Menius Enterprises, Inc. recently acquired the premium domain, www.Condos.info. In researching general condo sites online, I discovered a pretty keen concentration of realty professionals across the USA using the dotINFO web address for major real estate portals.

The first site I noticed was quite impressive in its incredible depth of content, SouthBeachCondos.info, which is a perfect geo-targeted domain name for the South Beach Miami area.

Another Florida-focused .info realty site is BeauSoleilCondos.info which focuses on Winter Park, Florida. Contemporary condo designs and urban living are hallmark features of the Beau Soleil residences which range in size from 952 sq. ft. to 1768 sq. ft. Again, a logical & marketable domain name being utilized.

Even Canadian realtors are embracing .info as evidenced by Christine Louw’s CoalHarbourCondos.info which is a luxury condo site for Vancouver’s premier waterfront location, Coal Harbour. Located in British Columbia, Canada.

For the curious, condo sales have been on the rise for several months now in favored markets such as Manhattan, Florida, and metro cities along the west coast.

Personally, I do not feel this is the case. My position is that .com and .US will co-exist very well alongside one another. Both domains offer excellent alternatives to U.S. based corporations and individual internet users looking for a recognizable web address.

I enjoy seeing American companies embrace their .US domain name. An up and coming player in the security and surveillance market is Charlotte-based Iverify.US Inc. They are located at www.iverify.us and have already established themselves as a technology leader and fast rising local company.

Iverify.US have been covered by the Charlotte Business Journal on several occasions with the most recent article ranking Iverify as #5 on the local Charlotte Fast 50 companies. Iverify offer unrivaled in-store monitoring and 24/7 interactivity such that they can communicate instantly with both store personnel and customers.

So effective is their technology at reducing shoplifting and other store crimes that they have been awarded expanded contracts with a number of chain retail stores and private corporations. The company bought, and now occupy, a 40,000 square foot building where 185 employees work in three 8-hour shifts to provide constant video and audio surveillance monitoring for their customers.

Once again, quality American businesses utilizing the .US web address in the manner for which it was intended.

Of interest to domainers is their use of the .info web address as the portal to the Bank of America Corporate Center at 100 N. Tryon Street. The official website address is TheCorporateCenter.info and it contains essential facts and “information” about the facility.

The Corporate Center is a landmark in Charlotte standing above every other skyscraper and visible for many miles as one approaches North Carolina’s Queen city. The building weighs 300 million pounds. It was completed in 1992 and took the combined efforts of several architectural firms to finalize its ultimate design and plan of construction.

Bank of America is the largest bank in the United States. With its headquarters now in Charlotte, Charlotte is regarded as the second largest financial center in the USA behind only New York City.

The .info web address is ideal for business purposes as well as a good general purpose domain for city & state websites, specific subjects, and the hotel & travel industry. .INFO is an unrestricted domain and may be registered by anyone in the world. .INFO currently enjoys 6,817,548 global registrations making it one of the leading domain name extensions in the world. .INFO is managed by the Afilias Registry.

* Visit PremiumDomains.US to browse premium quality .info domain names.

PremiumDomains.biz

In October of 2009, I had proposed the question for reader consideration as to what Insurance.com might fetch given that it is the ultimate premium, generic domain name for the entire insurance industry. We have the answer to that question. Exactly $35.6 million.

Quinstreet have purchased Insurance.com in what appears to be a total buyout of the domain name and related assets. This puts Quinstreet at the center of the insurance world. They have effectively bought their way into an industry that is both necessary and highly lucrative. To Quinstreet’s credit, they appear to have keen insight as to the value of a generic domain name and its power to connect with consumers.

Now I will propose another question. What would Insurance.US sell for in the open market? We now know that Insurance.com is well out of reach and has been snatched up permanently for over $30 million. This places Insurance.US front and center as one of the best domain names available for the United States insurance market.

“Biz” has long been a common abbreviation for business in the finance and investment realms, and particularly in the broader world of business in general. Biz has become a well-recognized part of the English vernacular. It is seen daily in newspapers & magazines, on television, throughout the internet, and used repeatedly by professionals when referring to almost any kind of industry.

My own research of the .biz web address reveals that it has been adopted by many companies around the globe from small local stores to major international corporations. For business purposes and business branding, .BIZ is a major player. The .biz extension is managed by the Neustar Registry and marketed by them as …

The Internet’s Home For Business

Below is brief informational video by NTC Hosting on the .BIZ web address …
 

DOMAINfest

Other topics to be covered include utilizing affiliate marketing, recent views on internet advertising trends, and whether it is a good time to invest in geo domains. I think we know the answer to that one. That of course being a perpetual yes!

A highlight of the day will be a live Moniker auction which will include several upper echelon .com domain names such as Stocks.com and Quotes.com. These are very nice domains.

I predict in the coming year(s) that we will begin to see more well-publicized specialty auctions of categories like real estate domain names and extension specific auctions for tld’s like .info, .biz, and .us. dotUS had a recent auction around July 4th of this year.

Importantly, promoting and marketing an auction well in advance of the event is the single most important factor in getting potential buyers to the table.

Dotted along the highway were numerous billboards owned by Porlier Outdoor Advertising. Billboard advertising has become a mainstay in the advertising world as they offer a unique opportunity for companies to reach drivers while they cruise the open road.

Of interest to me was Porlier’s use of the .BIZ domain name for their official website at www.Porlier.biz. The .biz extension was originally released and successfully branded as the official business web address of the internet. Porlier’s use of .biz is certainly a perfect fit for the .biz domain’s intended use.

The company’s billboards are focused on roads between St. Louis and Kansas City, and they have over 440 available billboards for local and national advertisers to use. Several of these are of the electronic type with colorful messages that rotate every 10 seconds.

Porlier can utilize a customer’s own creative designs or develop something unique in-house to suit a customer’s taste.

Here’s a unique one. Several days ago I viewed on a major highway close to Greensboro, NC a large billboard for ForkIt.biz. Yes, “Fork It”.  ForkIt.biz is a promotional campaign for hospitality careers in North Carolina sponsored by the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association. The Association is based out of Raleigh, North Carolina’s capital city, and operates its website on NCRLA.biz. A very good .biz fit.

For the uninitiated, North Carolina is a tourist & vacation state with it’s mountains, beaches, and incredible college sports dynasties. These attractions feed the hotel, hospitality, restaurant, and general tourism industry across the state.

Another local billboard for Northstate Communications uses TurnThePages.biz to invite local businesses to switch away from their current telecom provider to North State’s communication technology.

The .biz address currently has over 2.1 million worldwide registrations.

• Sound.ch for $7450 (.ch is the country code for Swtizerland)
• Cafe.de for $19,050 (.de is the country code for Germany)
• Pocketbook.eu for $11,993 (.eu is the county code for the European Union)
• BudgetAir.in for $20,000 (.in is the country code for India)
• Falcon.co.uk for $9183 (.co.uk is the country code for the United Kingdom)
• Finanzblick.de for $7574 (.de is the country code for Germany)
• Gezocht.nl for $24,500 (.nl is the country code for the Netherlands)
• SEO.es for $7620 (.es is the country code for Spain)
• Tech.TV for $5000 (.tv is the country code for Tuvalu, but branded for “TV”)

A recent Moniker .US domain auction produced the purchase of Flights.US for $11, 770. Another recent Moniker brokered sale was Slots.ca for $206,906 (.ca is the country code for Canada).

Also in the news was the sale of SydneyHotels.com for $100,000 by owner Rick Schwartz to a company with a network of travel focused domain names & websites. This same company own the LondonHotels.biz website among many others.

Here is an update on the growth of America’s official country code, the .US web address. Between February 2009 and the end of June 2010 (roughly 1 year and 5 months), the .US web address added 338,764 new registrations for a current total of 1,724,961 .US domain names in play. This was a remarkable 24.4% increase in registrations.

Related domain names of interest:

SydneyHotels.biz | Kolhapur.in | WestHollywood.US | ChicagoIllinois.TV

In response to price cuts, tax incentives, and great mortgage rates, buyers are going after high end residential real estate. Pamela Liebman, CEO of The Corcoran Group, is quoted as saying that positive, market-friendly conditions are motivating buyers.

In May through June of this year, Manhattan residential real estate logged 3600 sales. This was a 47% increase in property sales over the same time period in 2009.

The article identified oversized, three bedroom apartments as one of the hottest items on the Manhattan real estate market.

Liebman, of Corcoran, was also quoted by NY Daily News as reporting that bidding wars had returned to the New York City marketplace. Aggressive buyers drove up bidding as Manhattan real estate inventory began to move … with more than 50% of Corcoran agents getting caught in the middle of a price war.

Premium domain names of interest, include:

• NewYorkCity.biz
• Condos.biz
• Manhattan.mobi
• ManhattanRealEstate.US
• ManhattanApartments.US
• ManhattanCondos.US

However, as prices have steadily come down, condo buying has increased considerably as prudent buyers knew that the time was right to buy in. The Herald Tribune posted a recent article examining condo trends in the Sarasota, Florida area.

According to them, condo sales in the Sarasota area rose a massive 71% in May 2010 compared to one year ago in May of 2009. The piece reported that 384 condos sold in comparison to just 225 in May of 2009. Additionally, the median sale price increased 3% to almost $153,000.

I do not have a convenient method of checking publicly listed sales of real estate domain names. I recently sold a .biz real estate domain, and also just acquired one in the .info space.

Real estate domains are perfect web portals for both home buyers and sellers of various properties. I visit LuxuryRealEstate.com, MLS.biz, and Collett.biz as well as Homes.com and consider these excellent examples of workable domain names paired with well-designed web sites. Two premium domains I have been developing are Condos.biz and Estates.biz.

In the early days of the domain game was a site called GreatDomains.com. That site became overwhelmed with low quality domain names, fell out of favor, and was eventually acquired by Sedo some years later for a marginal sum. They now use that site for primarily moving dotcom inventory.

As a domain investor and developer, it is useful to maintain one’s own independent website for organizing your domain name portfolio. Buyers of all kinds need a clean, well-organized platform for searching through hundreds (or thousands) of domain names for sale. Organization and clean presentation are important customer service keys.

The downside of a large brokerage like AfternicDLS, BuyDomains, or Sedo is the sheer volume of domain names that they carry. A very large percentage of their inventory are non-premium domain names.

If you offer a true premium domain name inventory, then you will want to separate your domain name collection from the mass of low quality domains available at the large online brokerages. I prefer to post domains for sale at both AfternicDLS and Sedo (which are generally excellent venues) while also maintaining a premium domain collection on a personal website. Below are several means of viewing the Menius Enterprises portfolio of premium domain names with PremiumDomains.US being the most comprehensive.

• PremiumDomains.US
• PremiumDomains.biz
• Sedo (a portion of our collection listed there)
• AfternicDLS (a portion of our collection listed there)
• DomainBusiness.US (showcases some top premium domains)
• This blog (our domain names for sale page showcasing many premium domains)

A study by MetroMonitor looked at several growth indicators such as employment, home prices, and foreclosure rates. The researchers ranked and listed the Top 21 cities that produced the best statistical figures.

The ultimate standout was the booming Dallas-Fort Worth metro area that added more residents in the past decade than any other city. Fueling the growth there is a very positive business climate in which there is no corporate income tax and regulations are minimal.

The state of Texas was very well represented with 6 cities making the Top 21 list. The highest ranking cities meeting the recession-proof criteria were (in alphabetical order):

Albany, NY
Augusta, GA
Austin, TX
Baton Rouge, LA
Buffalo, NY
Columbia, SC
Dallas, TX
Des Moines, IA
El Paso, TX
Honolulu, HI
Houston, TX
Jackson, MS
Little Rock, AR
Madison, WI
McAllen, TX
Oklahoma City, OK
Omaha, NE
Rochester, NY
San Antonio, TX
Tulsa, OK
Washington, D.C.

The MetroMonitor study includes a wealth of information on various cities’ standings along a number of economic indicators.

Premium domain names of interest related to the above cities include:

• AugustaGeorgia.US
• AustinRealEstate.biz
• Columbia.info
• DallasTexas.biz
• ElPaso.biz
• HonoluluHawaii.biz
• HoustonAttorneys.US
• LittleRockRealEstate.info
• OklahomaCity.biz
• OmahaNebraska.US
• SanAntonioRealEstate.info
• TulsaHotels.info
• WashingtonDCRealEstate.info

Estates.biz is a new acquisition that pairs well with Condos.biz. The Estates.biz website was created on the newly updated DevHub website development platform.

Real estate is no doubt one of the largest industries in the world. It remains perpetually exciting and relevant because owning a home represents, for most people, the single greatest financial investment of their lifetime.

Luxury estates in particular are of interest to many people as they provide not only browsing entertainment, but also a sense of awe and inspiration. PremiumDomains.biz recently wrote about world renowned architect, John B. Scholz, whose luxury home creations are literal works of art (see article here).

Estates.biz was a relatively short project taking roughly two days. This is in sharp contrast to Charlotte.US or Detroit.US which took approximately five weeks each of full time development. Those sites are highly customized and cover a broad range of content whereas Estates.biz is obviously a singular focus on the high-end luxury home market.

• To browse high quality real estate domain names, visit this link.

An initial benefit is to consolidate all of your domains with one registrar. I have found this very helpful since monitoring domains across many different host registrars is cumbersome and a big time waster. You wind up with too many passwords and must learn several different user interfaces when using multiple registrars.

You are also likely to lose track of a domain name when utilizing many registrars simultaneously. I have consolidated the bulk of my portfolio at GoDaddy. Some like Moniker while others use Enom. Each of these registrars have positive and negative qualities so it boils down to personal choice depending on which features are most important to you.

Another commonly accepted norm is to keep your domains on auto renew so that you don’t accidentally lose a domain. Some registrars do not send renewal reminder notices and you do not want to depend on that as your only means of monitoring a needed domain name renewal.

Many domainers are happy with one PPC provider. It’s fairly convenient to load your portfolio into one parking company, like Parked.com for example, but often another parking provider will provide a higher rate of return for certain domains. So diversifying your portfolio across different parking companies may be a technique that you want to try if you are really focused on maximizing PPC income.

Aim for volume discount in your registration fees as your portfolio grows. A registrar knows that your portfolio will be a repeat and steady source of income for them. Never pay retail registration fees. As a portfolio owner, you will likely also be buying other services from the same registrar, and you may direct new business to them if you are satisfied with their services. The larger your portfolio, the better the price consideration you will receive.

In regard to website development, a whole other article is actually merited. Website development of multiple domain names is a complex issue … particularly when you are embarking on a creative endeavor with some level of complexity involved.

I have had numerous websites with different hosting providers and none of them have gone without a hitch. Suffice it to say that the consolidation concept makes much sense and offers huge advantages to you as a developer. When it comes to development, I am a “jack of all trades”, but an expert at none. When you have limited time, learning different development platforms and software becomes a huge time and energy drain. Simplicity rules, and especially simplicity with reliability.

In 2008-2009, I discovered the beauty of Wordpress. That has become a popular development platform for good reason. It is not without occasional headaches, but is certainly preferred by some who would rather not learn html or other code writing skills.

In 2009, I learned about DevHub. After testing their platform, I commited fully to DevHub for developing various domains in my portfolio. I started simple and have continued to refine my sites over months as time allowed. The advantage is that I can edit my sites from any PC and have easy, quick access to multiple sites all contained within one development platform. Also, a module developed for one site can be replicated on another site fairly easily since you are working within one common platform.

Now for the downside. If an online platform goes down or experiences a major hiccup, your entire portfolio of develop sites goes down. Scary as hell when you have invested hundreds of hours in website development. For example, DevHub recently upgraded their entire online system and moved their hosting to a new provider. The repercussions were initially catastrophic. Thankfully, DevHub are commited to building a loyal customer base and went to work for several weeks sorting through & correcting a myriad of unexpected problems that their upgrade introduced.

The lesson here is to make sure you are hooked up with some high integrity, well-funded professionals who really value what they are doing. Anything less than that and you should run in the opposite direction. I am sticking with DevHub at this time because their upgraded system really is the cream of the crop. I am sure that they will more thoroughly test run their next upgrade.

Lastly, a portfolio owner needs to consider the sales venues they might utilize for listing domain names for sale. And, also how one might assemble their portfolio online to display to potential buyers and business partners. I have an html-coded windows hosted site (PremiumDomains.biz), a linux hosted site built on Noah’s Classifieds (PremiumDomains.US), and a page dedicated on this blog (Domain Names For Sale) profiling some premium domains from the Menius Enterprises domain name portfolio.

Murphy’s Law is a constant. Might as well accept this. Advanced planning and preparation are the portfolio owner’s best defense. Organizational skills and back-up of one’s work can also not be overstated.