Archive for March, 2010

A Colorful Contest…Domainers at Their Best

Mar 29, 2010 4 Comments by

Tons of new IDN domainers, an email to the Israel’s Ministry of Education offering a domain for free, and references to plastic surgery domains all stemmed from a two week contest hosted on ElliotsBlog (here) to see who the best IDN handregger is. The basic intent of the contest was to show domainers how easy [...]

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Brandable Halos

Mar 28, 2010 2 Comments by

Conventional media ranging from NBC’s nightly news to BET want to bask in Twitter’s halo of cool, even if they don’t know what they are talking about. I want to laugh every time a reporter in his mid-50′s name-drops “Twitter.” And he undoubtedly says “Twitter” as if it is a foreign word, and as if [...]

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ElliotsBlog Contest Shows Off the Big Guns

Mar 24, 2010 1 Comment by

It is fun to see domainers at their most competitive. Recently our joint ElliotsBlog/IDNTools contest, which can be found here, received some very strong entries from long-time IDN domainers. The leading entry at the time of this post has a footprint (footprint = average CPC x Google exact match search term (as determined by Google [...]

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Thailand’s New IDN ccTLD Leads the Pack in a Flurry of Announcements

Mar 23, 2010 4 Comments by

If you are a serious domainer, take a look at all the new foreign IDN ccTLDs that you should be ready to either embrace or compete with. The full ICANN list of announcements is here. Today, ICANN announced that Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and others have all passed the fast track string evaluation [...]

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How to Know if You Bought a Good Domain? (Aluminum).jp and the Development Test

Mar 22, 2010 1 Comment by

It is traditional wisdom in the world of domain investing that you should only buy a name for which you have a clear plan for development. Otherwise, you’ll end up registering tons of sub-par names that may never add value to your portfolio but for which you will need to pay renewal fees. Given the [...]

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Goodbye IDN Blog, Hello Live Redesign

Mar 16, 2010 7 Comments by

You can see the live redesign as it is in progress here as it is time for a blog facelift. The fun part is that not only can you track the design as it occurs in real time by using this link, but you can change it if you see something you don’t like (or [...]

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Are .中国 (.China) and a Domain Trademark Clearinghouse Game Changers?

Mar 14, 2010 1 Comment by

The 37th ICANN meeting wrapped up on Friday in Nairobi, Kenya. One of the largest news items to come out of Nairobi was the announcement that ICANN passed a resolution stating that China will get its own IDN ccTLD that will be approved as early as April. The Xinhua news agency reported excitedly on the [...]

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Who is the Best Handregger? We Challenge You.

Mar 11, 2010 1 Comment by

I’ve always wondered who picks up the best handregs. How “expert” are each of us at buying a fresh $8.00 name? Well consider the gauntlet thrown. We at IDNTools are teaming up with Elliot’sBlog to find the best handregger out there. For fun, the contest is limited to the best IDN handreg — so for [...]

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Is it Time for.XXX Domains?

Mar 10, 2010 No Comments by

Will you lose your adult names? Will they be censored? Will there be new competition? It is all up for grabs this week, as ICANN discusses the potential for a .xxx TLD. The stated purpose of the TLD is to safeguard children from pornography, and to provide an extension that serves as a label. This [...]

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Ron Artest of L.A. Lakers Loves Hindi, Japanese, Hebrew Scripts

Mar 08, 2010 3 Comments by

Ron Artest of the L.A. Lakers is known as a rough and tumble defensive stopper hailing from New York City, and has never been thought of as a linguist…until now. Artest played small forward for the Chicago Bulls, Indiana Pacers, Sacramento Kings, Houston Rockets and L.A. Lakers and is infamously known for his role in [...]

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