Tag: .com

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Symbolics.com: The first .com domain in the world turns 26-years-old Tuesday, March 15

symbolics.com

This Tuesday the domain name symbolics.com will be 26-years-old. 

While news of the anniversary isn’t frontpage this week, last year at this time, symbolics.com was celebrating its 25th birthday and was the subject of much discussion.  News outlets ranging from Wired to BBC covered the story.   To commemorate the anniversary, Verisign even set up a website (http://www.25yearsof.com/) and threw a .com gala event in San Francisco in May that celebrated the impact 25 years of Internet innovation had on society.

XF.com Investments

In 2009, XF.com Investments, a domain holding and development company run by Aron Meystedt purchased the domain, making the milestone even more exciting for the domain name community. 

Aron has a track record of acquiring some amazing domains. 

In late 2010, XF acquired tablets.com for an undisclosed amount.  Tablets.com is well positioned to become one of the most valuable domain names in 2011.  Over the weekend, Apple reportedly sold nearly one million iPad 2 tablets.  “Gartner research reported this week that tablet sales will grow from 15 million in 2010 to 54 million in 2011 and that laptop sales will slow down dramatically”, reported CNET.

More Birthdays

Since last March, a number of other .com domains have celebrated their 25th anniversary including:  bbn.com, think.com, mcc.com, dec.com, northrop.com, xerox.com, sri.com, hp.com, and bellcore.com.

More domain names will celebrate their 25th birthday this year.  Here’s a look:

03/19/1986   IBM.COM
03/19/1986   SUN.COM
03/25/1986   INTEL.COM
03/25/1986   TI.COM
04/25/1986   ATT.COM
05/08/1986   GMR.COM
05/08/1986   TEK.COM
07/10/1986   FMC.COM
07/10/1986   UB.COM
08/05/1986   BELL-ATL.COM
08/05/1986   GE.COM
08/05/1986   GREBYN.COM
08/05/1986   ISC.COM
08/05/1986   NSC.COM
08/05/1986   STARGATE.COM
09/02/1986   BOEING.COM
09/18/1986   ITCORP.COM
09/29/1986   SIEMENS.COM
10/18/1986   PYRAMID.COM
10/27/1986   ALPHACDC.COM
10/27/1986   BDM.COM
10/27/1986   FLUKE.COM
10/27/1986   INMET.COM
10/27/1986   KESMAI.COM
10/27/1986   MENTOR.COM
10/27/1986   NEC.COM
10/27/1986   RAY.COM
10/27/1986   ROSEMOUNT.COM
10/27/1986   VORTEX.COM
11/05/1986   ALCOA.COM
11/05/1986   GTE.COM
11/17/1986   ADOBE.COM
11/17/1986   AMD.COM
11/17/1986   DAS.COM
11/17/1986   DATA-IO.COM
11/17/1986   OCTOPUS.COM
11/17/1986   PORTAL.COM
11/17/1986   TELTONE.COM
12/11/1986   3COM.COM
12/11/1986   AMDAHL.COM
12/11/1986   CCUR.COM
12/11/1986   CI.COM
12/11/1986   CONVERGENT.COM
12/11/1986   DG.COM
12/11/1986   PEREGRINE.COM
12/11/1986   QUAD.COM
12/11/1986   SQ.COM
12/11/1986   TANDY.COM
12/11/1986   TTI.COM
12/11/1986   UNISYS.COM

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News

GoDaddy’s .CO marketing blitz enjoys mainstream coverage by USAToday

Godaddy .CO marketing blitz

The USAToday article by Kristena Hansen starts off, “While the “.net,” “.org” and “.gov” Internet domains are growing in popularity among those launching new websites, none have come close to threatening the decades-long reign of “.com.   But the “.co” domain may be the hottest new Web address, one that could be the first real .com competitor, according to some inside the domain-name industry.”

While domain names don’t always get good press coverage, GoDaddy knows how to get press attention using it’s upcoming Superbowl commercial with the unveiling of the new GoDaddy girl to create some serious buzz. 

But that’s not the main subject of the article, .CO domain names are. 

And by the sound of it, the possibilities seem limitless.

Kristena Hansen points out just how positive .CO domain names are.

Unlike other .com alternatives, the .co domain, which gained about 600,000 registered names worldwide since its launch, should do well simply because it sounds so similar to .com, said Richard Merdinger, senior director of domain-registration service for Go Daddy.

“There’s an international recognition of using .co to represent a company,” he said. “We were exceptionally pleased with the volume of registrations we did do so far.”

The .co suffix offers a whole new realm of opportunities for those searching to establish their Web presence, Merdinger said.

Industry insiders see a similar trend.

While you could argue .CO is just another fad that won’t offer any new significant challenges to .COM – with big ticket sales of domain names like o.co and a major marketing blitzy by GoDaddy ready to get underway, 2011 could see whether .CO really has what it takes to be a .COM competitor.

What’s all the buzz about?

Already in 2010, Mike Mann of DomainMarket has sold a number of premium .co domain names such as Cruise.co for $25,000 and Auctions.co for $15,000, but 2011 looks like it will be even better for Mike Mann. 

As Mike Berkens of the blog The Domains pointed out in a recent story, Sedo will be holding a .CO premium domain name auction following the Superbowl.  The auction will include many of Mike Mann’s .CO properties, many of which are listed for as much as $350,000 on his DomainMarket web site.

In the coming weeks, the single letter domain name i.CO will be auctioned off, in what could be the biggest sale of all to date for a .CO domain.  In 2010, o.co sold to Overstock.com for a whopping $350,000.

As far as the USAToday story which first appeared in The Arizona Republic, no one has commented on the article as of yet.  Over at azcentral, the story only managed to get a few comments, the first being a negative comment from a reader who had this to say about .CO: “sorry, but .co will fail. while it may sound similar, it is that very reason it will fail. People are already automatically tuned to typing COM and will forget to drop the M.  As far as the pricing, that is just silly. People buying up names will do so regardless of that small of difference. Make is a hundred bucks and you might see only the most common names get parked.”

It’s still early, but it already seems like .CO is making a big splash in 2011.

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News

Kentucky internet gambling case: Court date scheduled for December 6

courthouse

For those interested in the Kentucky internet gambling case that began in September 2008, in which the state of Kentucky tried seizing 141 domain names of gambling sites, a new court date has been scheduled for December 6, 2010. 

As CasinoAdvisor reports: ‘The case is back in the court of Judge Thomas Wingate, who was the original judge that ruled that Kentucky was legally able to exert jurisdiction over the specified domain names, even though all the domains are owned and operated outside of the Commonwealth.’

While there are 141 domain names involved in the case, the state’s attorneys in an attempt to identify the owners of the domains, wants to divide up the domain names into groups. 

According to CasinoAdvisor, the state’s attorney’s submitted the following before the court: ‘In order to effectively manage the large number of sites, the Commonwealth suggests that the determination of identification and ownership of sites occur in groups. The Commonwealth requests that the initial group consist of playersonly.com, sportsbook.com, sportsinteraction.com, mysportsbook.com, and linesmaker.com.’

Who knows whether this case will ever end. 

What do you think of this latest submission by the state’s attorneys?

See the original list of the defendants’ 141 domain names, which includes Fulltiltpoker.com, Goldenpalace.com, Bodoglife.com and Pokerstars.com (just to name a few).

Categories
News Trademarks

Media giant Hearst Corporation acquires domain LittleAngels.com for $100,000

hearst tower

The news broke earlier this week on GreatDomains.com that the domain name LittleAngels.com sold for a whopping $100,000.  But until now, the new owners had remained a mystery. 

Earlier the registrant records switched from Sedo over to Hearst Corporation, one of the nation’s largest diversified media companies that owns 15 daily and 38 weekly newspapers, nearly 200 magazines around the world, 29 television stations, and has ownership in leading cable networks such as ESPN.

Now that the name has traded owners, what are the plans for the domain name: littleangels.com?

At the time of this story, littleangels.com is nothing more than a parked page at MelbourneIT.  But if you dig a little deeper, for example search trademarks on the United States Patent and Trademark Office, you’ll find that Hearst filed for the “LITTLE ANGELS” trademark back on July 26, 2010.

According to the filing, Little Angels will serve up: ‘Digital media, namely DVDs, videos and CDs featuring children’s audio visual programing and music; computer applications for mobile phones, namely downloadable children’s audio visual programing and music; sound recordings.’

‘Angels’ Domain Names

On a somewhat related note, littleangels.com isn’t the only big sale of an ‘angels’ domain in 2010.  Earlier this year, Angels.com was acquired for $200,000 by the MLB for its the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim web site.  The price tag put the sale in 37th place among the Top 100 sales of 2010, according to the current rankings at DN Journal.

While the DN Journal rankings don’t include littleangels.com yet, the sale price will rank it somewhere among the top 60 sales, tied with Prize.com, Cheesecake.com, and other domain names that sold for $100,000.

Categories
News Video Games

German gaming portal Bigpoint acquires Ruined.com for $7,800 for its post apocalyptic third person shooter

ruined online

Bigpoint, one the largest German gaming portals and one of the top 3 gaming portals worldwide, has acquired Ruined.com from Sedo GreatDomains for its post apocalyptic third person shooter called ‘Ruined’.

Bigpoint originally used the domain name Ruinedonline.com for its site which debuted in October.

According to an article in Gamasutra: ‘Hamburg, Germany-based Bigpoint said that it’s adding 250,000 new registrations every day, and with the pending official launches of Battlestar Galactica and the company’s first U.S.-developed game Ruined Online, Bigpoint expects growth to continue.’

As of late October, the company claims to have over 150 million registered members of its browser-based games.

Bigpoint owns nearly 1,000 domain names for over 65 online games bundled on its game portal.

The company issued a press release about the launch of Ruined in early October:

Bigpoint Inc., the US-based subsidiary of Bigpoint GmbH (www.bigpoint.com) – a worldwide leader in online gaming – today unveiled its first browser game developed in North America. Set in a post-apocalyptic San Francisco, Ruined (www.ruinedonline.com) is a fast-paced, arena-style combat game that includes high-end features common to traditional console games.

“We came to the United States to extend and optimize our existing portfolio of games and to create new titles specifically for this market,” said Heiko Hubertz, CEO and Founder, Bigpoint. “With Ruined, we believe we’ve taken a huge step forward in producing a game that looks and feels like something you get with console and PC games, but requires nothing more than a browser to play.”

While still in early development, Bigpoint is showing-off a playable demo at the Game Developers Conference Online in Austin, Texas this week. In its current form, the game includes two arenas based on well-known San Francisco landmarks. Players can select one of three characters and engage in a deathmatch against other live players.

In developing Ruined – which is being built atop the Unity 3 engine – Bigpoint has partnered with dSonic Inc., an award-winning audio production company, and Cinematico Inc., a full service 3D design, animation, and motion capture studio. Bigpoint selected these firms to achieve a high-caliber experience for hardcore gamers.

Bigpoint is targeting this winter to release an open beta of the game. At that time, three more characters, additional San Francisco-inspired arenas, and multiple game modes will be available. In addition, the game will include 3D positional and stereo sound, including voice chat.

For more information about Ruined, including character back-stories and 3D scenes from the game, and to sign-up for the game newsletter, please visit: www.ruinedonline.com.