Month: June 2011

Categories
Trademarks

UPDATED: R3D Entertainment files trademark for 3D.com, buying domain

Transformers War for Cybertron

Updated June 23, 2011, 6:40 PM:  I received an email from Lanny Rutkin, owner of R3D Entertainment, telling me that his company is buying the domain name 3D.com. 

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Original: I just did a search on the US Patent and Trademark Office website (USPTO.gov) and discovered a trademark filing for “3D.com” for promoting the goods and services of others by providing a website featuring 3D and 3DS images, photos and videos.

R3D Entertainment Incorporated, a company that owns a portfolio of 3D stereoscopic websites specializing in publishing and distributing 3D, is the applicant. 

The application was filed on June 13, 2011, a week after Sedo Broker Ryan Colby tweeted that negotations for the domain 3D.com were heating up.

Although Ryan hasn’t tweeted any updates specifically about 3D.com since June 6, he did recently tweet that a $1,000,000 offer had been made on an undisclosed name.

Now, I could be wrong, but here’s where the story gets strange.

R3D Entertainment, whose company website is located at Definitive3D.com, doesn’t appear to be the current owner of 3D.com, in fact, R3D Entertainment doesn’t even own R3D.com, according to WHOIS records.  If the company can’t afford R3D.com, it most likely doesn’t have the massive amount of cash needed to buy 3D.com.

So, is the company the mystery buyer currently in “heated negotiations” to buy the name?

Or, is Lanny Rutkin of R3D Entertainment, who owns over 1,000 domain names with the word “3D”, trying the same failed smoke and mirrors technique as AOL attempted with its claim on  Ad.com (a domain it doesn’t even own)?

On April 16, 2001, the only existing trademark for 3D.com filed by Chequemate International, was abandoned.

I’ve reached out for comment to Lanny Rutkin and Ryan Colby.  I will update the story, if I hear back.

(Photo of Transformers War for Cybertron via Activision)

Categories
News

Former Twitter CEO Evan Williams: 5 reasons domains getting less important

Twitter CEO Evan Williams

Former Twitter CEO Evan Williams wrote an article earlier today putting down domain names, saying the perfect domain name was less important than it used to be, and and it will continue to become less important.

According to Evan, there are five reasons why domain names will become less important.

First, Google is how normal people get around the web.

Second, Auto-Complete Address Bars.  You don’t really have to remember anything, not even domain names.

Third, Mobile Web Browsers and Hidden Address Bars.  Evan’s own conspiracy theory is that Google has a secret plan to kill domain names all together and make sure all navigation goes through them.

Fourth, Apps.  The domain name is unimportant with installable apps. 

Fifth, Alternative Successes.  The non-perfect .com is also acceptable these days, Evan claims. After all he says, Facebook used to be at thefacebook.com.

The main point of his argument is that while a good .com name is still worth a lot, it’s not as crucial to success on the internet as it used to be, but you have to read through the whole post to get the message in his conclusion. 

But despite all the talk of domain names “becoming less important”, in his own words Evan writes, he’d still opt (and pay up) for a nice, clean .com if he could.  Among Evan’s own domain holdings are obvious.com. 

If you recall, Evan purchased the domain Twitter.com for $7,500 back in the day – giving the original project code name for the microblogging service “twttr” a much needed web facelift.

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Hat tip to David for finding this article and emailing me earlier today.  David suggests Evan should put this to the test and agree to let any random person choose any random domain name for Evan’s next startup.

I’m biased towards domain names, but Evan Williams does carry quite a bit of credibility on the internet. 

Not only has he founded several successful companies on the internet, two of them ended up being in the top ten according to Alexa’s site ranking: Blogger and Twitter.  He is even credited with inventing the term “blogger” and helped to popularize the term “blog”. 

As of today’s Alexa ranking, Blogger is #8, while Twitter has fallen out of the top ten, down to #11.

Readers: Do you agree or disagree with Evan?  Are domains becoming less important?

[UPDATE:  Wed June 23, 2011 5:07 PM  EST: I just noticed that other domain bloggers like HybridDomainer have also covered this story, and the list of blogs particularly within the domain space voicing their opinion will (and should) probably grow.]

Categories
News

Social.com for $2.6 million: What about the domain Social.org for only $950?

social

The word on the street is that the domain name social.com has sold for $2.6 million according to Ron Jackson of DNJournal. 

News of the sale created a flurry of interest online, with TechCrunch even publishing an article that included links to domain industry blogs that had covered the social.com auction (including this very blog).

While news of the sale isn’t everywhere you look, you’d think the owner of the dotorg (social.org) got the memo, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Titan Networks, the owners of the dotorg, charge anywhere between US$950 and $4950 for their domains and that includes social.org according to the website. 

“All of our domains cost at least $950, so please don’t mail us requesting a quote if social.org is not worth even that much to you. Similarly, please don’t send any offers of less than $950,” reads a message on the website.

Over the years a number of dotorgs have been some of the biggest domain sales such as poker.org for $1 million, autoinsurance.org for $440,000, engineering.org for $198,000, and date.org for $150,349.

Though it’s possible you could’ve picked up social.org for a bargain at $950, it might be selling for more as a result of the social.com sale. 

Ron Jackson indicated the seller Scott Carter used Marksmen, the same service used by companies like Electronic Arts who acquired battlefield.com and Microsoft who purchased the domain office.com.

[UPDATE June 23, 2011 8:56 PM:  Social.org updated its home page today.  Don’t bother offering three or even four figures for the domain.  A message on the site now reads, “To address the dozens of people who have written to ask for our “price”, we’ll note the rule of thumb that org sites often sell for about 10% of the .com sale amount. So please don’t send offers below six figures.]

Categories
News

Rick Schwartz launches new landing pages with DomainDevelopers.com

Domain Developers

Domain names within Rick Schwartz’ portfolio have been undergoing a transition to a new landing page format that’s not operated by a third-party parking company, but rather his own website, DomainDevelopers.com.

DomainDevelopers.com up until earlier this month, pointed to WADND.com, the World Association of Domain Developers which held its first meeting in 2004 and announced in April on their website that Moniker had been stripped of its registrar seal of approval.

The new landing page design, which can be seen on sites such as tradeshows.com and topsecret.com, focuses on sending the message that domain names are the lifeline for every business.

The landing page has an inquiry form to generate leads. 

Visitors who are drawn in by the compelling call to actions, will be taken to Ricks’ blog when any of the Read more… links are clicked.

Categories
News Trademarks

Bad news for domain sleuths, Go Daddy finally fixes WHOIS Privacy leaks in Account Retrieval System

Go Daddy Account Retrieval System

Go Daddy has finally fixed a huge privacy leak issue that was first reported and publicized by Abdu Tarabichi back in March: revealing partial e-mail addresses of domain owners. 

The flaw gave anyone the ability to see a partial e-mail address of a registrant, even if the registrant had used Go Daddy’s privacy service, Domains by Proxy, Inc.

For people to see the partial e-mail address, all one had to do was simply try and retrieve a customer number online from Go Daddy’s main website.  In the past, to retrieve a customer number online, you would select a product from a list (for example “Domain Name”), enter a security access code by retyping the graphic number shown on screen, then Go Daddy would display a partially masked email address on the screen that corresponded to the domain name you entered, such as ****email.com.

In fact, it made it somewhat easy for domain sleuths to see which company registered a domain name, that is, if the company happened to use a corporate email address such as ***zynga.com.  

Social gaming giant Zynga finally started using a generic Yahoo! email address in order to keep its domain registrations a better kept secret.  The company regularly uses Go Daddy’s privacy services, but after a number of stories revealed it was the owner of certain domain names, the company switched away from its company address.

The change to Go Daddy’s Account Retrieval System fixes the way that you retrieve customer numbers online. 

Go Daddy now requires you to enter the email address on the account, as an additional step.

Here’s a look at the old way of doing things.  Go Daddy has yet to update its Online Help.