DOMAINfest Ft. Lauderdale has sold a massive $2,386,550 of domains at auction.

Here are the details:

Dating.com – $1,750,000.00
BoardGames.com – $450,000.00
Therapists.com – $50,000.00
Antidepressant.com – $30,000.00
GolfResorts.com – $22,500.00
EFP.com – $9,950.00
GJ.net – $7,200.00
BJH.com – $6,500.00
Birth.net – $6,000.00
PatioTables.com – $5,500.00
Sentimental.com – $5,250.00
Taunt.com – $5,000.00
ArtAppraisal.com – $4,000.00
Vinyl.net – $4,000.00
QWZ.com – $3,850.00
CarSecurity.com – $3,500.00
LasVegasDiscounts.com – $3,500.00
UsedHybridCars.com – $3,250.00
CakeStand.com – $3,000.00
CaribbeanCruises.net – $2,500.00
DivorceRecord.com – $1,500.00
StoneFurniture.com – $1,500.00
SchoolTutors.com – $1,200.00
AAC.co.uk – $1,000.00
CherryTrees.com – $950.00
BudgetOnline.com – $900.00
SportsSites.com – $850.00
MicroManaged.com – $600.00
LateShows.com – $500.00
LowerUtilityBills.com – $500.00
Day.me – $400.00
CdCollection.com – $300.00
NYC.asia – $300.00
TaxTube.com – $300.00
PersonalBanker.net – $250.00

Congratulations Snapnames on the impressive auction line up and a great result.

I just received a note from Oversee talking about DOMAINfest Fort Lauderdale.

They have created a pre-bidding system and provided a sample of their domains (which are extremely high quality). I’m not going to list them all here, so I’ve hand picked a few from their catalog:

1. Dating.com
2. Jeans.com
3. Detox.com
4. Relationship.com
5. Therapists.com
6. HardDrives.com
7. BoardGames.com

I’d be more than happy to own any of them! Happy bidding.

A few weeks ago I received an email from someone who had a large portfolio of domain names for sale. This isn’t unusual, but what can be frustrating is seeing the same mistakes and unrealistic expectations, over and over again.

Consequently, I thought there are some interesting lessons for newcomers to the domaining industry, so I thought I’d share them. For confidentiality reasons I’m not going to reveal any information that could identify the seller or their domains. I have also “rounded out” the numbers below:

Parking Revenue: US$3993 per month
Price: 20 months parking revenue

The knee-jerk reaction for many people will be “$4k a month of parking revenue” is pretty good. From my perspective, it was “What’s the COST to me to keep this portfolio going?” After reviewing the documentation, I saw there were 3,300 domains. Of course, what was omitted from the documents was the COST to renew these domains. I know from experience, it costs about $17 per year for EACH of these domain names (they are ccTLDs). So you do the math…

Registration Fees: $56,200 per year
Parking Income: $47,916 per year
LOSS: -$8,284

Doesn’t look so good anymore does it? Now that is assuming that you are buying the portfolio for parking (not development or splitting it up for domain sales etc..).

The reason I’m pointing this out, is that there are many domains for sale at the moment and many newcomers (both investors and bloggers) to the industry.

If you are just starting out, domain investing can be time consuming and hard work. Don’t fall into the trap of buying up big straight away, you will almost certainly lose your $$$.

NBC (LA) is reporting that the website of Rep. John Campbell has been redirecting traffic for the last 3-4 months to his opponent, Beth Krom.

A typo on Campbells “Join The Resistance” webpage went to CampbellforCongres.com (one “s” and not two), which was paid for by Krom.

Kroms Campaign Manager Melahat Rafiei said she clicked the link daily.

“It’s been directing to our website since Nov. 16,” Rafiei said. “It was hilarious to us. Every day I’d get up in the morning and check  it and see, ‘Oh, it’s still there.’ It was funny to see how long it would take  for them to catch on.”

Comment:

Perhaps Republican Internet expert Ted Stevens should be consulted on the subject?

Casie Cathrea became the youngest Monday qualifier for an LPGA event at Blackhawk Country Club. Her official website is Cathrea.com.

Her father, Harry Cathrea tracked down Leonard Meng Lee who registered CasieCathrea.com; he threatened to sue Lee under the Federal Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.

“It cost him two bucks and he wanted to charge me a thousand dollars”

“And he was also nice enough to say he accepts Paypal.”

Its been reported that Lee has registered more than 1,300 domain names of famous people, including Eldrickwoods.com.

In a statement to ABC7 Lee said “As far as I know, the name is not trademarked and I was legally in the right to register the domain”.

As we suspected, ICANN has hired Rod Beckstrom as its new CEO. If you look at the House of Reps grilling of ICANN, there was an underlying theme of “security”, so this appointment doesn’t exactly come as a shock.

Beckstrom spent less than 12 months in the Department of Homeland Security, where he was the Director of the National Cybersecurity Centre. Now ICANN is plugging him as an Internet Security expert! Oh, give me a break!

I don’t believe that less than 12 months in a bureaucratic job puts you in the “expert category”, particularly when you  resign after  “after learning that orders were canceled for computers, network equipment, furniture and office space in Arlington slated for his group.”

While Beckstrom officially reported “to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Beckstrom said he has not yet had a meeting with her.” Here is his resignation letter.

Fast forward another 4 months to today, where he goes on the record saying “I do want to really understand how the IANA (Internet Assigned Names Authority contract) works, how the DNS system works.” Ummmm… this does not exactly inspire confidence! Shouldnt you know this already? But you are supposed to be an Internet security expert and you don’t know how DNS works! WTF?

Beckstrom is touting himself as this honest, straight talking guy, so lets see if he does the right thing and cancels these proposed gTLD’s. Action speaks louder than words.

Its been reported that Former Green Bay Packers lineman, Tony Mandarich, allegedly posted up a website under his ex-fiancée’s name. The site apparently features lewd content including sexually explicit videos and pictures of the woman.

The unintended star of the site, Sharra Ferbrache, brought her case to court in Maricopa County, claiming the content shared between Mandarich and herself should have remained private.

Ferbrache is apparently seeking to have the sight shut down in addition to damages for invasion of privacy, emotional distress and other charges.

Source: CourtHouseNews Service

According to Future Laboratory and Gandi.net, most (two thirds) of web users feel that a .anything domain will infiltrate the web with futile domain names such as .god.

Since ICANN made the announcement last October that would allow any organization in 2012 with $185,000 to apply for a generic domain—speculation has stirred the internet community.

The liberalization of domain names was suggested to encourage diversity but is clearly creating much apprehension instead. According to Tom Savigar of the Future Laboratory, the change is seen as being “a daunting change to the internet.”

The exact numbers indicate that of the 1,000 people who were polled:

• 65% believe the changes would cause pointless domain names to bombard the web
• 60% didn’t feel it would improve the web
• 46% feel it would complicate things

Some web users (18%) think ICANN should be responsible for leading the new look while another 18% think it should be left to the website hosting companies. Another 13% would give it to the UK government and 12% say leave it up to society.

Other opinions foresee future improvements. Joe White, Chief operating officer of Gandi.net claims “The current plans for liberalization reflect a great opportunity to get the domain space in order. ICANN now has the opportunity to set clear guidelines and enforce a higher standard of practice with new TLDs so they are not littered with spam and faulty extensions. This could be the beginning of the great clear-up of the future internet.”

As for the estimated two thirds of the population that is unaware, ignorance is bliss.

Source: The Guardian and London South East.

CEO and founder, Bob Parsons was recently quoted as saying that Godaddy is “committed to making a difference in the community.” A recent donation to the YMCA demonstrates this commitment. When approached with a request for a meager donation of $1,000, the company raised the bar with a more liberal offer–$50,000. Domaining companies take note!

Go Daddy has an estimated 6.6m customers and 35m domains to manage. The recently named “Best of the Best” business (by Ranking Arizona) also appears to be immune to the effects of the recession. With expansions including 345 people being hired this year, and an estimated 125 open positions—Go Daddy is bucking the trend.

Speaking of Godaddy, they just announced the support of .MX domains. “We realize many of our customers will want a dot-MX domain,” said Bob Parsons. “We plan to help them get it the same way we do everything at Go Daddy — easily and affordably.” This current pre-registration is set to end on July 31, though general registration starts Sept 1.

Source: WebhostDir

This one is hot off the press and will be of interest to all those Aussies in the .au space, as well as those wanting to diversify their portfolio. Both Netfleet (new .au marketplace) and Netregistry have formed a joint venture. Here’s what they bring to the table:

• Netfleet reports that it has 7,500 quality domain names and has sold more than $40k of domains in the few months its been operational. That’s quite good for a new site – especially in the .au space.

• Netregistry has a customer base of 250,000 businesses. Its privately owned and has 80 full-time staff including developers, engineers, service and support specialists.

CEO of Netregistry, Larry Bloch made an interesting comment that resonated with me – “most people do not even realise that domain names are now tradeable assets so it’s a question of creating the industry as well as satisfying the demand.”

The other comment that reflected both the infancy of the industry and the opportunity, was made by David Lye, GM at NetFleet “its not enough to have hundreds of thousands of listings, but we also need to have a steady stream of transactions which will in turn help the market find a footing.” Its good to see some real business logic being applied to the domaining industry.

If you haven’t checked out the Netfleet marketplace, go over and take a look.