Just as Europe got its own .EU-domain last year, very soon we will get an asian .ASIA-domain.

The estimated schedule for .ASIA includes the following phases:

Sunrise 1 - Late June / July 2007
Sunrise 2 - September 2007
Sunrise 3 - Late October / November 2007
Landrush - February 2008
Live - March 2008

Se more information at THE.DOTASIA.ORG/ANISATION

Just found this nice interactive AJAX-driven whois-tool, that makes it possible to explore domain names much more systematical:

psychicwhois.com

It is a service provided from the excellent useful site domaintool.com (former whois.sc).

If you like me like Gmail from Google, then there is good news. Google just launched a beta-test service where you can combine your domains with your Gmail account. It is called Gmail for your domain and you can sign in here if you are interested.

Domainlinked.com can now present the latest breaking news about domain names on the very right side of this blog. If you wanna stay tuned about what is going on about domain names in the most importent media, you just have to look on Domainlinked.com.

It is now possible to make a whois search for the new European dot .eu domain from EURid.eu’s site. You can here see whether a domain name is queued for registration during the sunrise period, or whether it is reserved og blocked for registration. For instance you can see that the domain domain.eu is registered 36 times, at what time and by wich company or person. Also you can see that the domain denmark.eu is reserved by the state of Denmark and that the domain co.eu is blocked.

So in this whois search you can follow whether someone is already trying to register a domain name, which you might be interested in buying after February 7th or April 7th.

It will be interesting to see how double registrations will be filtered down to one owner, and whether everybody will be satisfied with this process. Domains where the filtration has to be hardest is with the domain names (Source: EURid.eu’s press release):

sex.eu > 193 applications
hotel.eu > 103 applications
travel.eu > 84 applications
jobs.eu > 80 applications
hotels.eu > 79 applications
casino.eu > 73 applications
poker.eu > 67 applications
golf.eu > 63 applications
business.eu > 62 applications
shopping.eu > 61 applications
porn.eu > 61 applications
music.eu > 60 applications

See earlier articles here, here and here.

It seems now clear that a new public beta of Internet Explorer (IE7) will be launched in the first months of 2006, and will be available for download to whom might be interested.

For all owners of IDN-domains (Internationalized Domain Names) this might be good news. The new IE7 should support IDN-domain names as all other browsers already do (Microsoft-Watch IEblog). This means that all the many owners (including my self) of language specific domains will finally will be able to use them for real. Until now these domains have practically been useless, because the majority of all web users still are using IE. But one still have to wait until most people have downloaded the new IE7.

The new European dot eu domain name (se my previous posts here and here) seems to have gotten an intense start. In the first 15 minutes 40.000 applied and after an hour more than 80.000 had applied for the first and restricted sunrise and 13.55 95.370 had applied. Of these 75.306 where unike (only one applicant for each domai name), 620 by geographical origin, 7.225 by public bodies, 66.852 by national trade marks and 20.673 by community and international trade marks (source: EURid.eu’s press page).

The first three applications:

tickets.eu > received at 11:00:01.699
job.eu > received at 11:00:01.711
hotels.eu > received at 11:00:01.712

The five most applied domain names:

sex.eu > 193 applications
hotel.eu > 103 applications
travel.eu > 84 applications
jobs.eu > 80 applications
hotels.eu > 79 applications
casino.eu > 73 applications
poker.eu > 67 applications
golf.eu > 63 applications
business.eu > 62applications
shopping.eu > 61applications
porn.eu > 61 applications
music.eu > 60 applications

This gives an indication about, where the big money on the Internet is. Now the funny big fight about providing evidence proofing that the companies have a right for all the different names.

Somebody has probably heard about the new upcoming generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) with the extension .xxx., which should be reserved for web sites with pornographic content. Last week ICANN (the highest domain authority) had to approve the launch of this long awaited .xxx domain at there board meeting.

But at the board meeting in Vancouver last Thursday ICANN’s chairman Vint Cerf (yes, it is that Vint Cerf, who invented the Internet and now works for Google) decided to postpone the decision of the approval of the .xxx domain. See the story here: zdnet.co.uk and theregister.com.

There are conspiracy speculations about, that the delay of the domain is not caused by missing time for reading a 350 page report, but caused by big politics on highest level. The rumours say, that an EU-commisioner intervened in the process. Again other rumours claim, that US-president Bush is the reason for the delay, because he has been lobbied by the Christian right, but that he is in need of not being appearing as the guy who sabotaged the .xxx domain because of the negotiations about global inter control.

The general discussions about the new porn domain has mainly been about, whether porn will become more accessible on the one hand, and whether it will be easier to block on the other hand. But again, I don’t think that any established porn sites on present domains would close down because there is a new domain. In the end, I think it is all about domain business.

The following domains are for sale. Send me an offer if you would like to buy some of them.

adra.info
alinko.com
basium.com
borduria.com
bors.info
carreidas.com
conovo.com
domainlink.org
etno.info
gixa.com
linka.info
linx.info
newstaxi.com
newz.biz
nize.info
oago.com
poax.com
spex.info
syldavia.com
vupe.com
w3f.net
zerl.com

Two weeks ago I received an email from a guy, who wanted to buy a domain that I bought just one week earlier:

Hello,

I saw your domain was listed for sale. Are you still interested in
selling?.

Please email me your desired price. Don’t ask to make an offer. Just
email the desired price.

By the way, did you receive offers from other buyers?

I run a software development company. We develop ERP systems and
databases in Delphi and MS SQL for several local companies. Buying and
selling domain names is not my main business. Just another way to invest
money and make additional income.

Best regards,

Stephen Shapiro, Ph.D.
President
BON (Back Office Network) Solutions
================================
NOTICE - This communication may contain confidential and privileged
information that is for the sole use of the intended recipient. Any
viewing, copying or distribution of, or reliance on this message by
unintended recipients is strictly prohibited. If you have received
this
message in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the
message
and deleting it from your computer.
================================

That looked very nice, and I had only given 2.99 dollars for the domain linka.info, which he was interested in. I mailed him back that he could have it for 700 dollars. That was a bit more than I expected to be able to get for the name, but then I thought I could lower the price in a negotiation. The day after my email to him, I received this email from him:

700 USD. Ok.

Do you sell a developed site or domain only? I prefer domain names.

Do you have an independent valuation from industry experts (appraisal)?
I
need an appraisal certificate for domain priced in your range. I
consider
your name as an investment. In other words I’m going to sell your name
later
and make a profit. If I overpay I won’t be able to make a profit in the
future. It’s very important for you and me to know the current market
value
of your domain.

Of course, we must be sure that you are engaging a reputable appraisal
company. I heard many appraisal companies often made inaccurate
appraisals.
So appraisal from each and every site is not acceptable.To avoid
mistakes I

asked domain experts about reputable appraisal companies in a forum

http://domaintalk.ourplace.com/Archive/42065.htm
Juck check this posting.

If the appraisal comes higher you can adjust your asking price
accordingly.

After I verify an appraisal from you we’ll continue our negotiations.

How do you prefer to get paid: www.PayPal.com, www.escrow.com, check or
wire?

Hope we can come to an agreement fast.

Looking forward to your reply

When you follow the link he send me, you see a discussion thread where people recommend certain appraisal companys and advice against others. At the same time you vitness a conversation where a domain seller confirms Shapiros transfer of 4.100 dollars for a specific domain acquisition.

Luckily I have always been a bit sceptic toward these so called “domain name appraisals”, so I start becoming skeptical toward my new business partner. You must be naive, if you think you can trade domains like a measurable good and earn money on them. Especially if you can’t judge them by your self. Domain business is characterized by a syndrome of golddigger mentality, where there are much more hopeful sellers than buyers.

But at this point I still hadn’t looked through was going on, so I googled “cheap and good appraisal” to see how cheap this appraisal stuff could be. I found that the 59 dollars that Shapiros recommended company charged was a bit more than I ever would give. But by this search I coincidentally find this forum thread: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=9596
, and suddenly I recognize Shapiros mail send to somebody else. By looking through this thread I find out, that Shapiro also has called him self George Bergman quiet a while ago. So Shapiro was not that beginner into domain business, as he claimed to be. Now I took a piece of his mail and googled it and found this complete mail exchange with Shapiro (here David Pulman) in may this year: http://www.freshstation.org/games/index.php?option=
com_content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=37

So apparently he makes a living in creating hope to domain owners and trying to sell a expensive appraisal in return.