more than 10,000 domain transactions accounting for $19.6 Million in sales.

The number of Buy Now sales surpassed offer-counter offer sales for the first time, becoming the most popular type of transaction.

IDNX, the first standardized pricing index for the domain market, reached record highs in March 2012 after five months of consecutive growth. This suggests that the domain market has rebounded from the slump of 2011, and when compared to other standard economic indicators it suggests a market that is well-positioned for future growth, with the potential for additional record highs during the remainder of 2012.

“The results of this quarter’s domain market study are extremely promising. With the highest sales numbers we’ve seen since early 2011, this year may have the potential to become the strongest for the domain market in quite some time,” said Liesbeth Mack-de Boer, CSO of Sedo. “Sedo is continuing to invest heavily in extending the global reach of our marketplace, and looking forward to the availability of new gTLDs in 2013. We are confident that we will continue to connect even more domain buyers and sellers in the coming year.”

Highlights of Sedo’s Q1 2012 Domain Market Study include:

– Q1 2012 had the highest sales volume since Q2 2011, with 10,133 transactions taking place on Sedo’s domain marketplace.

– Sales value also increased during Q1, accounting for the highest sales value since Q2 2011: a total of $19,641,153.

– .com remained the most frequently sold TLD, with 45% of the market, while .de ranked a distant second place, with 16% of all sales.

– For the first time ever, Buy Now sales accounted for 39% of all transactions, more than the traditionally higher offer-counter offer sales, which now account for 34%.

– Top sales for the quarter included kboing.com at $150,000, and sol.com at EUR98,000.

– IDNX shows an increase of +4.2%, which exceeds the more modest upswing for share prices in the IT and technology sectors. In spite of this, the growth correlates to other economic indices, proving that domain prices are at an all-time high without being inflated…

Allthingsd.com is reporting that Demand Media, Inc. (DMD) turned down $1.2 Billion dollars in a deal that would have taken the company private this past week.

The current market cap of Demand Media is $620 Million at the closing share price on Friday of around $7.25 a share.  Demand is off 65% of its market cap when it went public at $17 a share.

“According to the report,  “Demand Media was deep into discussions with a private equity firm to complete a deal that would have taken the online content company private for almost double its current value.”

“But Demand abandoned the effort this past week… due to a number of challenges, including complications related to its financing and the ability to retain executives in its aftermath.”

Demand Media is one of the largest company’s in the domain name space and of course owns Enom.com the world’s second largest domain registrar.

Its a interesting story and you should check it out here.

 …

According to a press release today, Sedo, announced that Bloomberg and Reuters have added IDNX, the industry’s leading domain price index, to the financial markets covered on their respective Web sites.

“”IDNX provides critical insight into the current market value of domains, domain industry trends, and the risk-return ratio of domains as a financial asset. Using real estate economic methodology to index more than 200,000 domain transactions since 2006, IDNX exhibits strong correlation with broader economic indicators, substantiating the long-held assumption that domains are as much an economic asset as real estate, stocks or shares.”

““It is gratifying to see people realize that domains are a valid investment option,” said Thies Lindenthal, the MIT researcher and economist who created IDNX and serves as Product Manager for Pricing at Sedo.com. “Internet entrepreneurs and domain industry professionals have long recognized fluctuations in domain value that parallel the economy as a whole, but unlike most other markets, these changes were not being tracked. IDNX provides the insight needed to make educated investment decisions. I am thrilled that Wall Street is taking the virtual investment space seriously, and that they are looking to the domain market for insight.”

Cnet.comjust published a feature story all about the Mann, Mike Mann.

The story entitled “Meet the ‘Mann’ who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours” recounts how Mike Mann started in the domain business, built and sold BuyDomains and now seems to have done it all over again with  DomainMarket.com.

Some of the more interesting parts from the story for me were:

Mike Mann still owns 15% of NameMedia.  I thought Mike had sold his entire interest in BuyDomains.com to NameMedia.  I might be the only person that didn’t know Mike owed such a large part of the company, but I didn’t.

Mike Mann quote: “I want to own the world.”  priceless

Mike Mann Quote: “We have a filter, but I’m the world’s most efficient human filter for this for of thing,” said Mann, true to form. “I don’t think anyone can read huge lists of domain names as quickly as I can and understand what they’re reading. I’m a pattern reader. It’s a huge pain in the ass, but it’s what I do for a living.”

In the two years since his non-compete with NameMedia expired, Mike has registered 400,000 domains or about 6x the number of domains its taken me 15 years to get.

Paul Sloan write the article for Cnet.com

Paul of course has written the the most widely covered stories in mainstream publications on the domain industry including the feature story on Kevin Ham for Business 2.0. and the story that propelled the whole domain industry featuring Frank Schilling into the spotlight, Masters of Their Domain.

You should check out the full story at Cnet.com.

We here at TheDomains.com have nominated Mike several times for the Domain Hall of Fame award and still believe that he should have been one of the first 5 inductees.  Mike is one of those love him or hate him guys with a strong personality, but his success in the domain industry cannot be denied and its still a story in progress.

Congrats

 …

I’ve been following Mike Mann’s Facebook page where yesterday he said he wound  up registering almost 11,000 domain names.

The Facebook post started off by saying that Mike registered 4,793 domain names, at the next update the number of registrations hit 6,640 and by the end of yesterday Mike had registered “almost 11,000 domains”

The 11,000 domain names were compiled from an ongoing list of domain names he has been working on for a while:

“Almost 11,000 names registered Tuesday from pending list I had built up.”

For Mike who has been in the business since the 1990′s,  it was a personal one day record for the most number of domains registered in one day.

All of Mike Mann domain names including the ones registered yesterday are on DomainMarket.com

 …

Donald Trump, Anthony Robbins and the CEO/Founder of Protrada are all going to be appearing on stage at the National Achievers Congress 2012 in San Jose.

Protrada CEO and Founder Troy Rushton will be headlining the domain name investing session of the three day conference starting April 10^th and concluding April 12^th to an audience of around 8,000.

“This is the beginning of a program being rolled out by Protrada to take domain name investing to a new mass audience of qualified investors across the entire spectrum of asset classes from real estate to options trading.”

According to a press release by the company.

The focus of Troy’s presentation will surround the myriad of benefits domain name trading offers investors; the ease of using Protrada as the primary platform for domain buying, selling, management and development as well as teaching the tactics and strategies employed by the most successful domain name traders.

“”Troy will be presenting a program which has been a collaboration of many key influencers in the domaining space including; Morgan Linton (morganlinton.com), Adam Dicker (DNForum), Paul Nicks (Go Daddy), Braden Pollock (Legal Brand Marketing), Paul Goldstone (igoldrush.com), Shane Cultra (domainshane.com) and many more. They have all played an important role in providing content, ideas and commentary for this seminal presentation.”

“Introducing domaining to a new audience will greatly benefit the industry as a whole,” said Troy Rushton, CEO and founder of Protrada. “Every time I attend industry conferences, domainers tell me the greatest barrier to industry growth is a lack of liquidity which would be remedied by new investors. We have an opportunity to help solve that problem for the benefit of all stakeholders and that’s exactly what I’ll be doing at NAC 2012 in San Jose.”

A small number of tickets to the event are still available in both the General and VIP areas. Diamond Tickets are strictly limited as purchasers enjoy extraordinary benefits including lunch each day of the Congress with Messrs Trump, Robbins and Kiyosaki and a special ‘Power Talk’ Q&A session with ‘The Donald’. For more information about the National Achievers Congress 2012, speaker lineup, venue details and ticket sales click here: www.nac2012.com…

TechCrunch is reporting that “social networking companies myYearbook and Quepasa which merged last year will rebrand as MeetMe.

“Starting in July, the myYearbook website, smartphone apps, tablet apps, and mobile website will all be rebranded as MeetMe.”

The company itself, currently called Quepasa Corporation, will be renamed MeetMe, and it plans to change its stock ticker symbol (it’s traded on NYSE Amex) from QPSA to MEET sometime this summer.”

QPSA has a current market value of over $159 million.

“In September, the article goes on to say that the company plans to finish internationalizing myYearbook/MeetMe into Spanish and Portuguese, and that site will be replace the existing Quepasa product.

At the time, we announced the sale of $450K for meet.me some were skeptical, others thought the price was ridiculously high other thought we just made it up.

However at the time I said, “In actuality the buyer got a great deal.”

And now you see they did.

The domain afforded them to protect and own the entire space of the re-branded company, its apps, its stock system its identity, or as the CEO of MyYearbook Geoff Cook is quoted as saying in the article:

“Having a single brand just makes it much easier to talk about the aims of the company,”

“It should help with word-of-mouth, and also give MeetMe a single name for its continued international expansion. The name even performed well in test ad campaigns that the company ran earlier.”

Like a said, the buyer got a great deal.

This is the power of an intuitive domain.

Congrats to the buyers.

 …

A couple of weeks ago we published a press release from DomainHoldings.com about their Monitization Decision Engine (MDE).  At the time DH promised they would be releasing a case study to back up their claims.

Today DomainHoldings.com released details a the results of a 30 day test on its “DomainPower Montization Decision Engine (MDE)” comparing it to a pure PPC provider on almost 10,000 domain names.

According to DH the revenue of the total portfolio of about 10K domains, increased 46% after 7 days and 91% after 30 days.

Here are the details;

“”The following Case Study illustrates the methodology and test results of a 9,873 domain portfolio, known as Portfolio X, utilizing Tier 1 PPC advertisers vs. using DomainPower Montization Decision Engine (MDE) technology over a 30-day period. Over the course of the 30-day test, Portfolio X saw a 91% revenue increase as a result of switching to the MDE.

Meet Portfolio X

Portfolio X consisted of 9,873 domains spread across more than 40 different categories with traffic from 137 different countries. Prior to the MDE launch, all domains were pointed to landing pages monetized through a “Tier 1″ PPC upstream provider (illustrated below).

Portfolio X Category Composition

As the pie chart below illustrates, Portfolio X had an even category composition, with domains across all major verticals. Among categories in “Other” are: Kids, Vehicles, International, Government, Art and Food.

Portfolio X Traffic By Country

U.S. Based traffic accounted for slightly more than 55% of all traffic to Portfolio X.

Introduction to Monetization Decision Engine (MDE)

The MDE technology allows domains and traffic to be clustered by similar attributes and routed to external partners. Revenue from partners is measured until the MDE identifies the rotation with the highest yield.

The hypothesis was that the MDE would offer higher revenue almost immediately due to prior optimization of the clusters and revenue would continue to increase as a result of continuous optimization.

Monetization Partners

Portfolio X’s traffic was routed amongst 31 total DomainPower monetization partners, whose methods ranged from PPC to CPA to zero-click.

Test Results

For this study, Portfolio X’s 9,873 domains were  switched to the MDE on January 10. Results were measured over the course of three different intervals. The red represents the trailing revenue over pre-MDE date ranges. The blue represents post-MDE revenue over the same number of days. There is a two-day gap between periods to account for DNS propagation.…