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Groupon India rebranding SoSasta as Crazeal, website revealed early

crazeal

Groupon registered domain names around the word ‘Crazeal’ back in July such as Crazeal.com and Crazeals.com, and now we know why.

Groupon is re-branding its Indian subsidiary which it acquired early this year, currently called SoSasta as Crazeal.

An early website has gone online at crazeal.com (as seen in the picture above) with no deals listed as of yet.  According to a description on the home page, ” Crazeal promises to deliver deals that will leave you shaking your head in disbelief, telling your friends and family and having them shake their heads in disbelief as well.”

In June you may recall that Groupon accidentally leaked the entire user database of Sosasta.com online.  The data was even indexed by Google.

At the time of this story, Groupon hasn’t put any word out.

Discussion: Penn Olson

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News

Blip.tv acquires the domain Blip.com from Marvel for an unknown price

Blip.tv

In a strange turn of events, Blip.tv has acquired the domain blip.com from comic books giant Marvel.

What’s so strange about the acquisition?  

For starters, in mid-June Marvel filed eight trademark applications centered around “Blip” and “Blip.com”, applications it has yet to abandon.

And as I reported in June, in addition to the trademark applications, Marvel also acquired the domain name blip.com around the same time.

Well, as of yesterday, the domain name blip.com redirects people to blip.tv, the original web series site which according to Quantcast gets over 2 million visitors worldwide each month.

No announcement has been made by Blip.tv at the time of this posting regarding the acquisition of blip.com.

The domain name changed from Marvel to Blip.tv just today.

Here’s a look at the Whois record

Registrant:
  Blip Networks, Inc.
  c/o pairNIC.com Whois Privacy
  PO Box 42319
  Pittsburgh, PA 15203
  US

Domain Name: BLIP.COM

Administrative & Technical Contact:
  Jared Klett
  Blip Networks, Inc.
  c/o pairNIC.com Whois Privacy
  PO Box 42319
  Pittsburgh, PA 15203
  US
 
Domain Name Servers:
  NS1.POKKARI.NET
  NS2.POKKARI.NET
  NS3.POKKARI.NET

Transfer-Lock Status: ENABLED

 Created:     March  2, 1999
Modified:     August 25, 2011
 Expires:     March  1, 2021

(Photo of blip on blip edition via Blip.tv)

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Evidence on next Kindles being named after elements like Earth, Water, Air

Kindle

In early August I wrote about Amazon acquiring the domain name KindleAir.com for possible use with its next generation of Kindle devices. 

After a little domain sleuthing, the pieces of the puzzle appear to be falling into place and it looks like Amazon will be using elements like Earth, Water, Air and more, to name its next line of Kindles.

KindleAir.com was the first hint, but I’ve now discovered that Amazon has secretly acquired the domain names KindleEarth.com, KindleWater.com and — both domain names were acquired on July 6, 2011.  

Although both domains are registered at Go Daddy and hidden behind its privacy service Domains by Proxy, it’s simple to reveal Amazon as the owner by using Go Daddy’s public Account Retrieval System, which in June finally addressed other privacy issues with the tool.

All one has to do is simply try and retrieve a customer number online from Go Daddy’s main website (as shown in the picture below).  You select a product from a list (for example “Domain Name”), enter your email address, then enter a security access code by retyping the graphic number shown on the screen.

KindleEarth.com

If everything is a successful match, a “Process Complete” message is displayed indicating the information requested will be sent to the email address entered.  I used hostmaster@ amazon.com, the e-mail address Amazon regularly uses when registering domain names through its various registrars including MarkMonitor and Go Daddy.

If something is entered wrong, a message displays stating for example, “Email address not found”.

For both KindleEarth.com and KindleWater.com, the retrieval process was successful and a “Process Complete” message was displayed. 

Process Complete

So, just to add a little more fuel to the Kindle rumor fire, it appears Amazon will be using these names for a possible Kindle product line.  Similar types of names might also be used like Kindle Wave.com, which DNW wrote about yesterday.

Using Go Daddy and its privacy service, is the same secret method Amazon used before launching its Cloud Reader service in order to keep the product under wraps.  The company registered kindlecloudreader.com in late June but didn’t reveal itself as the owner until it unveiled the service in August.

Discussion: SlashGear, MediaBistro, Android Community, Geeky Gadgets, electronista and This is my next…

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News Technology

RIM continues domain name buying spree, this time focused on BBM Music

BBM Music service

Research In Motion has officially announced its BBM Music Service and according to This is my next, “users can grow their libraries of available music by connecting with other BBM Music users”.

As with any new product launch at RIM, BBM Music isn’t any different. 

There were several new domain name registrations.  

Unlike before as we saw with the unveiling of new smartphones and batches of 200+ and 500+ new domains registered, this time the company went a bit lighter than usual, registering less than a dozen.

Here’s a look at the company’s latest registrations:

http://whois.domaintools.com/aboutbbm.com 
http://whois.domaintools.com/aboutbbm.net 
http://whois.domaintools.com/bbmconnected.net 
http://whois.domaintools.com/bbmconnectedapps.com 
http://whois.domaintools.com/bbmconnectedapps.net 
http://whois.domaintools.com/bbmfeatures.com 
http://whois.domaintools.com/bbmfeatures.net 

As of today, Research In Motion doesn’t appear to be the owner of BlackBerryMusic.com whose registrant is currently hidden behind Moniker’s Whois Privacy service. 

However, even though the company missed out on getting the name first, it may have no problem getting the name rather cheaply if it decides to file a domain dispute with the World Intellectual Property Organziation (WIPO). 

Going back to the mid-2000s, RIM has won dozens and dozens of cases over the blackberry domain including blackberrytunes.com and blackberrymovies.com.

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News

Google unveils AccountChooser.com: Next-gen web sign in with OpenID

Account Chooser

Google joined the OpenID Foundation in 2008, which provides free technology to eliminate the need for multiple user names across the web by using an OpenID.

In late July, Eric Sachs a Product Manager for the Google Security team and the counterpart to Google’s CIO, registered the domain names AccountChooser.com and AccountChooser.net. 

Google’s Internet Identity Research team has been busy working on this project for months.

This week, the Account Chooser web site quietly went live, as shown in the picture above.  Account Chooser, is an industry technique to improve the user experience for logging into a website. 

“An open standard and user interface guidelines for the next generation of web sign in”, reads the slogan printed across the top of the home page.

According to a blog posted on OpenID’s website this week, “Account Chooser” will be introducted at the “Connect Tech” Summit being held September 12-13, 2011.

Discussion: TechCrunch and Y Combinator