New gTLD market share courtesy ntldstats.com

As you may be aware, if you read my blog regularly, you probably know by now that I’ve been a fan of the new gTLD domain names, especially keyword rich ones, since they were first introduced. It seems as though you either really love the new gTLD domain names and see the opportunities they provide, or you don’t like them. I’ve run across quite a few people who just don’t like the new gTLD domain names. Some say that their value is limited, and others have event told me that they will fail. [Read more…]

A while back, I wrote about Apple’s mysterious non-sensical domain names that were hosted on Amazon’s Cloud servers. That post was picked up by Gizmodo. Well, I noticed today, a day before the big Apple event, that may or may not include news about the new Apple iPhone 6, iOS 8, Apple NFC, and the Apple iWatch, those non-sensical domain names are saying this:

Why they’ve been switched from being a simple server default landing page to one that actually includes content (Hello being the content), is kind of interesting. Those sites are still up and running, and I bet they have something to do with Apple’s announcements on September 9th. [Read more…]

Microsoft is getting ready to launch a new site or service called Sway. Right now there’s no word from Microsoft officially about what this new product, service, or website will be. But based on the number of domain names that have been purchased recently by Microsoft and their private acquisition of the Sway.com domain name leads me to believe that Sway is launching soon.

Update: According to a TechCrunch article, and several others, Sway is going to be a Content Delivery Network (CDN) of some type, and I suspect that they are speculating–based on the CDN characters in the domain names that were registered. Venture Beat says it will be a cloud service.

Jamie Zoch, from Dot Weekly reports that Microsoft “used the domain buying service Brand Certified and has acquired the domain name Sway.com. No purchase price has been disclosed but it was likely six figures for the domain. The domain purchase likely took place on or about March 3, 2014 and has been hid behind the Brand Certified name since acquiring the domain name on behalf of Microsoft.” [Read more…]

There is a pretty nasty domain name appraisal scam going around that you need to be aware of if you own domain names. The scammer’s only intent is to make money from a domain name appraisal service, which is fake. Furthermore, the scammer, Roland Gordan, and Authority-ICANN.org, tries to make it look like the real ICANN.org is offering domain name appraisals. This is a scam, and domain name owners should not fall for this online scheme.

Here’s how this domain name scam works. [Read more…]

There have been reports that Mozilla, the organization behind the Firefox web browser, is working on a device similar to Google’s Chromecast, a media streaming stick. Brad Linder reported that “Mozilla is working on a small stick that you can plug into a TV to stream internet videos or other content while using the Firefox web browser on your phone or other device as a remote.”

And now we may have the answer to what it may be called. Why? Mozilla Media domain names were just registered by Mozilla. The company just registered: [Read more…]

Well, by now you probably know about how I feel about domains with hyphens in them. If you don’t, then you may want to read my post about a test that was done regarding domain names with hyphens. That certainly opened up my eyes, and now I prefer domains without hyphens in them. So, when I saw today that Microsoft registered two domain names with hyphens in them (multiple hyphens), and they didn’t purchase the domains without hyphens, I cringed. [Read more…]