Yours truly finds this of interest because of my firsthand knowledge regarding the Holiday Inn domain name fiasco. George Yerich Sr. - who bought the Skylon Tower that my father financed, built and formerly co-owned, registered the HolidayInn.com domain name back in 1995. Eleven long years later in 2006, Holiday Inn finally bought its own domain name after it was forced to pay Yerich $3 million to get it.
Cisco.com domain name about to expire soon | NetworkWorld.com Community
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We thank, Juan Enrique Sánchez, President of NameAction.com for the following explanation on the roll out of the new .MX (Mexico) country code domain.Pre-Registration Period:Only those who have registered the domain under .COM.MX, .NET.MX, .ORG.MX, .EDU.MX, or .GOB.MX before MARCH 1ST 2009.Example: If you have registered store.com.mx you will be able to register store.mx
Steps to Register a .MX (Mexico) Domain
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ICANN is on track to open up the top-level domain (TLD) system later this year to any number of ad-hoc extensions like .great or even .exe. A new report from the World Intellectual Property Organization brings to light yet again the pitfalls of ICANN’s plan, as cybersquatting complaints rose to their highest level ever in 2008—before anyone could buy google.stinks.
ICANN: cybersquatting complaints soar to highest level ever - Ars Technica
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Google is wading into behavioral ad targeting in a big way today. It will start placing cookies on consumer’s browsers to collect information about their interests whenever they visit sites that show AdSense contextual ads. Then it will show ads targeted to those interests to the same person as he or she browses the Web on other sites that also serve AdSense ads (which is a large portion of all commercial sites).
Since Google already knows what each site or page is about, it will use this information to place each user in one of 600 subcategories of interest. If you visit tech blogs often, you are probably interested in technology. If you visit Trulia, you are probably in the market for real estate. Through AdSense, Google can now target ads not only based on the context of the page you are on, but also based on the context of the pages you have visited in the past, even if you are on a site that is completely unrelated. For instance, as a completely hypothetical example, it might show you a real estate ad targeted to the towns you were searching on Trulia when you visit a gadget blog.
Google Now Lets You Target Ads At Yourself
Advertising
How much is the word “toys” worth on the Internet? Hundreds? Thousands?
Try millions of dollars.In a close bidding war, Toys ‘R’ Us last week bought the domain name Toys.com at auction for $5.1 million, placing it among the top 10 most expensive domain names on record.
And industry watchers say that it was probably a bargain.
ABC News: The Top 10 Most Expensive Domain Names
Sales
Ask Sponsored Listings, a division of Ask.com (itself a subsidiary to IAC) has acquired Sendori, a startup that introduced interesting advertising exchange technology about two years ago that enabled advertisers to purchase direct navigation traffic generated by top tier domain names, bypassing PPC advertising providers like Google and Yahoo when it comes to monetizing parked domains.
Sendori developed the technology, dubbed PureLeads and patent-pending, to enable both search advertisers and domain owners to benefit from typed-in domain traffic based on the highest auction bids. With rates for PPC (Pay-per-click) dramatically dropping the past few months, Sendori was quickly becoming a nice alternative for domain name owners who traditionally looked no further than the usual suspects offering PPC advertising deals.
IAC’s Ask.com Acquires Domain Name Monetizer Sendori
Advertising
The keywords of the Oxford 3000 have been carefully selected by a group of language experts and experienced teachers as the words which should receive priority in vocabulary study because of their importance and usefulness.
Oxford University Press | The Oxford 3000™
Words
Here are the top 10 stories on Domain Name Wire for the year ranked by number of views.
1. Standard Tactics, LLC: How GoDaddy Profits from Expired Domains - This expose on Go Daddy resulted in a phone conversation with the company’s CEO…and the closure of a questionable subsidiary.
2. Seinfeld Isn’t Laughing about JerrySeinfeld.com - Not a huge story to domainers, but apparently entertainment buffs got a big kick out of it over at Fark.
3. Expired Domain Services Let Employees Bid Against Customers - Another story that got results. Go Daddy instituted a new rule forbidding employees from bidding on its expired domain auctions. Most other company’s have strict rules against this.
4. Network Solutions Faces PR Nightmare Over Domain FrontRunning - Go Daddy wasn’t the only registrar to face controversy this year. Network Solutions’ ill advised “customer protection measure” didn’t sit well with the internet community.
5. Yahoo Kills Domain Arbitrage: Fallout for Google, Others - A number of people quit their jobs after they discovered domain parking arbitrage. Yahoo sent them back to work in February.
6. Dell: “We’re F’d” - Computer maker Dell registered some unsavory names this year. Call it brand protection.
7. Google Lets Advertisers Opt Out of Domain Parking Sites - After lots of pressure, Google began letting advertisers opt-out of having their ads show up on parked pages. A lot of advertisers report that such ads don’t work well for them; I’ve found the opposite to be true.
8. Domain Scam: US Copyright Registry - another scam targeting domain name owners.
9. Editorial: Where Network Solutions Went Wrong - my commentary on Network Solutions’ “customer service protection measure”.
10. Google Offers Domain Parking Direct to Publishers - just this month Google turned the domain industry on its head by offering domain parking services directly to Google Adsense clients.
Domain Name Wire - The Domain Industry’s News Source
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It may appear that NameMedia’s decision last week to to drop its planned initial public offering is just a temporary setback. Aside from the costs of filing its S-1 to go public, going on the investor roadshow, and obliging quite period regulations, did it really cost the company anything? The answer is yes. And it’s not the time, money, or decreased morale that hurts the most. It’s the disclosure.
Domain Name Wire » News » The Perils of Trying to Go Public - The Domain Industry’s News Source
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Schilling’s Name Administration tests new parking templates.Mike Cohen of WannaDevelop.com has made some interesting observations about Frank Schilling’s parked domains. It seems that Schilling is testing some new designs.
Domain Name Wire » News » Frank Schilling Tests New Domain Parking Templates - The Domain Industry’s News Source
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