ICANN has approved the creation of the new .tel domain – the “Internet communication specific TLD“. The contract has been awarded to UK based Telnic.
From the Telnic website:

What will the .Tel domain do?

The .Tel domain will enable people to reach a business from any Internet enabled device (computer or mobile) simply by typing, for example, “Hertz.tel”. The user will then be able to connect directly to a Hertz representative or navigate through a list of services that Hertz may offer. Businesses can easily extend their brands into this new space and enhance the way customer inquiries are handled.

In addition, individuals can use the .Tel domain to publish and update their contact information directly in the DNS. These individuals will decide, in real-time, by what means their friends and colleagues will be able to reach them. This could include: VoIP, conventional telephony (fixed-line or wireless), email, SMS, Skype, AIM and many more.

How will people access the .Tel?

Customers of the .Tel sTLD will store their contact details in the delegated domain space in the form of NAPTR records, which can be accessed by client software tailored to use these. Telnic intends to release such open source client software for Windows, Macintosh and Mobile phones, whilst a web browser proxy service will be available for registrants who wish to use this, making minimal .Tel functionality available to anyone with a web browser.

Interesting, so this sTLD will need a special client or client plugin in order to use it? Reminds me a little of the first version of IDN (International Domain Names). Well now that we have gotten rid of the smut on the not (.XXX TLD was nixed), we can at least place phone calls.

I can see people initiating calls from their PC, and I guess instead of using a phone number or someone’s name in a their address book, they can then also use a domain to call them. I’ve got to think about this one a bit more before I decide if I like it or not. To .Tel or not to .Tel? What do you think?

[via vnunet.com]

Apparently someone at the Canadian Government has paid attention. On top of registering census2006.ca for the survey of the Canadian population which takes place every 5 years, they also secured some of the domains for future surveys. They even thought of registering some of the available counterparts in other TLDs (some of them with an invalid phone number, by the way). The budget apparently also included the purchase of some PPC ads.
Let’s count the score (I am looking for all domains matching the pattern “census2???” in some TLDs and included some additional variations (there are more)):

(more…)

The telegraph takes a couple of the recent stories and publishes their story on domaining: The American Dream makes domain names big business again. Nothing new here really, apart from a huge sale of a .no domain (over $700,000), which was reported by DNJournal earlier.

And here it is: The Go Daddy Group Inc., which provides a domain name registration at its www.GoDaddy.com Web site, said it is seeking an initial public offering of as much as $200 million in Class A common stock. [..] It is seeking a Nasdaq listing under the symbol “DADY.”

(ed. How come Tidbits are also filed under News? Maybe I don’t need “tidbits”?)

Gee, this seems like an easy way to catch up on recent events. Let’s try out this new category.

• XXX scrapped (no more porn on the net?)
• New non-global TLDs (wow, finally some new non-working TLDs)
• Soccer Club goes after it’s domains
• Domain for sale with press-release (“thebaddestdude.com”? Excuse me?)
• Traffic Vegas coverage at DNJournal
• Marchex Q1/2006 results
• Somebody launches a domain name auction blog with a typo in the press release
• Intersearch draws attention to their revenue for “irs.com” (actually this is their Q1 results filing)
• Diamond.com website sells for $7.5 Million, (the domain was sold in 2000 by Internet Real Estate) [thanks Sal]
• Domain Name Speculation ruins student
• ActiveAudience Domain Parking launces (new goldkey brand)

I have just shuffled a couple of categories around a bit (and probably destroyed some deep links in the process, guess I should consider setting up redirects). I also decided to add a “tidbits” category, for those items that come across my screen and get bookmarked someplace for a later post. Now I will hopefully be able to post them quicker and maybe comment on them at a later time, if I still get around to it. Let’s see how it goes… only 6 articles sitting in the Drafts folder and about 30 unpublished links, most of them too old to write about now.

From an article in the National Post:

Yellow Pages said yesterday it picked up the suite of sites — including autos.ca, debts.ca, doctors.ca and RVcampgrounds.ca — from Montreal-based Emall.ca Inc. for $2.5-million. It is a tiny investment compared with the close to $4-billion Yellow Pages has spent in the past year to buy the former Telus Corp. phone book business in western Canada and a range of specialized classified publications across Canada including Auto Trader.

But Yellow Pages chief financial officer Christian Paupe said the acquired Web addresses will “become a very precious inventory. Online is the future. We don’t exactly know how this space is going to evolve, exactly. But I’m convinced this was a no-brainer for $2.5-million. Their worth over time will be very significant.”

Indeed. $6250 per category-specific domain seems like a good deal, even though it’s probably a new high for a .CA portfolio sale. But for a Yellow Pages directory provider, this is a no-brainer purchase, indeed.

Yellow Pages chief executive Marc Tellier said some of his new sites, such as attorneys.ca, may feature basic editorial content, such as advice on how to select a lawyer, as well as contact information for local advertisers.

Time to renew your .CA domains Looks like emall still got a couple of them left as well.

[Thank you Adam]

USA Today featured an article on domainers and domaining yesterday: Domain names become premium Web real estate

The article features Amy Schrier’s private sale of blue.com in March 2006 for $500,000, which she originally purchased for $65,000 in 2002. She intends to market her formula for getting the most value out of domain names.

Also featured Ron Jackson of DNJournal, Lawrence Fischer of SmartName.com, Zetetic, Yesdirect/Buydomains, Rick Schwartz with his 3 hour domain name auction at TRAFFIC, which yielded 2.1 Mio Dollars, Ken Carey of Flint, the sex.com story and Benoit Deschenes of Montreal.

The sidebar of the article has five tips from Internet REIT on how to maximize your domain revenue.

• It is the week of the ever growing Targeted TRAFFIC conference in Las Vegas, so it appears that the industry is getting some of their news in a bundled fashion this week.
• LiveDoor, the company that had a lot of negative news due to possibly shade accounting practices issued an announcement from their Innovation Interactive subsidiary: They have release SiteParker, a domain parking system. It apparently is built based on the experience of serving advertising for their own 20,000 domains.
• Marchex purchased some assets of AreaConnect.com for $16 Million of cash and stock. While I am still not sure what exactly AreaConnect is (apparently it has 1 Million page views per month) it sounds to me like it would fit right into Marchex’ local strategy. The company also appears to have partner ships with yellow and white pages directories across the US and Canada, which could provide additional local content and targeted traffic for Marchex. (Press Release) While we are talking about Marchex, I should also mention that they did launch new page layouts recently (I like them) and actually announced them with a press release.
• WhyPark.com launched a new service that says that it’s not parking, but asks you to host your sites with them. You point your domain to their servers and set up the domains and corresponding keywords. A sample site is PCviruses.net. They charge almost $100 to get you going. I am not quite sure if this is a one-time fee, or an annual fee. Judging from the sample site the content originates from free article websites. Apparently they provide you with “hundreds” or “thousands” of pages of “fresh content“. There is a limit of 100 domains per account – they charge $99.95 in order for you to sign up for their service. You provide your own Adsense/YPN/AdBrite code. (Press Release)
• Bulkregister re-discovers their market niche and give it a name with this press release: Domainers. They have introduced “Magic Folders”, which allow you to sort your names in different folders and connect those folders with specific attributes, such as different nameservers, whois information or the like.
• Meanwhile Ben Edelman who told us how Spyware generates fake clicks shows us a possible use for his research in being the lawyer for a law suit against Yahoo!. (PDF of the suit)
• With all of these news we are all looking for a new forum to discuss all of this. And along comes DN Fish. Well, as long as it’s not DN Phishing, hehe. (By the way, dnphishing.com is still available.) Hardly any posts on there so far, though. (Press Release)
• Oh and yes, there are rumours about a cooperation between Yahoo! and MSN.

[via OnlineMediaDaily, ClickZ, SearchEngineWatch, Forbes, Peter Ejtel and others]

Hidden in a Wall Street Journal article on the value of domains and the space in general and “flashgames.com” in specific is the following line:

To provide the technology for offering upgraded content, Demand has also purchased eNom Inc., a large domain name registrar based in Bellevue, Wash.

“These domain names are really the raw land of the Internet,” says Fred Harman, managing director of Oak Investment Partners, one of Mr. Rosenblatt’s backers. “Richard is a real-estate developer, taking the raw land and developing it … We’re trying to liberate these domains from the cybersquatters and actually put them to good use.”

The venture has already acquired 150,000 domain names — including flashgames.com — and plans to aggressively acquire more.

Apparently this re-inforces the current trend to ‘develop’ parked domains by marrying actual content with the advertising.

Meanwhile Demand Media’s website is still rather sparse. So far (aside from a Flash intro) they have added a link to the scanned version of the article in the Wall Street Journal.

More details are found in eNom’s Press Release:

eNom, Inc., one of the world’s largest Internet domain name registrars, announced that it has been acquired by Demand Media, Inc., a new company headed by former MySpace.com chairman, and former CEO of Intermix Media, Richard Rosenblatt. Los Angeles-based Demand Media will broaden eNom’s offerings by developing proprietary content tools and technologies, as well as new online advertising opportunities for eNom’s clients.

With the acquisition, Paul Stahura, eNom founder and CEO, becomes president and chief operating officer of Demand Media. Terms of the private sale were not disclosed.

Demand Media, Inc’s Chairman and CEO Richard Rosenblatt, described by the Wall Street Journal as a “serial Internet entrepreneur,” ran MySpace.com’s parent company, Intermix Media Inc., and negotiated its sale to News Corp. for more than $650 million last year. Richard was also the founding investor and vice-chairman of Great Domains, as well as Chairman and CEO of iMALL, Inc. In addition to eNom, Inc., Demand Media, Inc. also purchased San Francisco-based eHow Inc., which provides niche content for websites.