Sedo Appoints Nunez

On August 1, Sedo’s Chief Strategy Officer Matt Bentley left “to pursue other opportunities”. At the time, Tim Schumacher was reported as saying “Matt will no doubt continue to be a tremendous asset to Sedo in his new advisory role.”

Fast forward a couple of weeks and its been announced that Sam Nunez will handle Product Development, Marketing and Strategy.

You’ve just gotta love those warm, fuzzy, cuddly Germans.

It appears that Nunez has been around the traps. He has worked at both Oversee.net, Ask.com and SGI.

“I look forward to helping Sedo strengthen its market position in the global domain name marketplace,” said Nunez.  “Sedo will continue to leverage its tremendous success with online auctions, as it extends other services such as live auctions, globally.”

Good luck Sam. We will be watching closely to see what pops out of Sedo.

Edit 29/8/8: A point of clarification. I’ve just been contacted by a representative from Sedo who tells me that Sams role is purely product management and Matt is still an advisor with Sedo.

Godaddy Blocked In China?

The mainstream media has picked up on a blog post at Moonlight Blog reporting that Godaddy is unaccessable from within China.

People are speculating that its due to CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Center) banning Internet domain names that are based on gold medal winning athletes.

So what is the real reason? We will never know.

Last year, Reporters Without Borders covered a story about Godaddy withdrawing hosting for Chinese Human Rights sites.

.ORG Reaches 7 Million – Hippies Clap… Chant

The Public Interest Registry has announced that there are now 7 million .org domain names. Yep, its pretty much as we all thought – .com .net and now .org at 3rd position.

Since 2003.org registrations have increased more than 250%. Alexa Raad, CEO said “.ORG continues to be the domain of choice for individuals and organizations who seek to brand their efforts under a globally trusted and respected address.”

Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia has also come to the party around .org saying “We can’t imagine Wikipedia as a .com — .ORG is a core part of our identity,” “.ORG is available to anyone in the world, and it is a great way for an organization to signal an ambition to be inclusive and global.”

Has .org become that alternative? Is it the bio diesel of the domaining world?

Jamaican Gold Medalist Domain Names Blocked

The Olympics has created a new set of celebrities and some domainers have seen the $$ and have registered the .com’s and put some up for sale.

In the case of Jamica, the Jamaica Intellectual Property Office JIPO is now involved.

JIPO executive director Carol Simpson told The Jamaica Observer that the athletes’ rights are secured globally – “Usain is a protected trademark and we would discourage anyone trying to infringe on his intellectual property rights.”

UsainBolt is currently listed at Sedo – but for how long?

The Obama / Biden Domain Rush

If you are living in the USA, or are the poor victim of American television, you will probably know that Obama selected Joe Biden as his running mate. Now the domain name land grab has begun.

• OBAMABIDEN.ORG -> +16 variants = $100k on eBay. Good luck with that!
• Even the believers have seen the light – catholicsforobama-biden.net is online now.
• electobamabiden.com is live and allegedly paid for by the Republican National Committee.

In any case, it doesn’t matter, Diebold (the company that does the electronic voting) has accidentally leaked the results of the 2008 US Election.

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Enjoy!

Godaddy Coupons August 2008

This evening I had to renew a few domains at Godaddy as they were about to expire… No… I didn’t get around to renewing them and I didn’t put them on autorenew either because I don’t like highway robbery.

Anyway I didn’t feel like paying $10.95 for renewals so I went hunting and found two good coupons:

• chill3 – $6.95 .com renewals. I used this one tonight.
• CJCONEOFF – save $1 off renewals. Tested and it works, but I ended up using the other one.

Anyway I just thought I’d let everyone know. Hopefully it will save you some $$$.

Police Lose Their Domain – Russian Snaps It Up

Eureka is the county seat and principal city in Humboldt County, California, United States.

It’s been reported that their Police Department has allowed their domain name to expire.

The new owner of eurekapd.org in Russia has allegedly kept some of the content.

Police Chief Garr Nielsen told the Eureka Reporter that he wasn’t aware of the domain name being taken over and made it clear he didn’t want the Web site online anymore, but the city of Eureka has not yet decided if it is a “problem” or not.

Well… my guess is that it will be – especially when Jack Bauer comes looking for an answer!

Two Punjab Police Depts In Domain Dispute

Heres an interesting one from TOI. Two different countries, two police forces, one domain name. Priceless. The Pakistani Punjab police and the Indian Punjab Police are known as the “Punjab Police”. So what happens when you visit www.punjabpolice.org ?

What do you do when both parties want the same domain? You can’t exactly call the police. Luckily the Indians have made the decision to tack on the word india. Now everyone can use www.punjabpoliceindia.org.

But what about that SEO benefit? Domain age? Ohhhh the shame of it all.

Squatter Creates Fake Liberal National Party Site

The Australian media is covering some guy who registered liberalnationalparty.org and has created a fake Liberal National Party (LNP) of Queensland.

Yawn…. Now we have so called experts crying out “cybersquatter” and a heap of uneducated politicians crying about how their domain name was stolen (as opposed to being registered, before they thought of it).

So if you are a cybersquatter, what would you do if you had a website widely quoted in the media? Probably the opposite of this guy who put dating ads, Google adsense at the top and bottom and a forum in the middle. Good luck with that money making strategy.

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