Tuesday, May 25, 2010

New Domain Promo Codes website

DomainReport.ca

Like most everyone else I like to save money on purchases, and as a domainer I like to save on registering and renewing domains. Factors that can weigh on a domainer include not selling your domains as quickly as you thought you would, or maintaining a large portfolio with high renewal costs. One thing that can help you stay alive in the business is being able to reduce the cost of registering and renewing your domains.

When registering or renewing your domains you should use promo codes as much as possible to save.



Here are some savings tips from DomainPromoCodes.com:

1 - Google it! Just type your registrar's name and add "promo code" eg ; "netfirms promo code" to see what deals you can find.

2 - If you find a good domain promo code site, Digg it

Here is one domain promo codes site you may be able to use:

This domain promo code site allows visitors to share, rate and comment on the codes easily. Updates are frequent and live.

You can find .ca domain promotions by searching here.
http://www.domainpromocodes.com/search/.ca/

The site includes many Canadian registrars such as Netfirms.Ca (you can use netfirms.com promo codes at netfirms.ca), Domainsatcost.ca, Register.com and Godaddy.com

Here are some promo codes you can find on the site:

There is a 3.99$ super domain promotion. You have to use the code Canada25
Canada25


You can also save 25% on Register.com's .ca domain promotion
Dollar domain
Dollar domain


* These promo codes have expiry dates, if they have already expired use the site to find more.

Enjoy the savings, I always do!

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Sunday, May 23, 2010

OUV.ca closes today on PennyAuction.ca

DomainReport.ca

New auction website PennyAuction.ca is offering for sale the domain name OUV.ca which had a start of 0$, and is now currently bid at only 3 cents with less than 8 hours to go.

If you want to get a good deal on a three letter .ca, you can check out the site and if you register, you get three bids for free. Additional bids will have to be bought in 'bid packs', which is different from most other auction sites. At Penny Auction, you have to pay for your bids, and it looks like the cost is 50 cents per bid or less, depending on which pack you buy. The flip side is, there are items on auction like $25 gift cards which are currently only at pennies, so if you are careful you could get a good deal. It looks like a bidder has to balance the cost of their bids vs the final price they would pay to make sure they get a good deal. This is an interesting twist to other auction sites.

Another domain, EJU.ca, will be auctioned next.

From their site:

PennyAuction.ca is Canada’s newest pay per bid auction website where fun, excitement, and huge savings are just part of the experience! PA is one of the best auction websites available, and it is based in Canada. On PA, you can buy gift cards, popular electronics such as cell phones, video games, laptops, and much more for extraordinary low prices. Visit our homepage to see what deals we have up for auction today.

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Friday, May 21, 2010

Bazooka.ca - End user domain sale?

DomainReport.ca

I often list all the .ca domain sales I see over the past week, usually found at DNJournal.com. Sometimes there are no sales, or maybe one sale for a small amount that I don't bother reporting.

This past week there was one .ca sale at Sedo:

Bazooka.ca - $1,100 US

I was going to make a short post about this sale because I haven't posted many sales lately, but first I checked the domain to see where it now resolves.

Today the domain forwards to:

http://www.topps.com/candy/brands/bazooka/index.htm

It seems like the domain is owned by the Topps trading card and candy company, but the whois doesn't show them as the owner. Perhaps the domain hasn't completely changed hands yet, or the new owner is forwarding it to the Topps page for some reason.

When I saw this sale, I didn't think of the gum but rather the bazooka weapon. But ofcourse the Bazooka gum brand has been around forever, and most of us have probably enjoyed some when we were kids.

Regardless, it's nice to see a .ca domain pointing to a relevant site instead of simply being parked after a sale.

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Recession? I still won't give up my...

DomainReport.ca

I will move back in with my parents or to a smaller place, sell my furniture, books or bike, but I'm keeping my laptop and internet!

The recession has made many people cut back their spending on a lot of items, but Yahoo just published an article with 10 areas where people aren't cutting back, or are cutting back less.

Can you guess what they are?

At least four of them are related to the internet, those being internet access, portable computers (laptops, ipads), smartphones and music downloads.

It re-affirms what I've thought for a while, that you can take a lot away from people, but don't take away their connection to the outside world! You need the internet for email, job searching, news, and to socialize with friends. It's just the way more and more people are communicating nowadays. And this bodes well for domain names. If you want to get in on the internet game, you need a domain name to play.

To see what the other 6 items are, you can find the article on my Howl site at:

http://www.howl.com/news

If you want to aggregate your favorite blog posts, videos, articles and any sites of interest on the internet, you can get a free account at Howl.com I just learned about this site and it's new, so grab a great username while you can!


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Tuesday, May 18, 2010

TRAFFIC Vancouver looks to be Great

DomainReport.ca

The next TRAFFIC domain show is set for Vancouver, BC, Canada June 8-10.

It's hard to believe this is only the first TRAFFIC show in Vancouver, because many well known domainers got their start, or currently live, in Vancouver. To name a few, there is Frank Schilling, Kevin Ham, Yun Ye and Richard Lau.

Perhaps the most exciting thing to me is that in an interview with DN Journal, Rick Latona stated that Kevin Ham and Frank Schilling will be attending the show, and that Kevin and his brother will try to get Yun Ye to attend the show too. Yun Ye has to be the most reclusive domainer ever, no one has heard much from him in the media since he sold his domain portfolio to Marchex for a nine figure sum. The story of Yun Ye firing up his computer programs to grab dropped domains before anyone else back in the 90's is now legend. Some people probably still think he doesn't even exist, or was made up!

If you haven't read the DN Journal interview, it's at
http://www.dnjournal.com/events/2010/traffic-vancouver-preview.htm

The other exciting development is that Rick Latona dropped the fee to attend the Vancouver show, in order to encourage the highest turnout possible.

For us .ca domainers, day 2 of the show will have a domain auction restricted to .ca domains only. I am very interested to see how this goes over, given you need to have a Canadian presence to own a .ca domain. Not all the people attending will be able to own a .ca domain, and so can't even bid at this auction. Wouldn't this be a great venue for CIRA to announce that the .ca extension is open to anyone to register and own? Probably just wishful thinking, but you never know.

Day 3 of the event will have the Main auction featuring Premium domains.

I lived in Vancouver for a few years while attending university at UBC, and then again for a few years in the mid 90's, probably around the time Yun Ye was building his portfolio, though I had no idea about domains back then. Aside from the show, there is a lot to see and do in Vancouver that's close by to downtown. You can take a short boat trip over to the Granville Island produce market, walk or bike around the seawall that circles most of the city, visit Stanley Park to see preserved rainforest, get a great coffee at one of the many coffee bars, get a great meal at one of many Asian themed restaurants, go shopping on Robson street or Granville street, or just hang out at the beach and enjoy the fresh air.

Hopefully the weather will be good, and I'm already looking forward to the DN Journal write up on this show once it's completed.

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Wednesday, May 5, 2010

A Hell of an Auction

DomainReport.ca

I noticed Rick Latona's post today about the upcoming Vancouver TRAFFIC show, and didn't realize it was coming up so soon (June 8-10). I'm sure it will be a great show, because Vancouver is a hotbed of domaining and has produced some of the best known domainers in the world.

I decided to see if I could submit some domains for the auction, and opened an account at the Latonas.com site. After submitting my names, I checked out what auctions are going on now. The TRAFFIC Milan extended auction is now running, and one name in particular caught my eye - Hell.com

Hell.com doesn't have any bids yet, and the minimum bid is 487,500 Eur. The reason it caught my eye is because it is possibly one of the domains that well-known domainer Kevin Ham might want to own. He has said in the past that there is a small number of domains he just had to own, and he has acquired some of them. Most of the domains are very strong religious keywords, like God.com. Hell.com might be one of the others he doesn't have, so it will be interesting to see if any bids come in. There are just over 6 days left in the auction.

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As for .ca news, I haven't blogged in over a month now due to work demands, and the fact that there hasn't been any significant developments or sales in the .ca space. Hopefully that will change soon! There is a two week sales report coming from DNJournal today.


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