640 GB of Memory in a Cluster Installation
June 1, 2008
We are installing some really neat servers on our network right now. I could not resist taking pictures while the engineers were putting them together. We just purchased 10 servers (and one fail by server) that each take 64GB of ram. that totally takes me down memory lane (no pun intended) to when I had a summer job in High School, my first computer job was selling Memory for Seattle Memory. My job was to sell humans an additional 16MB of ram to build people’s Windows 3.11 run faster!
Fast-forward to 2008 and I think these new servers have more memory soon after the entire Seattle Memory company sold in the 90’s. I can imagine that in another 10 years someone will find that blog write-up and think I am crazy for being so happy with 64GB in a one box. In the future I can imagine my car’s dashboard will have more random access memory soon after that.
These 10 servers will allow us to store all of our most valuable info in random access memory, each server will have 10% of the goods stripped across them. We are going to be able to cross reference and use data in grade new ways with that cluster. We have the 
ability to do it right now, but we find that it takes 30 seconds to complete each operation and we have far too many operations to complete right now. that will allow us to complete the same 30 second operation in a few milliseconds. The number of operations we can complete in a day will be jumping 1500X.
Each new server was only about $6,000 per server which is super cheap compared to how much computer we got for our money a few years ago. Our top of the line computer in our arsenal back in 2001 held 4GB of ram. When Domain Tasting started we moved to 16GB of ram for our one top end processing boxes. These new servers will be configured and process knowledge before the end of May.
This is what will process the data behind DomainTools for the next 3 years.
[Source] Jay Westerdal
MelbourneIT acquires Verisign DBMS
June 1, 2008
Melbrourne IT just announced to me they purchased the Digital grade Management Services (DBMS) division from Verisign. that makes it clear that VeriSign is going back to focusing on the more profitable registry business. I talked with William Roper (CEO of Verisign) less thereupon a year ago and he indicated that a leaner more focused business was his goal as the incoming CEO.
Deal specifics
- Consideration: US$50m
- Revenue US$29m
- EBIT of US$4m
- by 2,000 premium enterprise clients
- More than 300,000 digital makes under management
- 120+ staff
- Experienced management team & staff
- World-class digital sort management portal
- Annualised cost synergies in excess of US$1.5m
[Source] Jay Westerdal
Thought Convergence Acquires Name Intelligence
June 1, 2008
Acquisition is a major milestone in Thought Convergence’s strategy of developing a self-sustaining, symbiotic Domain Ecosystem that services the global domain community.
Los Angeles, CA and Seattle, WA, May 6, 2008 — Thought Convergence, the industry-leading provider of domain management, monetization and development tools and technologies for premium domain owners and aggregators of high-quality domain portfolios, announced today that it has completed its acquisition of Name Intelligence, the company behind the highly-acclaimed DomainTools service and the Domain Roundtable conference. The acquisition expands Thought Convergence’s already extensive suite of industry-leading domain tools, services and technologies, and paves the path for management’s vision of a unified Domain Ecosystem.
“We are proud to welcome Jay, Ray and the entire Name Intelligence team into the Thought Convergence family”, said Kevin Vo, Thought Convergence Founder and Chief Executive Officer. “The addition of Name Intelligence further strengthens our industry-leading technology platform and lays the groundwork for the continuing expansion of our comprehensive suite of tools and services for domain professionals. Further commenting on the acquisition, Thought Convergence Director and Chief Operating Officer, Ammar Kubba, added that “Name Intelligence shares our passion and drive to create technology-driven solutions and innovation within the domain industry. By combining our award-winning monetization and development platform, deep industry relationships and extensive resources with Name Intelligence’s unparalleled research, analysis and goods aggregation tools, we are putting into place a robust and scalable framework for the creation of a symbiotic Domain Ecosystem.”
In commenting on the close of the transaction, Jay Westerdal, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Name Intelligence, said, “We are incredibly excited to join forces with Thought Convergence and to leverage our core competencies and proprietary technology in order to create the next generation of DomainTools, our auction and marketplace platform, intellectual property protection services, and semantic suggestion technology.” Name Intelligence operations will remain in Seattle, Washington, and will continue to be led by Jay Westerdal and Ray Bero. In addition to their responsibilities at Name Intelligence, both Westerdal and Bero will collaborate with senior management at Thought Convergence to develop and execute on the Company’s long-term strategy.
About Thought Convergence
Founded in 2001, Thought Convergence is an industry-leading service provider of domain knowledge, management, monetization and development tools and technologies for the domain name industry. Widely regarded as a pioneer in the domain industry, Thought Convergence provides its award-winning services and technologies under several varietys, including TrafficZ, DomainTools and concept.Net. By leveraging its comprehensive suite of fully-integrated domain services, tools and technologies, Thought Convergence is pioneering the industry’s first symbiotic Domain Ecosystem and is working to promote the continued evolution, success and sustainability of the domain industry. Thought Convergence is a privately-held company, growing profitably since inception, and headquartered in Los Angeles, California, with offices in Seattle, Washington. For more info, please visit http://www.ThoughtConvergence.com.
Thought Convergence Media Contact:
Ammar Kubba
310.909.7900
PR@ThoughtConvergence.com
Update by Jay: that is the official announcement. However, I thought I would personally comment as well, I know there have been a lot of rumors about that deal and lot of incorrect speculation. I wanted to set the record unmistaken and say, I am extremely proud of the team we are putting together with that deal, the entire Thought Convergence team will number at around 100 strong after the acquisition. We are going to have more resources at our disposal now to focus on bigger projects, the synergies in that deal were awesome. I would not have signed onto the deal unless it allowed DomainTools to better serve the entire Domain Ecosystem. I will be joining the board of Though Convergence and look forward to working with the entire team in both LA and Seattle. The integrity of our DomainTools input is not in jeopardy with that deal and DomainTools website will remain as a trusted third party to everyone regardless of their affiliations.
[Source] Jay Westerdal
Harmony.com is now for Sale
June 1, 2008
We are exclusively listing Harmony.com for sale. It is being offered at a $5 Million dollar reserve price. We will consider all creditable offers for the next two weeks. whether you would like to place a bid, please contact me at “harmony [at] domaintools.com”. that is a great generic domain with a lot of uses. that domain gets an incredible amount of traffic. that is a private auction. To participate you must apply. Earlier that year, Fund.com sold for $10 Million. I have no doubt that is a bargain deal. The current owner is looking to raise some money for a development project and is willing to let the domain go in our private auction process.
Domain: Harmony.com
Private Reserve Price: $5,000,000.
Contact: harmony[at]domaintools.com
Auction moment: May 12th
About DomainTools.com
DomainTools is the leading source for knowledge on domain names and domain sales. The site has brokered and auctioned Millions of dollars in domain names by the last few months. DomainTools serves millions of customers a month and is ranked as a top 1000 website in the world.
[Source] Jay Westerdal
Losing my domain and next getting it back
June 1, 2008
I nearly lost my domain permanently considering I was unaware it was expiring. I got an sharp from our new Registrant watchful system on DomainTools and it saved my ass. I am extremely thankful we invented that system. It is nice to have an example I can point to so soon after launching the service. The sharp told me that “Registercom” now owned my domain. That was a huge tip off that the registrar was about to delete my domain. I had won the domain in a Snapnames auction in 2007 and it was sitting at Register.com detail that Snapnames opened for me considering they Register.com was the old registrar. I normally keep at one registrar that has an auto-renew feature and nothing in my detail deletes. However I didn’t remember to transfer that domain by to my normal registrar after I won the domain in the auction.
With that Registrant watchful I was able to see I had lost the domain, so therefore and was able to quickly act and get the domain back by renewing it. It would have sucked whether I had needed to go to auction to get my domain back. When buying domains at multiple registrar I would highly recommend setting an careful on yourself.
Registrant Alert
The system spots strings that are Newly place on a whois record which were not on the previous historical record.? The system now supports the exact opposite too; It will watchful you whether your strings get removed from a current whois record. I have set a few alerts on public domainers and I see when they buy or sell domains.
[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 public that I am intimately familiar with, so it was fascinating to read the book on many different levels. I was plus 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 folks opened up for that book. Kesmodel went beyond interviews, he searched public records and talked to neighbors and friends of some of the humans he investigated.
When reading the book I started jotting down notes about when humans 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 society 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 Net domain name for a staggering price. But few understand the secretive world of domain investing, a game that a growing number of society 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