Web 2.0.11562 beta

Nori - that quintessential sushi ingredient! Nori is technically laver, not seaweed, but if you’ve ever enjoyed sushi try to imagine what it would be like without this great wrapper. In Japanese cuisine nori is ubiquitous, shredded strips are placed on top of at least half the dishes there. Onigiri are eaten like sandwiches in the west. And nori is an important ingredient in many dishes - as you will see if you visit the website (and if you can read japanese!)

Japanese web surfers have long complained that remembering English-language URLs was difficult. I can imaging if I had to try to remember some Kanji domain names! Since we are involved in IDNs, we have begun to publish some Japanese language sites with good results. We published a group of themed sites around food domains: http://納豆.jp (natto), Mochi http://もち.jp (mochi), http://ウニ.net (uni), http://みりん.jp (mirin), http://拉麺.com (ramen)

The clickthru rate is terrific, 20-25% and the clicks range from $0.20 to $1.50 - a resounding success! Let me get busy with cranking out some more….

THNIC, Thailand’s only registrar selling .TH domains will have competition soon, and plans to promote use of this little-used extension. Here is the article. Oddly there is no mention of IDN.th - what’s up? The only domains that can challenge .com are country codes; locals learn over time to seek out local businesses by using their local ccTLD. Let’s go THNIC, push IDN.th already!

???.com sold today for $42,250 and ???.com� sold for $36,194

These 2 Korean terms both mean handphone/cellphone - and they are the largest Korean language domain sale I’ve heard of. Of course, that always needs to be qualified with the usual disclaimer, “the vast majority of sales go unreported” That utterance is never accompanied by any sort of substantiation, but every domainer knows it to be true by extrapolating on his/her personal experience.

Read all about it, the domain name saga that is already legendary - and is still ongoing.

http://www.sexdotcom.info

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/…./2007/03/02/a1e_Freds_head_0302.html - the famous Boca Raton domainer holding domains like property.com, sugar.com, candy.com and so many more is interviewed by PB Post.

I really think the future of shopping online is gonna be an immersive experience as close to in-store shopping as possible. It’s got a LONG way to go, admittedly, but I think the compelling nature of this vision is going to make it a reality in the next few years. Read more here, in the SL insider blog

Latest domain registration stats (top 10 shown) countesy of domainnews.com:

Right away you should notice .info and .cn registrations, both up more than 60% from last year! That means they had about 2 million and one million registrations this year, respectively.

But after looking for a while, the amazing thing to me is that the king, dot COM, still somehow managed to increase registrations by more than a third. That’s more than 15 million new .com registrations in the past year. Although I can’t seem to find even a decent 4-word .com available, that brand continues to be dominant in a big way.

Somebody willing to fight back http://NoDaddy.com - gotta like this guy’s spunk, even if he runs up some serious legal bills.

Domain leasing has long been a good idea. But it’s not an idea that scales - until now. LeaseThis.com is the platform that aims to transform the ocassional lease arrangement from a hit-or-miss rarity to a viable marketplace.

Many startups need a resource like this to prove themselves with a high quality domain name. They don’t want to shell out the money to purchase a primo domain if it busts their bootstrap budget! If the business takes off, and they’ve established themselves and their brand, then the lease-buy option is going to let them follow up their initial marketing efforts by purchasing the domain at a pre-specified price. Anyone ever start a company with extra money to spend on things like a top domain? And admit it, it’s fun to shop around here for a great domain without writing a big check.

And surely domainers will benefit. I’m looking forward to having another way to monetize domains that I do not want to sell. Like most domainers, I have more domains than I can develop in five lifetimes, but some keepers are just not great performers on PPC parking sites. Besides we want to benefit from standardized leasing contracts that will be updated with carefully crafted wording based on any relevant cases that come along. And the biggest value of all is the power of having a public platform where the two sides can get together in an environment where they know what to expect.