NameTalent.com – Domain Name Publication – Consulting, Brokerage and Domains for Sale

Patrick and Morgan Talk Live with Jonathan Johnson, President of Overstock.com

July 29th, 2010

Mike Law

I tuned yesterday to WebMasterRadio.fm for the Domain Masters show and I was surprised to hear they had the President of Overstock.com on for an interview about the acquisition of O.co! Recently Overstock purchased the domain in a $350,000 cash deal. Mr. Johnson said that Overstock was not yet very clear on the direction they are going to take O.co. Currently, the domain simply re-directs to Overstock.com. Johnson implied the main reason that O.co was purchased was for brand protection as opposed to their recent acquisition of O.biz which is currently it’s own standalone site that deals bulk and small business products. Understandably, Mr. Johnson seemed a little uncomfortable and maybe unprepared answering questions about how the price of O.co was determined, if they will be going after any other single letter “O” extensions in the future and how much they may be willing to pay.

Congrats to Chef Patrick and co-host Morgan Linton in landing this huge guest caller on the show. Kudos also to Mr. Jonathan Johnson for being open to talking to our industry representatives in a live show format! Morgan asked a great question to Mr. Johnson about product domain names and whether Johnson believes or practices owning product specific domain names and re-directing them to product pages within Overstock.com. We didn’t get the answer we were looking for as domainers. Johnson, CEO of one of the biggest online retailers said he does not find value in owning or redirecting ‘product domains’ (besides the obvious uber premium type) for redirection. Patrick and Morgan had a few other good questions that Johnson did a good job of answering the best he could, to hear the entire show find the podcast at the Domain Masters homepage on WebmasterRadio.fm.

I am definitely glad to have attended the show live, it’s always fun to see who’s in the chatroom and the hosts always encourage interaction, even taking live phone calls! Not sure who the big guest will be next week on Domain Masters radio, maybe Rick S.

.CO Discussion with Lori Anne Wardi on WebMasterRadio.fm

July 21st, 2010

Mike Law

I tuned into the show just in time today to catch Patrick and Morgan interviewing Lori Anne Wardi, Director of the .CO Registry. I thought the discussion was very interesting. I’m just going to jot down some mental notes (paragraph below) I took during the show.

…According to Lori Anne, an “unprecedented amount of money” was spent promoting the .co extension in comparison to other new extensions. Although I tuned in late, I didn’t hear anyone mention Colombia or typosquatting in the discussion. Lori Anne actually doesn’t believe this is the proper extension for investing for resale and she firmly believes that registrants of .co domains will be developing their new coveted domains. O.co sold for $350,000. Lori Anne is a spectacular sales person! She had a well crafted response to almost any question and molded her answer into a pitch for why .co is so awesome. One of her heaviest pitches for .co was something like this.. “It’s time to own the domain you have always wanted”. There’s a twitter campaign behind this pitch @dotco using #pigsfly. Morgan kind of supported this angle by mentioning his girlfriend was so excited to secure the buzzword of her industry in .co. Morgan also caught a nice percentage of his backorders, eight new .co domains (I think). Chef Patrick revealed he did register one .co and also stated later on firmly, “I’m a .com guy”

Before today I really haven’t publicly stated my position on the whole .co landrush. That’s mostly because it doesn’t mean much to me. I agree with Lori Anne Wardi that .co is better suited for development (or re-direction IMO) than for investing in. I bought zero .co domains. I looked up a few yesterday to see if I could score a couple great generics but ones I tried were taken, probably pre-ordered months ago. I think the only type of .co domains that a domainer would want are typos of companies whose sites generate alot of traffic… I’m just not much of a typo domainer. 250,00 registrations in the first day is impressive. I am afraid we could break the record of most domains dropped in one day next year. I think too many investors are registering these just to have them in their portfolio.

This was the first time I joined in a Domain Masters show on WebmasterRadio.fm and I really enjoyed it! The chat integration is a nice feature. I look forward to tuning in more often.

** IN Case you were not aware, my site was hacked yesterday and there was a phishing scam implemented on a page of my site I did not know about, as a result a person became enraged and started impersonating me on several domain blogs and related sites using my email address and name to post profane and derogatory comments on others sites. I now have this all cleared up, read my blog post from yesterday. I just wanted to keep everyone aware of what’s going on.

Bloggers – Warning: Impersonator Using My Email Address to Spam Derogatory Comments

July 20th, 2010

Mike Law

[edit 7/21] Thanks to some help from a commenter here in this post, I realized my site had been hacked and someone setup a phishing scam on the following webpages I did not know about: http://nametalent.com/www.steampowered.com and http://nametalent.com/Account-Steam.php. I contacted my webhost and had them remove these pages, and root out any other scripts, etc that these hackers may have implemented. The phishing pages were on my website for less than 24 hours. As a result of all this, there is a man who’s steam account was hacked from by logging into his account from my site (I think). This is the person who is illegally impersonating me and created this mess with my email address. He’s upset at me and still (as of 10 minutes ago when I received his last email) believes I set up the phishing scam. Well since I am not responding to this impersonator via email maybe he’ll read it here..I’m sorry you got your steam account phished by visiting a page that hackers set up on my site.

— original post —

Someone is using my email address (mike at nametalent.com) to leave derogatory and profane comments on domain industry blogs like DomainNameWire.com, ChefPatrick.com, DotSauce.com and several others. Several bloggers have contacted me to tip me off about this impersonator already, thank you. If I am an active commenter on your blog and can auto-comment please check your recent comments for really obvious, stupid, profane comments and delete them. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, this is not something I have dealt with and I don’t know why this person would have beef with me.

I have received an email letter from this person telling me that he thinks I hack “Steam accounts” and he’s going to turn me in… I have no idea what this means..?? Steam accounts? Below is the email letter sent from: michaellaw@live.fr the IP address is: 78.240.4.95 which resolves to: Country: France State/Region: Bourgogne City: Tonnerre Latitude: 47.85 Longitude: 3.9667.

Hello guy,

I know who you are … I’m giving your name and identification informations to Steam …

You’re nothing but a xxxx. You try hacking Steam accounts but your method looks so stupid …

I xxxx you and I xxxx you mother. I’ll use your name everywhere I will be able to, also giving the name of your web site, in order to ridiculize you.

[line remove, all insults]

Now, don’t try to answer, I don’t care about this mailing adress, I won’t read the messages you could send here. I will only use it to send messages =)

Just remember, I’m gonna use my free time to usurp your identity just like you do with honnest people.

You are a sh*t I will enjoy crushing everytime I will get the opportunity. And I sincerely hope you will be in trouble with justice.

This is the only time I contact you. Now I act x)

Bye little xxxxx ! Hahahahaha

Any advice in dealing with this kind of impersonator would be appreciated. Also, anyone know what he might be talking about hacking steam accounts??

[edit] I guess when he says ‘Steam’ accounts he’s referring to: http://store.steampowered.com/

Keywords Hot at Sedo & Clitoris.com Sells for $24,000

July 16th, 2010

Mike Law

Sedo market activity page shows lots of great keyword sales across a wide range of extensions over the last couple weeks. Representing sales in this list are com, eu, co.uk, de, se, net, info, fr, us, tv, biz and org extensions. I’m especially impressed by the PocketBook.eu sale, also I thought Translate.us was a good deal for both buyer and seller. Keep an eye out for those keywords! …This just in, Clitoris.com sells for $24,000 at Sedo.

clitoris.com 24,000 USD

laptops.se 7500 EUR

imaginar.com 3500 USD ‘Imagine in Spanish’

haushaltsauflösungen.de 12,500 EUR —> German for ‘clear out’ or ‘close out’ as I interpret it

freecasino.co.uk 6463 USD

airtickets.pl 4500 EUR

premiumdomains.net 7500 USD

naturalfacelift.com 13,000 USD

everest.fr 17,500 EUR —> I knew as soon as I saw the sale, POKER. Everest Poker is one of the biggest sponsors for this year’s WSOP going on right now.

iclinic.net 3250 USD

plusreisen.de 5950 EUR —> German for ‘travel plus’

gentleman.info 2000 EUR

dailydeal.co.uk 5000 GBP

falcon.co.uk 6075 GBP

giftemporium.com 5000 USD —>Sorry, this is a brandable domain I snuck in here to advertise my CashEmporium.com for sale, only $3k

stairlifts.us 500 USD

barbecue.org 3500 USD

onlinetraining.org 2250 USD

translate.us 3300 USD

pocketbook.eu 9500 EUR

pornlive.com 10,000 USD

ingenieur.biz 1000 USD

autohaus.tv 1000 USD

Friday Notes and Thoughts

July 9th, 2010

Mike Law

* I was finally able to tune into the only live domaining TV show online at MorganLinton.tv last night. I quickly signed up for a ustream.tv account so that I could participate. The Lightning Round and Spotlight Your Site segments of the show are fun, informative and interactive. During the lightning round Morgan evaluates the potential of domain names from a development standpoint. I participated in the Spotlight Your Site segment and submitted a couple of my minisites for Morgan to tear to shreds. Just kidding, he gave really good tips and I have already implemented a few of his suggestions and look forward to looking into other options he suggested for my sites. Overall, it was a very informative show, well worth tuning in for. I hope it stays on Thursdays.. turns out that time works great for me!

* Another domain industry mobile app was released this week! I’ve been calling for more apps in our industry in a couple of my recent blog posts. DomainTools.com released an app, but there’s no Android version yet. Hope it’s coming soon!

* Congrats to Aron Meystedt for his recent sale of SZ.com for $125,000 as reported on DNJournal. Looks like end user Shenzen Online purchased the name.

* Finally, here are my thoughts on the .CO landrush we are about to witness. To me it looks like another money grab, I wouldn’t waste my time backordering names at this point if you haven’t already. For $275 a whack, just doesn’t seem worth it, only HUGE typos will return your $275 thru ppc in a years time. I’m pretty sure I won’t be investing in .co domain names and I wouldn’t advise any new domainers to run towards this extension just because it’s so similar to the .com. Colombia must have a pretty good deal with the registries, I didn’t think they sold anything cheap.

I’m Going to WordCamp Boulder 2010 Tomorrow!

July 9th, 2010

Mike Law

I’ve decided to check out a WordPress developers conference in Boulder tomorrow called WordCamp Boulder 2010. Boulder is a beautiful city at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and will only be a 40 minute drive from my location in SE Denver.

After looking at the schedule, I couldn’t resist purchasing the $25 ticket online and clearing out my schedule for tomorrow. There are lots of great sessions to choose from, one that sounds really interesting is the DIY Usability Testing: No More Excuses! by Steve Martin. In the morning I am planning to go to the Blog Community, SEO Techniques and WordPress Development courses.

I am happy to see Name.com (based out of Denver) is a sponsor of WordCamp Boulder this year. I actually found out about the conference through Name’s marketing efforts. Social hour is 3pm at Boulder Theater, I’ll be there doing some networking. This could be good timing because I am just launching a Denver Business Network on a WP platform. Sounds like it’s going to be a great learning experience, I’ll do a writeup on the show Sunday or Monday. There are seven more WordCamp conferences worldwide before fall in case it sounds like something you would like to attend.

Flights.us Sells For $11,770

July 8th, 2010

Mike Law

The Moniker/Snapnames auction did see some late bidding. Flights.us is the top sale in the auction followed by AirlineTickets.us and CreditReport.us. Unofficial sales from the auction twenty nine total .us domains sold.

Flights.us $11,770
AirlineTickets.us $3,600
CreditReports.us 3,600
Physics.us $2,915
Gadgets.us $2,050
DaySpas.us $1,756
DebtConsolidation.us $1,600
VegasHotels.us $1,551
Therapists.us $1,280
PersonalLoans.us $1,265
Detox.us $1,230
Carpenter.us $1,180
Now.us $1,050
Upgrade.us $890
Recalls.us $605
Scooters.us $600
LuxuryHotels.us $590
Eagle.us $480
Abs.us $400
Giant.us $375
Login.us $325
Amo.us $325
SpamBlocker.us $325
CollegeEducation.us $300
HeatingandAir.us $300
Seat.us $300
WeightLossPills.us $300
WirelessPrinters.us $300
FluShots.us $300

https://www.snapnames.com/store/extended.action#store;storeName=extended

Examining the Moniker/Snapnames .US Auction

July 6th, 2010

Mike Law

4th of July is over and I hope you enjoyed yours as much as I did. Mine was spent in the backyard at home with my wonderful girlfriend and our families. We had lots of BBQ, soda, water balloons and a slip n slide (back is a little sore from the slip n slide, they forgot to tell me I’m almost 30 ). We watched a fireworks show too, even though the rain put a little damper on that.

Well, the Moniker/Snapnames live .US auction is taking place right now and I thought you should know about it, see auction.

Lately, there has been lots of heated discussion on blogs/forums about .US and it’s presence, usage and value in the United States. Today, I want to take note of some of the pricing differences between recent .com sales and current bids on domains in the Moniker/Snap .US auction. To start off, I see that Therapists.us has a bid of $1,230. Therapists.com was sold in May by Moniker/Oversee for $50,000. This means that if the auction for Therapists.us closed today it would have fetched roughly 2% of the .com price. There are two huge .us domains in the auction without any bids yet. Candy.us and Slots.us. Combined, the .com version of these domains sold for over $8.5 million, Candy.com sold last year for $3m and Slots.com this year for $5.5m. Candy.us is priced at $14,120 which is less than .005% of what the .com sold for and Slots.us is priced about 1% of what the .com sold for at $58,830. Anyone think there will be bids on either?

Although some will claim this auction as a success.. I am telling you right now unless some real bidding goes on in the next couple of days, this auction is another flop for .US. Sure, Moniker/Snap were trying to be cool and squeeze in a .US auction right around the 4th of July. They have some excellent names in the auction, lots of which start at under $1,000. I don’t know about you but I would be quite dissapointed if I had some of these names in this auction and they sold for the starting bid, ie.. FluShots.us ($300), Missing.us ($300), Wanted.us ($300), Summit.us ($300), Intervention.us ($300). Below is the current list of .us auctions that are live with bids.

now.us	$1,100	2	2 d 3 h 37 m
abs.us	$350	2	2 d 3 h 37 m
giant.us	$400	2	2 d 3 h 37 m
scooters.us	$550	2	2 d 3 h 37 m
therapists.us	$1,230	1	2 d 3 h 37 m
airlinetickets.us	$615	1	2 d 3 h 37 m
psychics.us	$615	1	2 d 3 h 37 m
eagle.us	$505	1	2 d 3 h 37 m
recalls.us	$505	1	2 d 3 h 37 m
amo.us	$325	1	2 d 3 h 37 m
collegeeducation.us	$325	1	2 d 3 h 37 m
login.us	$325	1	2 d 3 h 37 m
weightlosspills.us	$325	1	2 d 3 h 37 m
wirelessprinters.us	$325	1

I don’t have any names in this auction but for the sellers I hope there is much more bidding near the conclusion. For the last couple years I have been a strong .us supporter and still have a handful of ‘good’ .us domain names that I would price in the $x,xxx range. Looking at the most recent .us sales and the current auction prices, it looks like now is not the time for .US investors to let go of their product.