In the aftermath of the e.co auction, you’ve got 24 hours to register a .co domain name via the .co registry founders program. Domain names registered in this way need to have sites up and running by July 20, otherwise other registrations can be applied for via registrars such as register.com, with general availability starting in July.

According to some internet commentary, the e.co acquisition could prove to be a good investment with the domain extension .co likely to take off in the future, especially for the US. Twitter will create its own one-letter domain t.co and the .co extension is already used in extensions like .co.uk and .co.il (Israel).

No official announcements as to the future of the e.co domain name - whether B52 media will sell it or not - have been made, but it’s just as possible that the company will use it for something more specific, rather than just cash in on the new acquisition. The .co extension could prove a widely used one by many companies in the future, and we will have to watch this space to see how big it gets.

Source | ElliotsBlog

Continue reading: .CO domains to take off in the future: e.co looking cheap at 81,000

NIC Mexico, the registery which administers the ccTLD of .mx has launched a new promotional campaign called “Let’s Be More .MX”. The campaign aims to promote more registrations of .mx domains to grow Mexico’s domain market. The idea is to use the projects and ideas of .mx users to reach a greater internet public in Mexico.

Via the site www.seamosmas.mx a community of .mx users is being formed where experiences can be shared and more promotion can take place. It’s a way of making sure that not only users of .mx domains get the full benefit from this ccTLD but that those very users can form the part of promotion for more .mx registrations.

Continue reading: Mexico promotes .mx domains: "Let's Be More .MX

We talked about company screw-ups when it comes to domain names, but here is a big one - the Tenessee Police Department let its domain name expire, and as it came up for registration again, someone else took that opportunity and is now using the domain to complain about speed cameras and fines.

Brian McCrary is the new owner of the domain bluffcitypd.com and while nothing sophisticated as a website, people are enjoying using it as a public forum over speeding fines and cameras. According to the police department, the registration of the domain name was the responsibility of a police officer who was on medical leave.

At this stage, there’s no word from the Police Department as to what action they’ll take but it’s another lesson in correctly managing your domain name - don’t forget to renew your registration!

Source | eWorldPost
Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: Tenessee police department domain expires, new owner posts speed camera complaints

The highly successful VoIP provider, Skype, is expanding its services and has a launched an online music streaming site denominated Rdio.com. Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis have explained that Rdio.com would be pronouned “AR-Di-O” and indicates a mix between radio and audio, as it reflects web 2.0 youth culture.

Despite any problems the Rdio.com domain might encounter, Zennstrom and Friis payed the almost negligible figure of $5,001 for the domain name, and if it follows in the footsteps of Skype, they’re unlikely to worry about whether anyone spells it differently at the start.

Continue reading: Skype launches music streaming site Rdio.com

Managing your company’s domain name can’t be an easy thing. What with remembering to register multiple domain names for your various products or services, to remembering the most basic of things - renewal of your domain name - there are many pitfalls beyond just organising the content of your site. After big names in the past such as Emirates, GMTV and toy shop Hamleys forgot to renew their domain names, the other favourite domain name blunder seems to be not registering enough names, or not registering them properly.

As Eliotsblog points out, Diageo’s Captain Morgan brand is smart enough to have registered the domain name spicedrum.com, being the most important product in their line-up. The company, however, has ignored its main website of Captain Morgan so that if you go to spicedrum.com you’re redirected to CaptainYourHalloween.com. And there you get stuck on a parked page that’s been that way for over a year.

Another in the liquor brand domain name faux pas is the Wodka company’s registering of welovewodka.com but not welovevodka.com. Meaning their billboard spending when you’re driving past on the highway could finish in you visiting someone else’s website and therefore buying someone else’s product. It’s the attention to domain name detail that counts…

Continue reading: Domain name screw-ups: big companies who forget about their domain names

Ever heard of the website desperaterussianhousewives.co.uk? Or watchagrownmanrot.co.uk? You won’t have done because they don’t exist, and are part of a BBC strategy to register unusual domain names which are associated with some of its television shows. The list has reached 154 bizarre domain names, among which are the above as well as singlessos.co.uk and bestmurders.co.uk. The domain name jellyparties.co.uk, for example, was registered as part of the BBC’s Psychoville series.

The registering of these domain names is part of both a brand protection measure and a way to gain Google rankings. In an article about the practice of registering domain names that never become actual websites, the BBC quotes Murray Dick, a professor in online journalism:

“If you look at a highly competitive keyword area like health and well-being, you’ll find no shortage of results from companies who have set up domains using words like ’sixpack’, who rank competitively with more established sources of information on health and well-being. Organisations exploit this fact to earn lots of money on Google’s AdSense service.”

The BBC didn’t release all of its domain names because some aren’t covered by the UK’s freedom of information act, and because as an organisation, it wants to avoid cybersquatting in its naming strategy. The cybersquatting practice is defined as: Cybersquatters register domain names once a new brand becomes public and then demand inflated prices to hand over the address.

Source | BBC
Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: Desperate Russian housewives just one of the BBC's "strange" domains

Nominet’s Policy Advisory Board (PAB) has stated that two-letter .uk domains should be allowed to registered, and to this effect Nominet is running a survey on two letter, one character and other short domain names. Nominet says:

The current rules for registering .uk domain names do not allow the registration of two letter domain names.

Nominet’s Policy Advisory Body (PAB) has recommended that two letter domain names should be available for registration and a PAB sub-committee agreed on the principles of how two letter domain names should be released.

Continue reading: Nominet survey on two letter .uk domains

File download are sites are very popular, so it’s no wonder that files.com sold at auction for a whopping $725,000 USD. In addition, prize.com also sold for $100,000.

Other sales of note include kip.com for $80,000, mum.co.uk for £20,000, onlinecasino.se for $32,000 USD, and italy.tv for $19,000.

In other news, American Airlines won a domain dispute with the NAF this week over the name americanairway.com. The company argued the domain is confusingly similar to its trademark, and in this case, I have to agree.

Finally, a group of multiple listing services have joined together to form the MLS Domains Association. They hope to create a .mls gTLD for their industry.

Photo | plex

Continue reading: Files.com sells for $725,000

Aside from writing, I also develop websites for clients on a freelance basis. In the ideal scenario, I get contacted by an interested client who has neither a domain name nor a current web hosting company. I can then steer that client to the host and domain provider I think is best and will work well with Joomla or whatever content management system I use.

Unfortunately, many clients come with their own baggage. More often than not, it includes a domain hosted by a company like GoDaddy and possibly a current website that is less than stellar. The worst situation that I ever encountered was a client who had chosen to use GoDaddy’s hosting service with a Windows server. Anyone who has tried to use PHP content management systems with Windows is probably already cringing at the thought.

Aside from the usual problems with GoDaddy’s control panel, I had to content with Windows and its strange compatibility issues with PHP. Theoretically, it should work fine with Joomla, but that requires proper configuration, something GoDaddy failed to do. Mind you, the Joomla installation was automatic from their own control panel, but it still never worked quite right. In the end, the client settled for a less-than-perfect site. My advice to anyone who wants a website: ask those who know first before you make purchases.

Photo Source: Flickr

Continue reading: What people should know about Windows servers

A lot happens in the domain industry every day. Some of it we can cover, some of it we can’t. Here’s an overview of some news you may have missed over the past week:

1. Screensavers.com sold for £221,049 ($335,000 USD). This is the fifth-highest sale this year.

2. The sex.com auction scheduled for March 18 was canceled because of a legal claim made against the owner.

Continue reading: Domain news recap

Question: Why do domain registrars require two name servers?

Answer: The short answer to this question is that Internet standards require it according on RFC 1034, published by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). But there is a good reason for it.

The intent of the standard is to ensure that domain name servers have redundancy. If one name server goes down, a website will still have at least one more to keep it alive. In other words, your server could be working perfectly fine, but without name servers, no one will see your site. Furthermore, sites with heavy loads might be able to distribute that load between the two name servers.

Because of the above reasons, the intent is to have two distinct name servers, at two locations, using two different IP addresses. If you have your own server and do not have access to a another server for DNS, I recommend using one of the many DNS services that are available at low cost. It will save you trouble in the long run and will make sure your site is up to standards.

Photo: Flickr

Continue reading: Why do domain registrars require two name servers?

Question: What is CNAME?

Answer: A CNAME or Canonical Name record is a type of record found in DNS that allows the user to specify an alias for a domain name. For example, you can create an alias of domain1.com with domain2.com. More typically, however, it is used to create aliases for subdomains, including the most common, which is “www”.

Often a default domain record will have a wildcard (*) that will resolve any subdomain, including “www”. If it does not, it will need something like this:

www.domain1.com. CNAME domain1.com.

You can also have one point to another:

ftp.domain1.com. CNAME sftp.domain1.com.

Many mail servers will also use a mail subdomain:

mail.domain1.com. CNAME domain1.com.

CNAME records are also very useful when pointing to external domains, particularly when using cloud services like Google Apps. It effectively disguises the fact that the service is hosted on another domain.

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

Continue reading: What is CNAME?