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Track Domain Trends With Verisign Grapher Tool

I recently learned about the DomainView Grapher Tool offered by Verisign, which allows people to track the number of .com and .net domain registrations for specific keywords by date. For example, and the one used in a Verisign blog post, you can see  just how many .com and .net domain names were registered in 2013 with the term “bitcoin” in them. Verisign operates the .com and .net domain name registries.

In addition to being a neat way to look at domain registrations, I want to share a few ways that I think  Verisign’s Grapher tool can be helpful. In my opinion, it seems to be more of a novelty, but here are a few ways that the tool can be used:

My eBay Account Was Stolen

I was running on the treadmill yesterday afternoon when my iPhone started flashing dozens of new emails. I quickly ended my workout and went up to my office to see what was happening and to try and create a filter in Gmail to stop the spam. When I got to my desk, I had hundreds of new emails, all of which had large numeric subject lines from various spoof email addresses.

Frustrated with the sheer volume of spam I had received, I began to delete mass amount of it before heading to the Red Sox game. As I was deleting emails and hitting the “report spam” button within the Gmail control panel, I continued to receive a deluge of new spam emails. I worried that it wouldn’t stop by the time I left for the game, and my iPhone would be useless. Turns out, that was the least of my worries.

In the middle of deleting receiving the spam emails, I noticed an email from eBay with

Escrow.com Selling Autographed Guitar to Benefit Music Charity

I know this isn’t news that’s related to the domain industry, but it’s nice to hear about a domain industry company giving back and helping others.

I read a press release this morning announcing that Escrow.com is selling a black Fender Geddy Lee Jazz Bass guitar autographed by members of the band RUSH, and all proceeds will be donated to the Fender Music Foundation, a national music charity. The guitar is certified authentic by the Fender Music Foundation.

The purchase price for the guitar is $15,000. According to the listing, you can also make an offer if you prefer.

Escrow.com is one of the most philanthropic companies that operates in the domain space. The company recently raised over $100,000 for the  Semper Fi Fund and Americas Funds through an annual golf tournament it sponsors.

It’s great to see companies in the domain industry helping worthy organizations.

MicroGiving Acquired by DonorCommunity

It looks like John Ferber, co-founder of Domain Holdings and also co-founder of Advertising.com (sold to AOL), has made another exit from a company he started. MicroGiving has been acquired by DonorCommunity. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

According to a press release this morning:

“DonorCommunity, Inc., developers of an innovative cloud computing software platform for nonprofit fundraising and advocacy, announced today that it has acquired the assets of the Micro Giving Foundation.

These assets include MicroGiving.com, a personal fundraising website with an online community of more than 50,000 people and will provide uninterrupted service and support to their associated clients and partners. The private transaction formally closed on November 1.”

Donor Community operates fundraising software for non-profits and organizations, and it seems that this is a pretty good fit for them, since they will have access to many donors and non-profits that used the MicroGiving platform to raise funds.

MicroGiving is a crowd funding platform for non-profits that was started by John Ferber in 2009.

Web.com To Sponsor PGA Tour


As you can see from the embedded tweet, Web.com has announced a 10 year sponsorship of the PGA Tour. In a blog post  posted this morning on its website, Web.com “signed a 10-year contract with the PGA to become the title sponsor of the newly renamed Web.com Tour.” The Tour was previously known as the Nationwide Tour.

This is pretty good news for domain name investors, as it will certainly bring additional attention to domain names. The great thing about the PGA Tour (in my opinion) is that many business decision makers watch golf tournaments, and any time attention is brought to domain names, it’s a very good thing.

Go Daddy has done very well with its sports sponsorships, and it seems that the company continues to increase its visibility, with auto racing, Super Bowl, bull riding and other sporting event sponsorships and marketing campaigns. 1 & 1 has also been advertising during popular sporting events, although the focus seems to be on small business websites in its commercials.

Web.com’s primary focus is on business websites, and in the last couple of years, the company acquired Register.com and Network Solutions.

Which Presidential Candidate Has More Klout?

I think Klout is pretty cool, although I don’t know of a beneficial application for it in the domain investment space. Anyway, I wanted to see how the presidential candidates (and former candidates) compared when it comes to Klout.

Here are the results in order:

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