ICANN sent out a huge amount of new TLD material late last week, which killed my weekend. On the whole, it’s very thorough, even though important information (e.g., filing dates) is not yet provided. And, despite being quite complicated in parts, for the most part it’s quite clear. Preliminary congratulations to [...]

Profile of Bido.com, a new domain auction house.

Oversee.net is a sprawling Internet advertising company. Its hydra-headed holdings include DomainSponsor, Low.com, and Revenue.net, but of interest to us are two recently-purchased long-time domain name companies not mentioned on their main site: Moniker, Monte Cahn’s pioneering live-auction company when it comes to live auctions, and SnapNames, well known as the place to go [...]

Profile of auction provider Pool.com, which handled the .ASIA auctions.

An in-depth profile of Sedo, detailing their auction offerings to new TLDs.

An auction (or a series of auctions) is fast becoming an important part of any new TLD. .MOBI has used it successfully, .ASIA has done the same, and most recently ICANN has approved the use of auctions both a a tie-breaker for new TLDs (PDF, comments here), and also to profit from [...]

Summary of the Registry Speed-Dating contest, with a downloadable PDF of the results, along with a checklist of what to look for when choosing your TLD registry service provider.

Contestant #11 in our guide to registry operators is Community DNS, which emphasizes robust DNS services and has worked with a number of ccTLDs.

Contestant #10, RegistryASP, operates the registries for .HK, .SG, and .CD. They have proven competence with complicated business rules (.HK in particular), and are doing a good job making a name for themselves as a registry provider. Their web site is one of the more informative among our contenders.

Contestant #9 is CORE, the Council of Registrars. They’ve been around longer than anyone except VeriSign, and have an impressive roster of smart people who have launched both commercial and not-so-commercial TLDs. CORE knows ICANN very well, and have provided useful materials on their site.