VeriSign, Inc. and it’s wholly owned subsidiaries (”VNDS”) is hereby notifying all registrars of a fee change for .com and/or .net domain names effective October 1, 2008. In accordance with our contract, ICANN has already been notified. Details as follows:
1. VNDS’ fee for each annual increment of a new and renewal .com domain name registration and for each transfer of a .com domain name registration from one ICANN-accredited registrar to another will be US $6.86, exclusive of any ICANN Variable Registry-Level Fee (as defined in the .com Registry Agreement) or any other ICANN fee; and
2. VNDS’ fee for each annual increment of a new and renewal .net domain name registration and for each transfer of a .net domain name registration from one ICANN-accredited registrar to another will be US $4.23, exclusive of any ICANN Variable Registry-Level Fee (as defined in the .net Registry Agreement) or any other ICANN fee.
This will most likely be another factor causing more domains to drop and sale prices of some names to fall. It is also very likely that VeriSign will continue to raise registration fees by 7% annually in the coming years. If you want to avoid paying higher prices in the next couple of years you can advance-renew your domain names now. This way you will save quite a lot of money, depending on the size of your portfolio.
I recently wrote an article about buying domain names for DotSauce Magazine. Mark published it earlier today, so I’d like to point you to his great domain news site where you can read it. Its title is “Buy Domain Names Now“, short excerpt follows:
I think we’re having quite an interesting market situation right now that is especially advantageous for buyers.
Yes, I believe that currently it is a very good time to acquire domain names. There is one obvious reason for doing so, which is that the value of domains has steadily been going up for years, and I don’t see any reason why this should stop. That’s one long-term argument for investing in domain names sooner rather than later.
But there are a few other arguments I’d like to point out, too.
SearchMe is a new visual search engine which lets you see the websites in the search results before you visit them. Watch the demonstration video here:
The flipping feature looks pretty cool, but what makes it so useful and what does it mean for website owners? If would say the visual search approach might result in better conversion rates, because people see the sites in the search results and can then directly go to the website they think they’ll like best without having to click through all the other sites. This means traffic could become more targeted. Of course, it depends on how well SearchMe’s search algorithm will be working, but the potential to make finding websites easier is defnitely there. On the other hand, it is possible that poorly designed websites will receive less traffic than other sites just because they don’t look as attractive. Another negative aspect is adult content. From SearchMe’s FAQ:
We make every effort to allow people to filter out adult material from their results. We’ve done our best, and we’d like to think that we’re working at the same level as other major search engines. It’s impossible to be perfect with today’s Internet, but we’ll continue to improve on this as time goes on.
But what I really like about SearchMe is that it automatically categorizes the websites in its index. It then recognizes keywords and suggests related categories, so that you can exclude unrelated websites from the search results.
SearchMe got $31 million in funding from Sequoia , the guys who also backed Google and Yahoo. It isn’t based on any of these search engines as SearchMe built its own engine and has its own index which currently includes about 1 billion websites. The private beta has recently been launched, you can sign up for it here.
As the Online Publishers Association’s latest Internet Activity Index (IAI) points out, content is still king when it comes to time spent online. The IAI devides Internet usage into five activities: Content, Communications, Commerce, Community and Search.
Despite the impression that web 2.0 sites are actually more popular than old-school content sites, it is actually content that people spend most time with. Continue reading ‘Content remains king’
Henry Blodget has analyzed the change in advertising spending and its shift from traditional media to the Internet throughout the last year. The final results are not surprising, but they’re pretty impressive:
Google could add more than $2.6 billion in advertising revenue in 2007, which constitutes a 44% increase over the company’s 2006 revenue. In total, Google made about $8.7 billion.
The European Commission has unconditionally approved Google’s $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick. This marks the biggest purchase in Google’s history. Microsoft was interested in the online advertising provider as well, but the Redmond company backed out of negotiations when offers climbed above $2 billion.
The EU’s approval came despite objections from rivals (including Microsoft), because the companies did not operate in the same online advertising markets: Google’s focus is on contextual advertising while DoubleClick sells banner ads and provides so-called “ad serving”. However, Google has already been by far the most powerful company in online advertising, so I’m sure this acquisition will put them further ahead of runner-ups Microsoft and Yahoo. Especially with DoubleClick’s ad serving technology that allows its clients to easily target specific websites and customers. Continue reading ‘EU approves Google’s DoubleClick acquisition’
As reported by Andrew of Domain Name Wire, Google AdWords has added a new option that lets advertisers opt out of domain parking sites:
To opt out of domain parking pages, advertisers use the “Site and Category Exclusion” tool in their account (see picture below). In addition to being able to opt out of parked pages, customers can opt out of error pages, forums, social networking sites, image sharing sites, and video sharing sites. Forums and social networking sites are known to have low click through rates, and conversions can also be low.
Google states, however, that ads on domain parking pages have been performing just as well as ads on other websites. I would even argue that traffic originating from generic domains’ parking pages, which is mostly direct navigation traffic, is highly targeted and converts better than ads on other sites in many cases. Still, most advertisers believe parking sites to be of no value, so I expect many of them to opt out of parking pages. This will probably be followed by a further fall in parking revenues for domain name owners and it is yet another reason why developing your best domains would make sense. As I said in earlier posts, I’m going to get my feet wet and finally develop one or two of my domains this year, too. My earnings from domain parking have really gone down during the past year and there is nothing in sight that would indicate a trend reversal.
The news of AOL having acquired social network Bebo came to me as a surprise given the recent talks about AOL itself being for sale (or at least open for a merger). The Time Warner company bought Bebo for a reported $850 million in cash. I guess AOL is still desperately trying to change its image in order to profit from the web 2.0 hype. Bebo has 40 million members, which makes it the third biggest social network after MySpace and Facebook. However, acquiring other companies won’t get AOL to the top. It really needs to find a strong partner such as Yahoo if it wants to seriously compete with the other big web companies, in my opinion.
Jeffrey L. Bewkes, chief executive of AOL’s parent company Time Warner, said Time Warner was open for a deal on AOL. He also acknowledged weakness in the Internet company’s business. AOL has indeed lost much of its sex appeal of glorier days, but it is still a powerful web company. First, it has a well-established brand name. Second, AOL made $5.2 billion in 2007 (down 33% from 2006). It also has more than 9 million paying US clients and AOL’s website receives more than 100 million visitors a month.
A major problem of AOL might be the change in the way people browse the web. In the past, people used to go to portals such as Yahoo! or AOL, but today they just go to a search engine to quickly find what they’re looking for. AOL has not yet been able to establish itself as a search engine, so it is understandable that the company finds it extremely difficult to compete with Google, Yahoo and even Microsoft. It hasn’t even got a chance to compete in the online advertising market.
AOL will not meet its revenue goal for the first quarter this year, according to several of its senior executives, who also say it is unlikely to achieve full-year objectives. Advertisers say the company has fallen into a pattern of calling clients at the end of each quarter to offer last-minute price cuts on additional ads.
This being said, AOL has to go through a lot of changes. It does have advantages though and a new partner company might find a solution to get AOL back on track. But who will be it and for how much?
Clek Media Inc. (”Clek”) today announced that it has brokered the world-record sale of the domain FUND.COM for US$9,999,950 in an all-cash transaction. Clek, a media consulting firm, represented the seller of the domain, assisting in both the negotiation and closing of the transaction. The buyer is Fund.com Inc. (OTCBB: FNDM), a New York firm previously named Meade Technologies Inc. To date the buyer has revealed their plans for the domain mostly in filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Henry Blodget has 
The news of 
Jeffrey L. Bewkes, chief executive of AOL’s parent company 
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