Southern California Domainer Meetup – Pics

Posted on July 27, 2015 by Kevin McKim

Friday night the first Southern California Domainer Meetup of the year was held in Playa Vista, Ca. organized by Jason Thompson and Kevin Faler, and sponsored by Uniregistry. Over 90 domainers showed up, and were treated to an open bar and very tasty catered hor dourves. The beautiful California weather kept the outside patio area filled with networking domainers before moving inside to hear the main speakers Frank Schilling and Page Howe. Page gave a passionate talk about .LA, his current venture, and Frank discussed the new gTLDs, and their place along with .com as internet addresses. Overall it was a very good and enjoyable event, once again seeing those we know, meeting some finally for the first time, and seeing and meeting those completely new to the industry. As Jason noted, this was the first of 3 meetings to be had this year, so we’ll be looking forward to getting together again with all the SoCal Domainers.

Here are some pics –

Frank Schilling and Tan Tran sealing a deal!

And afterwards, the party and networking continued as a bunch of us went to the Sunny Spot in Venice, for more food and drinks.

Another great SoCal Domainer meetup. Thanks again to Jason and Kevin F., and Frank, Brett and et al at Uniregistry for a great time!

Beware of MALWARE email – ”Trademark Infringement Cease & Desist Notice”

Posted on June 12, 2015 by Kevin McKim

Beware of this email now going around. Seems to be a malware phishing attempt aimed at domainers and really anyone registering new domains. Here is the email letter being sent around –

Hi (Registrants Name)

A third party has filed a trademark infringement cease and desist notice for your domain xxxxxx.com

You can download the notice here – Download xxxxx.com Domain Copyright Notice (this is the link they note)

In most cases you should take it seriously to avoid further legal trouble. However for random complaint
without any valid reason is quite common and you can ignore.

In case the copyright notice is applicable and unresolved contact your domain registrar and they will
help you to resolve the issue. Please note that, we don’t consult anyone individually.

Regards

Claim Domain Right

3600 Las Vegas Blvd. South. Las Vegas, NV 89109

DO NOT click the link, as it may be malware. (I didn’t click it to find out, but it has been noted on some forums already.)

New gTLDs – Week of 02/09 – 02/13/15

Posted on February 10, 2015 by Irene Conde-McKim

The following are the New gTLD extensions being launched for the week. Imagine after a hard day at .Work, you return to your .Casa, where you come to the conclusion that you have absolutely no .Energy to cook dinner. You then call your favorite fast food place and have them do a quick .Delivery, then plop yourself on the couch to watch mindless tv. How perfect is that? Then you realize it’s only Monday, and you have four more days of this.

02/10/15 –

General Availability

.CASA – Spanish for ‘home’. Many of the casas on the internet when searching were for places that help others. That is always a good thing.

.WORK – I guess some of us have to do this. Could be used for sites to help others find ‘work’.

02/11/15 –

General Availability

.DELIVERY – great for any business that offers this service to their customers. With more and more people ordering online, having this New gTLD attached to your business name is smart.

.ENERGY – a hot topic in the world today. Whether you are a lone inventor seeking funds for your energy idea, or a large company involved in the energy industry, this extension can bring those involved in this field together in order to find solutions to the energy crisis.

So this is this week’s list of New gTLD extensions being launched. Choose wisely and remember that these New gTLD extensions represent you, your business, your personality. It’s all about branding oneself online.

Bruce Marler, Give him some Credit.Club.

Posted on January 29, 2015 by Kevin McKim

Give him some Credit.Club. Q&A with Bruce Marler

This past week news broke that Credit.Club had been hand registered by domain investor Bruce Marler while headed home from NamesCon. Soon after the registration a knowledge base of credit information was launched causing many to wonder how this happened so quickly. While many questioned the validity of the registration and talked it up as a marketing stunt by the dotClub registry the latest were later presented and validated the story that had been told throughout the past week. I reached out to Bruce earlier today and asked if he would be interested in answering a few questions, here they are:

Q. – Simple question, what caused you to even look to register Credit.Club?

Bruce Marler – I had been looking for some value purchases of finance related domains in the gTLD space, with .Club being a very successful launch I started searching through names looking at relative pricing on different terms, I have been following the P2P lending and credit space and really thought that .Club made a lot of sense in a space like P2P lending. Look at LendingClub.com and their success to understand why.

At the same time Tiffany (my wife) was searching for domain names that she found interesting. We were putting in some pre-registrations for some of the other gTLDs that will be launching and added a couple domains she had selected to the cart.

I then did a search for Credit.Club expecting it to be the top priced of the finance group and saw the price as 10.99, I refreshed and it was still there, I added it to my cart and purchased. And then checked my account several times during our lunch. Made sure I did not typo it, and then called a couple domain colleagues about it.

Q. – How did the site get launched so quick? That seems to be one of the points people continued to hit on.

Bruce Marler – It made me laugh that so many people kept saying that was proof, some people made comments that it was not anything special, some realized (correctly I might add), that for the time I had to put towards it that it was a job well done (Thanks!). Well, once again, it really is as simple as I have explained on DomainGang, I really thought it was a perfect opportunity to tie our NamesCon sessions about using WordPress to rapidly develop feature rich sites, the success of .Club with their 6 figure transactions, and the focus of NamesCon around the rise of gTLDs. Add to that Tiffany spent all weekend with a 102.5 fever and ended up in the emergency room, so we spent a lot of time sitting around rather than running around, and you end up with a perfect scenario for the launch of the first phase of the site that is initially focused on credit repair and information on other lending topics.

Q. – So whats next for the site now that dotClub has announced that you can move forward with it?

Bruce Marler – I have started a product roadmap to layout some of the plans. Obviously this was not something I had planned and already have an overbooked schedule between my work at CafeX, LocakTek and Missouri.me, and the work we do for the community we live in with Parkland Programmers and Parkland Meetup. For the next couple months you can expect to see the content grow on the site and see both Android and iOS apps launch to go with the site.

Beyond that I have a couple plans that I am not going to release just yet, but it will end up being more than just a knowledge base, although two apps and a knowledge base in such a rapid time I personally think would be a success, but if things go like I think they will it should be interesting. Lets just say I think the work I do at CafeX with WebRTC could tie into possibilities with Credit.Club.

Q. – What do you think about the launch of gTLDs over the past year?

Bruce Marler – I think its great, I think great marketers are going to find great uses, do I think someone should go buy EveryGenericKeyword.NewTLD? NO!

But do I think there are success stories that are going to come from this that the naysayers will have to acknowledge? Yes. without doubt.

I love hearing the new blood in the industry, with that comes new ideas and concepts for what is possible. We as an industry have really been an inward focused bunch that has really had a hard time with change. It is amazing how much actually based on the fact we are so attached to what has been the greatest innovation platform ever, the internet.

We have to find new ways to show the value of these new, highly brandable, extensions. A new way to get the message out will be key, at the same time there has to be focus on developing some of the key properties, without that end users will never get to see what is possible.

_____________________________________________________________________

We’d like to thank Bruce Marler for taking the time to join us here at dotWhatever to answer our questions, and offer him a big congratulations on Credit.Club!

Your moderated comments are welcome.

Above.com to offer domain portfolio sales / Radix picks Above to auction New gTLDs

Posted on January 9, 2015 by Kevin McKim

Above.com Marketplace steps up it’s game with portfolio sales, and auctioning Radix new gTLDs.

Just got word that Above.com has some new exciting things to reveal. First, Above.com is adding a new service to their domain marketplace – the ability to offer and support domain portfolio sales. So now when one submits a group of domains they want to sell in one lot (minimum 2 names), all those domains will be indexed separately and also will get its own for-sale page, giving one’s portfolio of names more visibility. This is great news for domainers that are looking to sell small groupings of like-domains, or whole portfolios, as now all those names will have link back exposure to their main for-sale portfolio page.

The second, is that Radix has chosen the Above Marketplace to do a special reserve auction of their best .website .hosting and .press domains.

We wish Above.com all the best in these new endeavors.

Here are some more details on Aboves’ Portfolio Sales, and the Above.com Marketplace –

Above.com Marketplace Now Supports Online Portfolio Sales

Los Angeles, California – Above.com is proud to be the first in our industry to support domain portfolio sales through our online marketplace. For experienced domain name investors, this is a huge leap forward, as portfolios may include thousands of domains for a single price. Historically, portfolios were listed in the marketplace in a way that was buyer-unfriendly. The only means by which a portfolio could be included in an online marketplace was by listing a single domain, and including the other individual domains in a comment box. This often hindered research, leaving potential buyers in the dark. Many potential buyers have said that they only become aware of the details upon opening the listing. This left simply too many opportunities for missed sales!

Now, buyers’ queries are answered more quickly with the Above.com Marketplace because each domain in a portfolio is individually indexed. That means that all of the domains included in any individual portfolio may be searched by potential buyers. Adding to ease of use, each search result returned that is part of a portfolio is clearly labeled as such. The entire portfolio is clickable for exploration of each of the other domains included.
In the instance that the portfolio had been previously parked, domain stats for the entire portfolio are shown, and are further broken down into individual domains for additional analysis.

When should domains be sold as a portfolio? If the domains are grouped together, they may be of more value than if they were sold individually. For example:
• .COM, .NET, and .ORG bundles
• Traffic portfolios
• Group of related domain names beginning or ending with a common phrase
• Group of domain names with common theme, as in legal, finance, technology
• Group of domain names with common TLD
• Group of domain names including both plural and singular form

ABOVE MARKETPLACE

The Above Marketplace is a full service online sales platform supporting auctions and static listings. The Above Marketplace meets all checklist requirements you expect in a domain marketplace, but there are some features exclusively found in the Above Marketplace.

• The Above Marketplace is the only place to buy or sell domain portfolios!
• The Above Marketplace is the only marketplace where buyers can find performance domains with verifiable parking history.

SELLERS submit domains for sale directly to the Marketplace, or via their Above Parking Manager or via their Above Registrar account. Sellers submit individual domains to sell or entire portfolios. Every domain gets unique detail “for-sale” page. Ever seller gets a MY LISTING URL to promote awareness about their for sale domains. Sellers opt to disclose parking performance history of their for-sale domains, or not to disclose. Sellers are informed about bidding activity and domains sold through both email and dashboard updates.

BUYERS can search for domains using an advance search tool or by browsing the inventory using our sortable directory. Buyers seeking portfolios seek Above. Buyers seeking domains with parking performance history, seek Above. Buyers can set Watch List to follow domains of interest. Above offers multiple payment methods to accommodate buyers needs.

Full Service Domain Sales Platform
1. Low Commission Rate
2. Free Escrow
3. BIN, BID, Watch list and Make Offer
4. Auctions and Static For-Sale Listings
5. Your “Personalized” Marketplace URL
6. Expired Domains For Sale
7. Phone and Email Support

EXCLUSIVELY at Above.com Marketplace:
1. Verified by Above.com – Above.com offers a guarantee that domain traffic and revenue statistics reported by the sellers in the Above Marketplace match the reported stats by the parking companies. Stats are retrieved directly from the sellers parking service accounts, so the buyer sees the domains true performance
2. Marketplace Portfolios – the Above Marketplace is the only online platform that list every domain in a portfolio for maximum buyer visibility, while also locking the domains together for purchase

MARKETING BOOST
• All domains in AUCTION at Above Marketplace are streamed to Twitter
• All FEATURED AUCTION domains are included in the weekly Above Marketplace Report, with a distribution of 200k
• All FEATURED AUCTION domains by default sort to the top of page in the Above Marketplace, giving more visibility to the domains

To find out more, go to Above.com, or contact Victor Pitts at Victor@Above.com