Donuts Wins Auction for .Movie
Donuts has recently won the auction for the new gTLD .Movie. The company knocked out its rivals, Google, AMazon and Dish Network.
There were many other applicants for the new gTLD .Movie,including Radix, Famous Four and ARI Registry Services. However, they all have withdrawn their applications.
At the time of writing this article, the price of the private auction has not yet been disclosed.
There are no applications for .Movies.
Third Six-Figure .CLUB Sale Sees Wine.club Sell For $140,000 at NamesCon
The sale of vegas.club for $100,000, announced at the NamesCon conference this week in Las Vegas, has been quickly topped.
Wine.club sold during the RightOfTheDot NamesCon Auction for $140,000, meaning it now is the highest reported sale of a domain for any of the new gTLDs. According to media reports, the sale is a cash sale whereas the previous two six-figure .club sales (including for coffee.club) were done as deals.
During the auction almost one million dollars of domains was sold, with the biggest sale being for homecare.com and homecare.net, selling for a combined $350,000.
There were a number of other .club sales, the best of the remainder being weed.club which sold for $15,000 (and had a reserve range of $5,001 to $10,000), fight.club ($13,500), tequila.club ($8,000) and birthday.club ($5,000).
While the auction was dominated by .com sales, there were a number of sales for domains from new gTLDs such as email.host and mail.host ($6,500), food.wiki ($3,100), realestate.wiki ($3,000) and wallstreet.press ($2,900).
Sofia Vergara Wins SofiaVergara.org Domain Name in Arbitration
Sofia Vergara has managed to win the rights to SofiaVergara.org domain name.The complaint was filed with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center.
According to whois records, the domain name was first registered in July,2014.
Here are the most relevant facts from the WIPO decision :
“The Complainant has secured a number of trademark registrations for SOFIA VERGARA in the USA for a range of goods and services
The disputed domain name was registered by the Respondent on July 30, 2014.
The bulk of the site appears to be posts with short reports about and photographs of a number of celebrities. Each of the posts also has at least one “rotating” hyperlinked pay-per-click advertisement.
The onus of proving this requirement, like each element, falls on the Complainant. Panels have recognized the difficulties inherent in proving a negative, however, especially in circumstances where much of the relevant information is in, or likely to be in, the possession of the respondent.
The Complainant states that she has not authorised the Respondent to use the disputed domain name. Nor is the Respondent affiliated with her. The Complainant has not licensed the Respondent to use her trademark. The disputed domain name is plainly not derived from the Respondent’s name. From the available record, the Respondent does not appear to hold any trademarks for the disputed domain name.
If one clicks on the photograph of the celebrity in question in the “post”, one is taken to another “gossip” website at “www.justjared.com”, which appears to be the source of the “posts” on the Respondent’s website to which the disputed domain name resolves.
The Respondent’s claim that the disputed domain name was acquired to operate a fan site establishes that the Respondent was well and truly aware of the Complainant when the Respondent registered the disputed domain name. The Complainant’s name is of course also her registered trademark.
The Panel finds that use of the disputed domain name to generate revenues from pay-per-click advertising associated with stories about other celebrities is use of the disputed domain name in bad faith. The (or the bulk of the) stories and the pay-per-click advertisements have no association with the Complainant. The Respondent therefore appears essentially to be using the Complainant’s name and trademark to attract users to his website to generate pay-per-click revenues unfairly. That is not use of the Complainant’s trademark in good faith under the Policy.”
The complainant managed to establish all the elements required. Therefore, the arbitrator decided to transfer the domain name from the respondent to the complainant.
Rightside Launches Top Level Domain Names for Social Responsability and Education
Rightside announced the launch of two new top level omain names – .Gives and .Degree. These new TLDs offer a way for charitable and educational organizations to improve their visibility .
You can read the press release after the jump :
“Rightside NAME, +1.02% a leading provider of domain name services that advance the way businesses and consumers define and present themselves online, today announced the launch of .GIVES and .DEGREE. These new Top Level Domain (TLD) names offer a way for charitable and educational organizations to improve their visibility and to attract donors and students.
For the more than one million charitable organizations in the United States, .GIVES provides a platform to affirm their commitment to their communities and causes. Seventy percent of Americans and the majority of large corporations give to charity each year, contributing more than $229 billion in total donations. With a .GIVES domain name, a not-for-profit organization can align its online identity with its mission while developing and maintaining relationships with new and existing donors. For-profit entities can use the .GIVES domain to call out a website or subset of web pages dedicated to their corporate giving and community involvement programs.
The .DEGREE domain creates a medium of communication for faculty, students, and parents seeking information from online and traditional universities. From online recruitment and marketing, to faculty profiles and student engagement forums, .DEGREE offers a centralized resource for educational opportunity and future success. With the dramatic rise in online education offerings from both state and private colleges and universities, .DEGREE creates a suitable online home for distance-learning programs, with memorable URL options such as onlinemba.degree.
In an expanding world of domain availability, .DEGREE and .GIVES join a growing portfolio of web extensions that align with professional and personal interests. This transition is especially important for universities, as institutions of higher learning rely more heavily than ever on the Internet to showcase their campus life and academic offerings to potential students and their families.
Philanthropic and academic organizations can use a .GIVES or .DEGREE domain to improve visibility with new and existing audiences at every point of contact — through online and offline ads, web and search traffic, signage, emails, and printed marketing collateral.
Through Rightside’s retail registrar Name.com and its network of partner registrars and resellers, getting a new web or email address ending in .GIVES or .DEGREE is a simple process, one that connects organizations and individuals with accessible, memorable web identities no longer limited by the scarcity of options on legacy domains.
About Rightside
Rightside™ inspires and delivers new possibilities for consumers and businesses to define and present themselves online. The company, with its affiliates, is a leading provider of domain name services, offering one of the industry’s most comprehensive platforms for the discovery, registration, usage, and monetization of domain names. In addition to being a new gTLD registry operator, Rightside is home to some of the most admired brands in the industry, including eNom, Name.com, and NameJet (in partnership with Web.com). Headquartered in Kirkland, WA, Rightside has offices in North America, Europe, and Australia. For more information please visit www.rightside.co. “
.ME Registry : 72% of Respondents have a personalized Domain Name
.ME Registry, the company behind .ME extension, and branded.me, announced recently the results of the first ever study linking personal websites to career success.
You can read the press release after the jump :
” .ME Registry, the organization that operates the .ME Internet extension, and branded.me, a personal branding platform, announced today the results of the first ever study linking personal websites to career success. This research and partnership is in line with ongoing personal branding campaign the .ME Registry started in October 2014. The goal of the campaign is to provide interested parties with knowledge and tools necessary to make themselves stand out from the masses competing for the same professional opportunities.
Owners of personal web sites recognize that personal websites go best with personal domain names, which is why they are commonly used. 72% said that they have a personalized domain name and 73% said that having one is either very important or important for their online brand.
“When .ME domains opened for a worldwide registration we were aware that personal websites and personalization of business are the future of Internet, and that’s exactly what this survey shows,” said Natasa Djukanovic, Director International Sales of .ME Registry. “Respondents of the survey have recognized the importance of both personal websites (71%) and personalized domain names (73%) for their online brand. We at .ME are very proud to see that 14% of them have a .ME domain name,” added Natasa.
The study shows that professionals today have received tangible benefits from creating and maintaining a personal website. 71% of those surveyed said that having a website is either very important or important in helping build their personal brand and 70% said that their website is either very important or important for attracting new opportunities. Respondents believe (70%) that employers are reviewing their online brand before they are interviewed.
Nick Macario, CEO of branded.me said, “This study proves the value of personal websites and the benefits associated. A website is one the most powerful means of personal branding yet only 4% of people currently have one. We created branded.me to empower individuals of all generations and skill levels to take control of their personal brand and we couldn’t be more excited to team up with .ME to bring the first research of its kind to market around personal websites.”
This research also successfully connected blogging with career development. 65% of people with a personal website have a blog and 62% use their blog to grow their career. 61% said that they have received a job offer because of their job and 79% said that their blog is either very important or important for their personal brand. This proves that blogs, as well as personal websites, are tools that successfully yield professional recognition and job offers. “
