Thursday, August 21, 2008

MyID running September .ca auction + more

DomainReport.ca - It looks like there will be more MyID .ca auctions, among other items they have planned. MyID just sent out an email detailing their plans into September, and it looks like they have been busy.

Here is a copy of their email:

Greetings from MyID.ca.

As the summer is nearing its end, it's time to get back to business. We hope you all had a great summer holiday.

Our next auction will be a major one and will take place in the second half of September. Full date details will be announced soon. For now, let's just say that this will be a MAJOR auction and that, as always, it will be 100% dedicated to dot ca domains.

This also will be the time when version two of our auction system will be released with 124 improvements and features that will address all feedback and requests we have received in the last few months. We are thankful for all that took the time to send us their input and suggestions.

But that's not all. In the next few days, many of the dot ca domains that were previously listed (but not sold) on any of the prior MyID.ca DOT CA auctions, will be listed in our after auction marketplace, a new service that will be part of every future DOT CA auction. More details coming soon to all including corresponding domain owners. Some restrictions apply.

We have lots planned for the dot ca world so stay tuned. Things are gonna get quite interesting in the next few months.

Sincerely,

MyID.ca Dot CA Auction Management Team

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

More .ca sales over last week

The DNjournal.com weekly sales report came out last night, and there are some .ca sales on the list.

holidaycheck.ca is on the list, and I already noted this sale in a post below.

The other sales were:

FairTrade.ca - $4,488

SexPhoto.ca - $2,500


HouseAndHomes.ca - $1,800

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Country code domains in the blogisphere

DomainReport.ca - A blog post today at RickLatona.com has touched off a lot of comments and response to the growing trend of country code domains (and IDN domains).

Rick Latona's post can be seen by clicking here.

Ron Jackson at Dnjournal.com gave some feedback on his view of country code domains - click here to see what he said.

Both posts make reference to .ca domains, and to me this kind of commentary shows why the demand for country code domains will increase in the future.

Slow August for .CA domains

DomainReport.ca - August has been a slow month for .CA domains!

Since the MyID auctions ended in July, it looks like .ca domain investors have taken a well deserved late-summer break. With many new reported sales prices recorded this year, it seemed like the market needed a breather anyway. I think in September the interest in domains will pick up again. Stock markets are predicted to go sideways, commodities are pulling back, real estate is holding or declining, 'old' media is having problems competing for advertising and eyeballs. One of the only areas still experiencing growth and change is the internet, with more people flocking to it, and more things to do on it. To navigate the internet you need domain names, and if you build a website you need a good domain name for it.

There are two .ca sales to report that I just noticed at Sedo today.

hotelcheck.ca - $500 Eur ($782 Cdn.)

holidaycheck.ca - $3,000 Eur ($4,694 Cdn.)


Those are good prices, considering the exchange rate of the Euro, for two domains that appear to fall in the brandable category. That is, my guess is that they don't get natural traffic, but need to be used in a company's advertising or marketing strategy to generate visitors. But they are very good terms to develop a travel-related theme around.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

VisitLasVegas.ca all over Yahoo

DomainReport.ca - For a while now I've been seeing the VisitLasVegas.ca banners on Yahoo's site, prominently displaying the .ca domain.

I finally decided to visit the site, assuming it would be a Canadian travel company or promotion, but found that it redirects to VisitLasVegas.com

About us - VisitLasVegas.com is the tourist destination web site of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA). The LVCVA is the official destination marketing organization of Las Vegas and the surrounding Clark County Area. It operates the Las Vegas Convention Center and Cashman Center. The LVCVA brings visitors to Las Vegas and Clark County by promoting tourism, conventions, meetings and special events.

It's interesting that US travel companies are using .ca's in their promotion. Other examples I can think of are Disneyland.ca, DisneyWorld.ca and SeaWorld.ca

Country code domain bests .com version

DomainReport.ca - In this week's DNJournal.com sales report, the domain Shoppen.nl was reported to have sold for higher than Shoppen.com.

It is very unusual for a country code version of a domain to sell for higher than the .com version. In this case, since the sales happened in the same week, they can be compared more readily (as opposed to if the sales happened far apart, and market changes or other factors could have come into play).

Shoppen means 'shopping' in Dutch, so it is a nice keyword to have. The other surprise is the .nl sold for around 69k, and the .com for 13k, which is a huge price discrepency (over 5x difference). There are some who believe that country code domains could become as valuable, or even more valuable, than their .com counterparts, partly because a country code domain usually lets you know you are dealing with a local business. If you're dealing local, you have more confidence as a consumer, and no worries about extra shipping charges, or border taxes on goods. Perhaps we will be seeing more country code domains outsell their .com counterparts, but at this point it's hard to say from just this one example.