Month: April 2011

Categories
News

DC Poker: The next big thing in online poker was registered by Dutch Boyd

Dutch Boyd
By now, news of the shutdown of three of the biggest online poker sites (Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars, and Absolute Poker) has spread across the globe. 

But across the United States, people are talking about the District of Columbia becoming the first jurisdiction in the country to permit online poker. 

Who’s talking about DC Poker?

One person talking about the law, is none other than domainer Dutch Boyd.  And it’s not just because he’s a professional poker player, it’s because he hand-registered the domain name dcpoker.com back in 2004.  A name he currently has parked at Fabulous.  And one of hundreds of gambling domain names he now owns.

What’s interesting, is that Dutch Boyd had a hunch something was going on days before the legislation passed, after receiving several offers on the domain name.

“The way I found out was for the last several days, inquiries have been rolling in on one of the domain names I hand-regged a few years ago : DcPoker.com. Honestly, it’s unusual for a domain to get an inquiry at all. When two or three come in at around the same time, it usually means something is up. Seven came in over the last two days. So when I did a search for “DC Poker” I got the news story.” wrote Dutch Boyd on his blog.

If you’re not familiar with Dutch Boyd, he’s the 2nd youngest law school graduate ever, and has won two World Series of Poker bracelets. 

In the domaining world, he deals in poker domains like HeadupsPoker.com, PocketJacks.com, CheckRaiser.com, and PokerTells.com.  He owns about a thousand domain names, including non-Poker domains such as PrisonLife.com and he’s also sold Cured.com for $25,000 and PokerHost.net for $10,000.

Categories
News Video Games

Will Zynga release “Farmville Express”? Company registers farmvilleexpress.com, expressfarmville.com domain names

Farmville Express

Social gaming giant Zynga has registered the domain names farmvilleexpress.com and expressfarmville.com through MarkMonitor, its registrar of choice.  Both domains were registered earlier this week on April 20 following a story that appeared on Farmville Freak that discussed a survey sent out by Zynga from Facebook asking users about mobile farming.

Games.com followed up the story also hinting that the gaming giant had a new, lighter version of FarmVille mobile in the works.

What are the possibilities for the domain names?

Last May, Zynga announced a partnership with American Express  that now allows American Express customers to use their Membership Rewards points to redeem Zynga’s virtual goods and game cards.  Though the website is not that easy to find, the Membership Rewards Program from American Express extends beyond Farmville and includes virtual goods from other Zynga games like YoVille, Frontierville, Cityville, and others.  

So it’s definitely looking promising that a new, lighter version of Farmville called “Farmville Express” will be released.    

At the time of this story, farmvilleexpress.com is parked at GoDaddy (where the name now resides under a zynga.com e-mail address), while the web address expressfarmville.com currently doesn’t resolve. 

Domain Name: farmvillexpress.com

        Registrar Name: Markmonitor.com
        Registrar Whois: whois.markmonitor.com
        Registrar Homepage: http://www.markmonitor.com/

    Administrative Contact:
        Domain Administrator
        DNStination Inc.
        303 Second Street Suite 800N
         San Francisco CA 94107
        US
         +1.4155319335 Fax: +1.4155319335

    Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
        Domain Administrator
        DNStination Inc.
        303 Second Street Suite 800N
         San Francisco CA 94107
        US
         +1.4155319335 Fax: +1.4155319335

    Created on…………..: 2011-04-20.
    Expires on…………..: 2012-04-20.
    Record last updated on..: 2011-04-20.

Categories
Disputes News Trademarks Video Games

Zynga trademark application for the term ‘patentville’ prompts owner of domain name to launch website

Patentville

Zynga’s recent European trademark application for the term ‘patentville’ appears to have prompted the owner of the domain patentville.com to take notice.  On April 14, a day after my story ran on Domaining.com, the popular domain news aggregator, patentville.com went from a parked page at Sedo to an active website that is still in the very early stages of development.

According to the About Us page on its website, “We are working on bringing an idea information resource for you at PatentVille.com in the coming months.  Please email us at information at patentville.com and let us know if you would like to see us include a specific area related to inventions, patents and ideas.”

If for any reason Zynga thinks it’s going to have an easy time getting the domain name without plunking down some serious cash, there’s not much doubt the owner of patentville.com will stay on the offense.

As I pointed out in my previous story, the owner of patentville.com is Michael P. Eddy, a registered Patent attorney who knows a thing or two about trademarks, copyrights, patents and domain names.  His law office also offers services related to domain disputes. 

Plans for patentville by Zynga?

Zynga has not revealed any details or plans for patentville. 

Outside of this story and a trademark application in Europe, nothing else is known.

Categories
Disputes News

Scott Day’s Digimedia updates website, showcases generic domain names

digimedia

It’s been years since Digimedia has updated its website, but the company that was founded in 1997 by watermelon farmer Scott Day has a new look.

And the company not only has a new website, but also a new slogan to go with its longstanding slogan — “Developing places people want to go.”

“We Grow Crops.  The virtual kind, in particular”, is featured prominently near the top of the home page.  The word “crops” is well suited for Digimedia, which owns the domain name, crops.com.  A domain that a panel at the World Intellectual Property Organization ruled the company could keep, after Crop’s nv of Ooigem, Belgium filed a dispute to get the generic name.

The Portfolio page highlights many of the company’s category killer domain names, including:  bathingsuits.com, childcare.com, clinic.com, greatgifts.com, homeinterior.com, inventions.com, invoices.com, judo.com, moneymarket.com, nightlife.com, oklahoma.com, peoplefinder.com, prayer.com, recipes.com, shampoo.com, skier.com, society.com, and trips.com.

One of the more interesting additions to the website is the Partners page, which briefly discusses the company’s relationship with other businesses.  Though not featured in the Partners section, you may recall that last year, Scott Day made an equity investment in Royal Bobbles LLC, the company owned and operated by Warren Royal.  Royal Bobbles LLC runs bobbleheads.com.

Categories
News Video Games

MindJolt acquires Bill Kara’s Hallpass Media: What you may not know

Mindjolt Hallpass Media

Like many a domainer, I’ve been keeping up on Bill Kara and Hallpass Media since he made news by purchasing the domain name cookinggames.com for $350,000. 

Over the past year, his company has kept busy with a series of launches including cookinggames.com, virtualpets.com, dressup.com and others. 

Late yesterday I received news from Bill that his company Hallpass had been sold to MindJolt.  I had already stepped away from the computer when I got the e-mail.  By the time the story hit the news wire at the New York Times and TechCrunch, it didn’t take long for domain bloggers to pick up on the headlines with DomainGang being the first to run the story, followed by Mike Berkens over at The Domains.

Of course, the New York Times and TechCrunch failed to point out — as domain bloggers have not, that Hallpass Media is more than just an online gaming network, with the company’s developed properties come some of its other greater assets — like the people and of course, some of the world’s best untapped gaming domain names.

According to Bill (who currently lives in Canada), “Going forward, we plan to build out more of my former gaming domains which is going to be alot of fun having more resources at my disposal.  Plus I am relocating my family to LA… no more snow for me.”

Smart, strategic move by MindJolt.