Another article is just out confirming that real estate sales are picking up in select markets. The New York Daily News reported that buyers have returned to New York City and are snatching up prime Manhattan apartments.

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

.BIZ Domain Names, .US Domain Names manhattan, manhattan domain names, manhattan real estate

The airline, Air France, currently hold the number one spot on Google for ”France flights” with their AirFrance.US website. The AirFrance.US website drew approximately 184,238 unique visitors for the month of April 2010 (source: compete.com).

The company cover 183 destinations in 98 countries, have 417 aircraft, and conduct 1700 flights daily. That’s quite an active airline. Air France, including affiliates, employ 74,320 people.

They have done an excellent job of utilizing various country codes from around the globe, and have secured nearly all of the world’s country code web addresses for their brand. In addition to offering direct ticket sales on their site for international flights, Air France provide for the booking of hotel accomodations as well.

Interestingly, the AirFrance.biz website acts as a company portal, in conjunction with Royal Dutch Airlines, for travel agents affiliated with the two companies. Another .biz domain name, AFKL.biz (Air France/KLM), delivers agents to the same portal.

.BIZ Domain Names, .US Domain Names air france, airline

John B. Scholz is a world class architect and luxury home designer from Scottsdale, Arizona who has been in the business for 35 years. John followed in the footsteps of his father, Donald J. Scholz, who founded Scholz Homes in 1946.

John Scholz’s website is located on Scholz.US and showcases an incomparable & beautiful portfolio of luxury estates which John has created in his impressive architectural career. Below is a picture of Uptown Court in Surrey, England coined by MSNBC as “The Most Expensive Home For Sale In The World”.

John’s stunning home creations have been viewed around the globe including countries such as the United States, Canada, The Middle East, Eastern & Western Europe, and the Carribean.

I have been an advocate, supporter, investor, and developer of .US premium domain names for 8 years. It is fulfilling to see the dotUS web address utilized by entrepreneurs, artists, and professionals from across America. John is certainly a mega talent in the world of luxury home design. Pairing his superb talent, reputation, and name with the .US web address makes for another great business + domain name combination.

dotUS … the official country code of the United States

.US Domain Names .us, dotUS, luxury homes

When a business is migrating their marketing and customer outreach online, they want to cover bases and establish a strong internet presence using good quality domain names.

I happened up on a great business example of domain name coverage using both .US and .com web addresses. DWI and DUI are terms well known in the legal profession, and stand for “driving while impaired” and “driving under the influence”, respectively. DWI is sometimes alternatively referred to as “driving while intoxicated”.

DWI.US and DUI.US are owned by the Houston-based legal outfit of Scheiner Law Group P.C. Either domain name typed into the browser resolves to the Scheiner Law Group website which is very well done and pleasing to the eye. Both domains are short, highly descriptive of the services offered, and certainly fit well with the .US (United States) country code domain.

Similarly, DWI.com and DUI.com are both registered to a Paul Dunham who is using these top domains to offer an online directory of DWI and DUI legal specialists across the United States. Again, within a particular tld space, you have one company reaching customers by registering all of the relevant keywords for a particular area of interest.

You sometimes see this in real estate as well in which a single realty company will register their city location ending in homes, real estate, and condos. Good idea!

Bottom line: Use quality, descriptive domain names to reach customers searching online, and to strengthen one’s internet presence & credibility.

• Legal domain names for sale
• Real Estate domain names for sale
• Geo domain names for sale

.COM Domains, .US Domain Names .us, dui, dwi

Neustar, who manage the .US and .biz domain name extensions, are now offering a unique .US blog and .US discussion forum for those interested in the dotUS namespace.

Neustar appear to be growing their services and raising their own profile. Their domain name registry services have been a leading product for years although Neustar are now offering web performance and risk management services too.

Forbes’ survey of the fastest growing tech firms in America placed Neustar in the Top 25 in 2009. To make the list, companies had to meet certain revenue and sales gains milestones. Neustar trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol: NSR.

My favorite .US premium domain names are United States cities. Geo domains are such good fits for the extension and provide lots of website development angles. Two cities I worked on last year were Charlotte .US and Detroit.US, both leading cities in their respective states and also with good national recognition ranking in America’s top 20 cities for population.

.US Domain Names .biz, .us, Neustar

Couple of news items for those who follow .US and .INFO web addresses. Sedo announced that the OnlineCasinos.US domain name sold earlier this week for $9,999. Online gambling is quite popular worldwide. While laws against it exist in the USA, there remains great interest in U.S. based gambling.

Proponents of internet gambling claim government hypocrisy in that states sponsor lotteries which bring in hundreds of millions of dollars. Some states profit from gambling on horse racing while also hosting gambling casinos that bring in enormous amounts of money and which financially benefit the local economy.

Another notable .INFO sale via Sedo this past week was coupons.info which went for an impressive $17,600. Relationship.net was purchased at Snapnames for $12,950.

Neustar, who manage the .US domain space, posted an announcement on their website that they are seeking to release one and two character .US domain names. Neustar did something similar last year with the .BIZ (Business) top level domain which resulted in a number of five figure sales.

• Related domain names of interest: InternetGambling.biz
• And in the dating, relationship area: InternetDating.US

.INFO Domain Names, .US Domain Names

Interesting timing in that I just posted here on the blog about the large loss in readership suffered by the USA’s largest newspapers. The morning news (front page Yahoo) featured an article about both of Philadelphia’s largest newspapers being sold at auction after having declared bankruptcy.

The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News have both gone under, and are being offered up in a private auction held in New York City. Executives of Revlon are making a bid for the Philadelphia papers along with creditors and a Canadian investment firm.

Fox News reported that the two papers had accumulated $390 million in debt by February 2009 forcing the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. The Philadelphia papers employ more than 4000 people in the area.

One has to wonder if the outcome would have been much different had the Philadelphia papers acquired and transitioned their companies to something like Philadelphia.com or Philadelphia.US. Boulevards New Media own Philadelphia.com, and Kraft Foods own Philadelphia.US. The missing ingredient is a premium city domain name.

Update 4/29/10: Bloomberg report that the auction concluded with both Philadelphia newspapers being acquired for $139 million by a group of lenders that included Angelo Gordon & Co. and a Credit Suisse Group AG unit. The sale must still be approved by a U.S. bankruptcy judge. The new owners have committed to preserving employees’ jobs.

.US Domain Names .us, city domain names, newspapers

America’s newspapers continue to lose favor with readers in a persistent negative trend which seems to go on and on. The latest report finds that U.S. newspapers lost another 8.7 percent of their readership in just the last 6 month period. That’s incredible.

These figures were released April 26, 2010 by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Even the ever popular Sunday edition of local papers dropped a sharp 6.5 percent.

USA Today, once the most popular paper in the country, is reported to have lost 13.6% of its circulation. That’s enormous. My theory is that developed premium city domain names in leading web addresses will eventually replace the traditional local newspaper. The logic, familiarity, and instant public recognition built into a pure city domain name creates the ideal portal for local news.

Local newspaper ad revenue is reported to have also slipped further although the degree of loss appears to be slowing over time.

Interestingly, the Audit Bureau report stated The Wall Street Journal is the only paper among the top 25 that actually experienced an increase in readership! It’s circulation increased .5% allowing it to surpass USA Today as the nation’s most read paper.

What this means is nearly self-evident. The news delivery model has experienced an unprecedented sea change, and traditional hardcopy news organizations found themselves on the wrong side of a new internet equation. Many of them continued to brand under an old moniker that was illogical, and yesteryear.

Want to see it done right? Visit Boston.com! They’re receiving over 3 million visitors per month and in excess of 20 million monthly visits (source: Compete.com). Try competing with that.

What about the #3 circulation, The New York Times, you ask? The answer: A staggering 8.5% loss of circulation in their weekday readership. No matter how it’s sliced, times are changing. The question is … what will these news organizations have to do to reinvent themselves? I believe they must look to the Boston.com example. Therein lies about 75% of the answer.

More on this topic …

Huge Newspaper Investor Pulls Out, Way Out!

More Shocking Newspaper Decline

Newspapers in America Being Led to the Exit

.US Domain Names, Internet Domains city domain names, news, newspaper