Web.com Partners with PayPal
Web.com Group, Inc. and PayPal appear to have partnered up to promote Web.com Group’s internet marketing service. Upon logging in some PayPal users are seeing a prompt advertising a free consultation with Web.com to help them promote and grow their online business. The consultation is designed to show business owner’s how to use search engines like Bing, Yahoo, and Google as well as social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to their advantage. This is an incredibly smart move on the part of Web.com because they stand to gain a wealth of new domain registrations and websites. Web.com has four domain registrar subsidiaries: Register.com, Poweryourname, NameSecure, and NetworkSolutions.
Major retailers join Mobile Wallet service
Some major retailers including Bed Bath & Beyond, Gap, Walmart, Target, and 7-Eleven have joined a new mobile payment network called MCX. MCX has not yet launched or released a potential launch date, but they aim to be a rival to other mobile payment services like Google Wallet. MCX already had Dillards, Inc., Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc, and Sheetz Inc. on board, and they hope with the addition of big names like Gap and Target others will jump in too. The mobile payment industry is expected to explode over the next few years. Companies like MCX and Google Wallet make it possible for consumers to use their cell phones as their own personal point of sale machine. Being able to streamline their shopping experience is of great importance to enough consumers to guarantee that this industry will thrive globally.
UpperPeninsula.com sells for $55,000
Mike Mann announced that he sold the domain name UpperPeninsula.com today for $55,000. He originally bought the domain in 2007 for $2,500. In addition to the sale of UpperPeninsula.com he also announced the sale of 14 other domains today for a grand total over $70,000. Mann’s company Domainmarket.com is sponsoring the invitation only TRAFFIC party Monday night.
Sedo Launches new price suggestion tool
Today Sedo.com launched the Big Data Pricer, a domain price suggestion tool. The Big Data Pricer tool works in a similar fashion to IDNX, the domain pricing index. Sedo’s Product Manager for Pricing, Thies Lindenthal, said that “Estimating a fair market price for a domain is as much an art as it is a science”. Sedo has been the leading domain marketplace for the past eleven years and they have large quantities of data at their disposal because of it. The Big Data Pricer uses all of that data along with some algorithms to provide owners, sellers, and buyers with the most accurate valuation possible. The Big Data Pricer uses data from over 300,000 real market transactions on the Sedo marketplace. The Big Data Pricer should help make buying and selling domains easier for both parties because they will have more accurate data at their fingertips before they decide to buy, sell, or negotiate. Thies Lindenthal will be available tomorrow (October 5th) at the Google Hangout at 11 am Eastern Standard time to answer questions about the Big Data Pricer. To participate in the discussion just go here.
New DomainNameSales.com Platform Is Live
Although Frank Schilling promised to reveal the new and improved DomainNameSales.com platform at the TRAFFIC conference this weekend, he couldn’t resist sending out an email announcing it and giving a few teaser details today. Those attending the conference in Fort Lauderdale on Sunday will be treated to a more detailed look at the new platform.
The tidbits Schilling talks about in the email do sound appealing. He promises the new platform has an improved sales workflow and an easier interface. The email also talked of an improved process for negotiations between buyers and brokers/owners. A new streamlined checkout process sounds fantastic as does the new ability to choose your own broker for automatic handling of leads. Real time management of parked domains such as redirecting, disabling or changing the target is another useful feature.
Domainers who have had a chance to check out and use the new system are giving rave reviews saying it saves them time and makes tracking of offers much easier.
Two New gTLD Bids Withdrawn
With Eli Lilly & Co. dropping its bid for .cialis and Rogers Communication withdrawing their proposal for .chatr, there are now a total of six bids that have kicked the bucket. Google had earlier withdrawn bids for .and, .est and .are. KSB, a German pump maker, has also withdrawn their application for their dot-brand. ICANN has made statements alluding to the withdrawal of another bid, but no one is releasing the details so we don’t yet know the identity of the other proposal.
Reinvention, Inc. Sues Reinvention, LLC Over Domain
Reinvention, Inc. is an Illinois-based marketing company that has been operating under the ‘re:invention’ brand since 2003, according to the complaint. The company officially filed for that trademark last year and it was granted earlier this year. Reinvention, LLC. Is a data sampling company that started much more recently and just registered the reinvention.com domain in 2012.
Reinvention, Inc. is asking for damages as well as the transfer of the domain. One has to wonder why the Illinois company waited until now to file a complaint. Could it be that the $4,700 sales price that it went for through Sedo last year was too much for the company to pay out? The company purchased ReinventionInc.com back in December 2002.
Yummy Foods Domain Grab Denied
Earlier this year, Yummy Foods announced their intention to relaunch the defunct Kozmo.com delivery brand. Kozmo.com was one of the rather spectacular dot com failures when it raised more than $250 million to be able to deliver gum without a delivery fee. Yeah, that’s right – chewing gum. Can’t imagine why that one went belly up.
Yummy Foods has two trademarks using the term ‘kozmo’ in conjunction with food delivery and delivery of other goods. The gum dot com never trademarked the term but the domain has remained registered to them all this time, despite the failure more than 10 years ago.
Yummy tried to get a WIPO panel to transfer the domain to them, given that it’s their brand and the other company no longer exists. WIPO turned them down flat citing that the proceedings themselves may not be valid, given that both parties must be legal entities. With the original company now non-existent, it could not be a party to the legal case. The panel said that “the POLICY was not designed as a tool for obtaining domain names from defunct corporations”.