Best. Domain. Name. Industry. Video. Ever.

Have you ever tried to explain what you do for a living to a friend and watched as their eyelids begin to droop?
That’s a rhetorical question. We all have. Domain names are boring.
That’s why Go Daddy’s advertising is (was?) primarily based on surgically enhanced mammary glands.
My tactic is not dissimilar. I usually explain my job with various stories from the ongoing .xxx saga. People are interested in the politics of porn.
But JPRS, the .jp registry, at some point decided to fully embrace the superficially dull nature of the domain name business in its marketing, to hilarious effect.
Check out this commercial, found via Michele Neylon.

Go Daddy tones down the sex for Olympics ads

Go Daddy CEO Warren Adelman recently promised a less salacious image for the company, and its new commercial, set to air in the US during the London 2012 Olympics, delivers.
Kinda.
The attractive female spokemodel is still in attendance, but she’s matched up with a data center geek stereotype. The idea is to show that the company is not just a pretty face. Or something.
It’s all very self-conscious.

Unless it’s nothing more sophisticated than a “beaver” joke, the otter reference went completely over my head.
UPDATE: A reader speculates that the otter may be a high-brow reference to the Leonardo painting Lady With An Ermine.
According to Wikipedia, the ermine (a stoat) may be intended to symbolize purity, despite the fact that the subject of the painting is believed to be the 16-year-old mistress of Leonardo’s employer.

The TLD Song: an instant classic

I may not agree with all of Lauren Weinstein’s views on ICANN’s new generic top-level domain expansion, but damn, the man can spoof a Gilbert & Sullivan song.

Check out Weinstein’s blog for the lyrics and a downloadable MP3.
Kudos, sir.

Google has applied for .lol gTLD

Google is the first company to announce that it has applied for the new top-level domain .lol.
It’s one of several new gTLDs Google has applied for — including .google, .youtube and .docs — according to a blog post from chief internet evangelist Vint Cerf:

we decided to submit applications for new TLDs, which generally fall into four categories:
– Our trademarks, like .google
– Domains related to our core business, like .docs
– Domains that will improve user experience, such as .youtube, which can increase the ease with which YouTube channels and genres can be identified
– Domains we think have interesting and creative potential, such as .lol

Cerf, a former ICANN chairman, also promises “sensible rights protection mechanisms” and said that security will be a “high priority”.
The full list — and number — of Google’s applications does not seem to have been released yet.
UPDATE: According to AdAge, Google has applied for more than 50 gTLDs.

The funniest ICANN new gTLDs video yet

No comment. Just watch.

The video was uploaded by YouTube user Bob Recstrum.

Cops seize 36 carder domains

The FBI and UK Serious Organised Crime Agency have seized 36 domain names that were allegedly being used to sell compromised credit card information.
As well as seizing the domains and a number of computers, SOCA said it has arrested two men “suspected of making large scale purchases of compromised data” from the sites.
The sites all used what SOCA calls “automated vending cart” software to process the sale of credit card information. Judging by the video below, some of the operations were fairly professional.
One of the seized domains was cvvplaza.com. SOCA provided the following video which really has to be seen to be believed.

I wonder if the spokesmodel had any idea what she was getting into when she accepted this gig.
While the full list of domains was not released, a SOCA spokesperson said the breakdown by TLD was as follows:

.name – 2
.net – 11
.biz – 4
.us – 5
.com – 11
.org – 3

These are all TLDs whose registries are based in the United States, so I’m guessing the US authorities did the actual seizing.

Google confirms new gTLD bids

Google will apply for several new generic top-level domains, according to a report in AdAge.
The company will apply for some dot-brands, and possibly some keywords, the report indicated.

“We plan to apply for Google’s trademarked TLDs, as well as a handful of new ones,” the spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.

AdAge speculates that .google and .youtube would be among the applications, which seems like a fair assumption.
The revelation comes despite the fact that Google engineers recently stated that there would be no guaranteed search engine optimization benefits from owning a gTLD.
However, I wouldn’t be surprised if keywords representing some of Google’s services, such as .search and .blog, are also among its targets.
The total cost to Google is likely to run into millions in ICANN application fees alone.
It will also be interesting to see which registry provider — if any — Google has selected to run its back-end.
Google is one of the few companies out there that could scratch-build its own registry infrastructure without breaking a sweat.
The AdAge report also quotes Facebook and Pepsi executives saying they will not apply.

Watch ICANN approve some new gTLDs

In ICANN’s world, the current new top-level domains application period is actually the fourth, not the first.
As well as the 2000 “proof of concept” round, there was the sponsored gTLD round that kicked off at the end of 2003, and the ongoing IDN ccTLD Fast Track round from 2009.
I’ve finally got around to uploading to YouTube the video of the November 16, 2000 ICANN board meeting at which .info, .biz, .name, .pro, .museum, .coop and .aero were approved.
It was a pivotal moment in the history of the domain name system, particularly starting at the 5:46 mark, when the tide turned against Afilias’ application for .web, in favor of the less attractive four-character .info.
The main reason for the switch was Image Online Design’s competing application. IOD had been running .web in an alternate root for a few years before applying to ICANN.
If the internet had had a .web for the last decade, I believe conversations we’re having about new gTLDs would be very different today.
With .web expected to be a contested gTLD this time around — perhaps by some of the same companies that applied last time — expect this 11-year-old ICANN board meeting to be cited regularly in the near future.

The video was recorded by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard and encoded in RealPlayer format, which in 2000 meant pretty poor-quality audio and video.

Parked domain pun wins “Funniest Joke” award

A bit of Friday afternoon nonsense for you…
British stand-up comedian Tim Vine this week won a LAFTA award for the “year’s funniest joke” that’s basically just a pun on a domain name.
This is the joke: “Conjunctivitis.com – that’s a site for sore eyes”
The domain is parked (of course) and seems to be owned by a Californian domainer listed in Whois as the Health Hero Network.
I’m guessing the domain is seeing a traffic spike today.
Here’s a video of Tim Vine being much, much funnier.

Saucy domain name commercials… in India?

By now everybody is familiar with attempts by American companies such as Go Daddy, and more recently ICM Registry, to make domain names appear sexy in TV commercials.
But did you know BigRock.com is doing something similar in India, where the boundaries of decency are even more strictly defined than in the US?
I just enountered BigRock’s YouTube channel for the first time, and I think it’s fair to say that its commercials are somewhat “edgy” too, at least as measured by Indian standards.
Here are a few examples.


It’s possible to pick up on some social commentary in some of the spots, even if you don’t speak fluent Hinglish.