Thought Convergence
July 21, 2008
We just got an outdoor sign installed on our building in Los Angeles. For those of you that missed the announcement Thought Convergence is the new parent company of Name Intelligence/DomainTools.com.
If you want to drive by and check it out the address of the building is 11300 W Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90064.
[Source] Jay Westerdal
New RSS Feeds deep inside DomainTools
July 21, 2008
We just released a new RSS Feed Management system to DomainTools that allows subscribers to monitor alerts and other services using RSS feeds instead of newsletter updates. newsletter alerts have bugged me for a while considering they clog my inbox, RSS gets announcements out of the inbox and in a more usable area. We are not getting rid of e mail alerts on anything, however going forward everything on DomainTools that can newsletter users will have its own micro-feed. All micro-feeds of a positive type will have grouped-feeds where a person can subscribe to a bunch of micro-feeds all restricted in one feed.
The flexibility that RSS extends to our users is that they don’t need an mail client to monitor our alerts. One of the obvious uses is setting up a scheduled web process to check the RSS feed and do something based on the results it finds in the RSS location. The more obvious use is plugging those feeds into an RSS reader like Google Reader.
We have two types of RSS feeds available on all things. The first is a rich-HTML markup RSS feed like you would expect in an mail. The other whether an XML style 
that is strictly for parsing by a computer on the other side and is designed for only computers. that will allow more computers around the world to interface with DomainTools.
This release only has four group feeds available right now, but in the near future we will be releasing the Domain Monitor alerts and other lost products to the Global Feed as well. We are very committed to RSS feeds on every service we offer.
Just a quick shield note: Do not share your RSS feeds with other society, there is only one RSS access key per explanation and you are giving away all your RSS streams to every feed you have whether you give away just one stream. whether you construct that mistake, just login and reset your shield key inside the RSS Feed Management System. It will be impossible for citizens to guess your key which means all your RSS feeds are secure unless you reveal the RSS feed URL to the other citizens.
[Source] Jay Westerdal
The Domain Game
June 1, 2008
A great new book just hit the stands, “The Domain Game” by David Kesmodel is an intriguing book about our industry. The book is filled with folks that I am intimately familiar with, so it was fascinating to read the book on many different levels. I was additionally mentioned a few times in the book but the best part was reading the many other stories in the book that I had never heard. There are new facts which have never seen the light of day that are now shared publicly in that book. Mr. Kesmodel was a Wall Street Journal reporter that quit his job and immersed himself into the domain community for about a year so he could write that book.
It was a book Kesmodel said had to be written, there was just too much to uncover. When an investigative journalist gets embedded inside a secret industry a lot of dirt and details are going to come out and they did. Readers are able to follow as citizens in the Industry got those million dollar domains for $50.
The Domain Industry has always been shrouded in secrecy so I was surprised how many humans opened up for that book. Kesmodel went beyond interviews, he searched public records and talked to neighbors and friends of some of the citizens he investigated.
When reading the book I started jotting down notes about when public where mentioned in the book, it may not be completely accurate but hopefully it is 95%. There was no index in the book so I am sharing the one I made so anyone can quickly find public as you skip through the book. The book is 9 chapters and hands down the best Tutorial/Introduction on the domain space I have seen. I hope there is a second book in the series considering I know several hidden chapters that have not been told yet!
Official Description of the book:
Almost everyone has heard a tale of someone getting rich by selling an Web domain name for a staggering price. But few understand the secretive world of domain investing, a game that a growing number of public are playing around the globe. The Domain Game chronicles the exploits of leading domain investors and explains how that mysterious market works. Learn how an Oklahoma watermelon farmer wound up owning some of the world’s most valuable Web addresses, from recipes.com to chairs.com, and how a college dropout became a multimillionaire by scooping up domains that others abandoned amid the dot-com bust. Find out how the rise of Google and Yahoo has helped boost the fortunes of domain investors. And explore the shenanigans of investors who snag names associated with corporate trademarks. Finally, read how you can jump into that exciting market with a relatively small initial investment. It’s a market with high risk, but huge potential reward.
You can order the book for $19.99. So I highly propose it.
| In order of appearance and PAGES found on:
Frank Schilling 9, 94-109, 123, 146, 154, 158, 177, 186, 190-192 |
Alphabetic Order and PAGES found on:
ACPA 51 |
[Source] Jay Westerdal
PresidentialDebates.com and 5 other Presidential names are going to auction
June 1, 2008
Some of the best Presidential domains are going to auction as a bundle. All 6 domains are being offered for $150,000 on Monday at the Domain Roundtable Auction. Bidding for the live auction is additionally available online at DomainTools.com.
| Presidential Debates | Presidential Debates.com |
| Presidential Campaign | Presidential Campaign.com |
| Presidential Race | Presidential Race.com |
| Presidential Race | Presidential Race.org |
| Presidential Address | Presidential Address.com |
| Presidential Primaries | Presidential Primaries.com |
WASHINGTON, DC — April 15, 2008 — The 2008 presidential election has generated a flurry of news and commentary, and, as has been the case in the last two elections, is certain to continue to generate interest beyond November. With more and more folks turning to the web for their info, the value of targeted political domain names is at an all-time high.
Domain Market, a WashingtonVC company possessing one of the premier domain asset portfolios in the world, has today announced the inclusion of six highly-valued targeted political domain names into the Domain Roundtable conference live auction to be held on April 21, 2008 in San Francisco, CA. The domains are: presidentialcampaign.com, presidentialdebates.com, presidentialprimaries.com, presidentialrace.com, presidentialrace.org and presidentialaddress.com.
Generic domain names, like those being offered by Domain Market, have seen prices skyrocket as the market’s awareness of their value has escalated. In the past 6 months alone, there have been notable sales of such premium domain names as iReport.com to CNN for $750,000 in January, Fund.com for $10 million, DataRecovery.com for $1.7 million, SkiResorts.com for $850,000, and Pizza.com for $2.6m dollars.
“Media companies are increasingly looking for opportunities to drive their audience to destination sites with highly focused composition, particularly during major events such as elections,” says WashingtonVC Chairman Mike Mann, who believes that that opportunity is indicative of the greater market trend towards wrapping business models around prime Web real estate. “Whoever owns these domain names will have significant influence by the US political process on the Web forever.”
Interested parties have the ability to attend the auction live or participate from anywhere in the world via computer to bid in the auction in real instance. Auction registration can be completed through Domain Roundtable’s website, http://www.domainroundtable.com. For additional data or to demand an interview, please visit WashingtonVC at
http://www.washingtonvc.com or by mail at media@washingtonvc.com.
About WashingtonVC:
WashingtonVC is an early stage fund and incubator that grows companies through the exchange of complementary technologies and marketing services. Our portfolio of interlocking companies share resources, talent and technology to deliver innovative products and services across a broad range of industries.
Our investment focus is in online media and marketing, software technologies, telecommunications services, domain name services and consumer Web services. We seek out and fund world-class teams and products with the potential to be leaders in their markets, and back their companies with premium, highly relevant World Wide Web domain names (i.e. phone.com, software.com).
A significant percentage of our investment returns go toward supporting and financing our nonprofit organizations, Grassroots.org and MakeChange! Trust.
[Source] Jay Westerdal
Pre-Auction bidding war
June 1, 2008
Looks like the domains with zero dollar reserves have little mini bidding wars going on several days before the auction closes. It is sort of fun to watch. One example is the combined two domain lot of SecretCode.com & SecretCodes.com. We let that Lot into the auction with a zero dollar reserve and society are aggressively bidding on it. Typically everyone waits for the last 15 minutes of the auction and next they try to snipe it with all the other like-minded snipper public. But once you see one bidder it is safe to say there will be a battle. The DomainTools auction system allows public to bid ahead of moment considering unlike other live events we broadcast to the Web and let remote bidders participate just like they are in the room. Thanks to AJAX (and not some windows download) we are able to open up the bidding up to everyone that has a contemporary web browser.
For the pre-bidders, the current winner can set a proxy bid and defend their position while not even attending the auction. No one can see the proxy bid price including the Auctioneer. that means a leader of an auction can successfully defend against auction snippers while sitting on a beach without World Wide Web access.
Testing the bidding system
whether anyone wants to pop quiz the bidding system, we have setup a tryout spot on lot 1. The domain is called “Xx–Practice-Domain.com“. Anyone is free to bid on that domain, the current price is $1,500,000. that is the only domain in the auction that is for evaluating the interface and getting used to our controls. The domain is currently not registered, so hopefully no one goes out and registers it and tries to claim $1,500,000.00 from us. 
Once again, the domain is xx–practice-domain.com, please do not register it.
Are you eligible to bid?
Don’t wait for the last minute to figure out whether you can bid. Visit the bidding page and look in the second yellow box. whether the auctioneer is telling you that you are not eligable go threw the wizard and become eligible. whether you have ever purchased ANYTHING on domaintools next you are eligible, just sign the contract. whether you have never shared your credit card with us and we don’t know who you are, we ask that you purchase a $1 verification item prior to the auction so that we can verify your identity and compose certain you are a real person.
Domain Roundtable
The conference begins today and I am extremely excited, I get on the plane that dawn and hope to see everyone soon. I am looking forward to hearing all the speakers and moderators. I want to personally thank, Susan Prosser, she has done a fabulous job selecting speakers and coordinating the whole event. The Domain Roundtable would not be possible without her and the rest of the wonderful team. As the founder of the conference public look to me, however she is the one that truly deserves the respect for putting on such a great show. When you see us, be certain to thank her, I am more of just an observer.
Secret Announcements
We have so many cool things to share with everyone. We have not officially announced that one yet, but I will let you readers in on a small secret. We quietly launched Thumbnail History that week (The service is still in beta, don’t try it in IE8!). It allows public to see what domains looked like years ago. Sort of like Archive.org except we take thumbnail images and not just HTML copies. The thumbnails have been taking by us with Web Explorer by the years, so they have Flash and the other things that archive.org doesn’t seem to capture. We have hundreds of millions of these thumbnails, several Terabytes actually. More on the thumbnail system later… There are a lot of details I can tell you about it but I will use a committed blog post after the conference to really tell you the ins and outs of the service.
[Source] Jay Westerdal
Illusionist.com for Sale in Live Auction
June 1, 2008
Super premium domain the Illusionist.com is for sale at the Domain Roundtable Live auction event on April 21st. The Illusionist.com is for a company that wants amuse an audience. The type is perfect considering it is used by some many folks around the world. Everything from TV shows to Movies have used the generic description, there is really no way around talking about an Illusionist without using the proper name.
The Reserve on Illusionist.com is $280,000.
Bidding is available online at the DomainTools.com or live in person at the Domain Roundtable in San Francisco. Bidding is now open and will close Monday at 11am PST.
The live auction event will be broadcast on DomainTools and the Bidding page.
Here is a complete list of what is available during the auction.
This is an excellent reserve price, the domain has been owned by the same person for 11 years.
[Source] Jay Westerdal
DomainTools Live Auction
June 1, 2008
We are very excited about the live auction on Monday, April 21. There are excellent domains on the list with a broad appeal. The auction will start at 11:00am PDT and ends at 4:00pm PDT. whether you are in San Francisco, please come join us for the live event at Palace Hotel the auction day is FREE to attend. You can find the details at: www.domainroundtable.com/2008/venue. It is additionally available on line at: www.domaintools.com/live-auction/bid.html
We had to assemble some rigid decisions at DomainTools about the Live Auction. Reviewing the submissions to determine value and strength of a name is both interesting and challenging. With by 35,000 domain submissions, we identified roughly 350 domains that we would like to have in the auction.
With the top names selected, we thereupon worked with a domain consulting team to review the auction list. The group, Domain Consultant is a collection of top domainers in the community. Their experience in the industry and knowledge of domains is impressive as you can see from the list of appraisers. With their input, adjustments were made to the list of onsite Live Auction versus those in the Extended Live Auction. We appreciate their perspective and input on the final auction list. And, believe working with that team will prove favourable to buyers and sellers in that auction.
Recognizing auction fatigue occurs, we have continued to trim the list. additionally, we have a hard close moment of 4:00pm PDT of the onsite Live Auction. However, we have an Extended Live Auction for additional domains submitted that were identified as potential for Live. The names that sell in the Live Auction will immediately close. Any domain not sold will remain open for 1 week following the live in the extended online auction. In addition, those names that we originally acknowledged as potential listed domains for the Live Auction are going to be available in the Extended Live Auction. That auction closes on Monday, April 28th at 1:00PDT.
Do not wait for the last minute to figure out whether you can bid. Visit the bidding page and look in the second yellow box. whether the auctioneer is telling you that you are not eligible go through the wizard and become eligible. whether you have ever purchased ANYTHING on domaintools thereupon you are eligible, just sign the contract. whether you have never shared your credit card with us and we do not know who you are, we ask that you purchase a $1 verification item prior to the auction so that we can verify your identity and compose certain you are a real person.
The latest list of domains in full auction are available at: www.domaintools.com/live-auction/bid.html
LIVE AUCTION: starts at 11:00am and the last lot will be called at 4:00pmPDT. Anything not sold or called out in Live Auction will go to the extended Live Auction.
EXTENDED LIVE AUCTION: Monday, April 28th at 1:00PDT.
[Source] Jay Westerdal