WALTHAM, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–NameMedia today announced the launch of Afternic Portfolio Manager a new, easy-to-use domain distribution and inventory management tool for large portfolio owners to sell their names through the industry’s largest domain marketplace at AfternicDLS. Afternic Portfolio Manager is available immediately at no cost.

“Afternic Portfolio Manager provides our customers the ability reconcile their inventory in a single request, while providing instantaneous add, edit, and remove domain functionality,” said David Hauser, NameMedia Senior Vice President. “Today’s launch means that large portfolio owners have a reliable, flexible and simple web service solution to effectively manage inventory in real-time while placing the domain names for sale at AfternicDLS,”

TurnCommerce, a leading domain development company, has been using the product to list and sell its domain names over the past month, and has seen a twenty percent increase in domain names sold since using it. “NameMedia’s new product provides us with a great resource to sell domain names,” said TurnCommerce Co-Founder, Andrew Reberry. “AfternicDLS has helped TurnCommerce tap into the small and medium business market while simplifying domain sales management.”

AfternicDLS is the leader in reaching retail buyers of premium domain names through its websites at Afternic.com, BuyDomains.com and a network of more than 40 distribution partners, including many of the world’s largest registrars. Through its global distribution network, Afternic’s Domain Listing Service (DLS) receives more than 35 million requests each month by consumers looking for a domain name, making it the most productive platform for connecting domain sellers with domain buyers.

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The following is a guest post written by Morgan Linton. Morgan is the President of Linton Investments, a Los Angeles-based Domain Investment Firm. Morgan runs a ccTLD Brokerage Newsletter and is the publisher of ccTLD Investors magazine. Morgan writes about his adventures in Domain Investing on his blog – MorganLinton.com.

How to learn more about any ccTLD Market

I always suggest that new ccTLD investors focus on a market they know and are comfortable with. If you live in the US then .us is a logical choice, if you live in France, start with .fr. Once you’ve mastered your market you can take the strategies that have worked for you and apply them to other markets. The issue is – how well do you know markets outside of your own?

In some cases you may vacation in the same place every year – let’s say you visit Amsterdam and tour the museums every summer, then .NL might be the next ccTLD you want to look at. Sure – you can invest in just about any ccTLD under the sun, but you have a unique advantage when you know more about the market.

Now let’s suppose you want to get started in another market that you aren’t familiar with at all. Suppose you’ve heard great things about .ca ccTLD but you’ve never been to Canada. The first step is to head on over to Google – but instead of just typing Google.com – this time enter Google.ca. Now do a few searches as you normally would and take a look at what sites appear on the first page of Google.

Now is where the detective work comes in. You want to really put your thinking cap on and start analyzing a few search queries and understand some of the features of top-ranking sites in the country you’re looking at. Pay attention to the advertisers on the side – is it local or global advertising? Who are the advertisers and do they have great domains or could you sell them a great domain?

Once you’ve done a bit of searching and feel a bit more at home on Google.ca then you’re ready to head-over to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and take your research a step further. Now start typing-in some of the keywords you’re looking at buying, i.e. if you want to buy sailboat.mx – take a look at the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and find-out how many people are searching for the world “sailboat” in English on Google in Mexico.

As you learn more about other countries you might find that search queries that are wildly-popular in the US might have little or no traffic in another country. For example the term “holiday” is used to describe a “vacation” in Europe and many other parts of the world. Thus – while “vacation” may be the most popular term in the US during the summer – “holiday” may take the cake in other parts of the world.

By better understanding both the search results and search volume in the country you’re looking to invest in you can pick better domains that will most likely appeal more to people in the local market. You should also use tools like Namebio.com and DNJournal.com to better understand past sales in the given market.

So break-out your favorite Sherlock Holmes hat and get ready to learn about another part of the world – there’s opportunities in just about every market – so what are you waiting for?

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Within the past couple of weeks Moniker reported the sale of Slots.com for an estimated $5,500,000. I say estimated because legal and escrow fees were not calculated into the sales price. One thing that was unclear to the public is who the buyer was. This morning Bodog brand released a press release letting the world know they purchased the domain name.

Calvin Ayre, founder of the Bodog brand, stated: “After Casino.com, we feel that Slots.com is the best gaming domain in the world. Bigger even than Poker.com because there are no strong brands in this space and slots are far more universal than poker. Just look at the amount of space a casino devotes to slots over poker, added to which it’s simple to spell and easy to remember. Slots.com will work for us on a number of levels, not least in generating global traffic to our Bodog branded properties but also to form a number of other targeted websites including one that will be created by and for the female gambler.”

The numbers…

Slots.com $5,500,000
Alexa Rank: 190,107
Google Page Rank: 3
Google Search: listed 8th on first page
Compete.com: 10,209 unique and 15,183 total visits per month

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I love to save money whenever I can in regards to making purchases in general. This rings true with my domaining ventures as well. I think most consumers, myself included, want to feel like they got a good deal when they buy something. Granted sometimes we just can’t get around how much we might have to spend because someone else’s pricing is not in our control. When I find coupons or promo codes that I can take advantage of, you can bet I use them! In fact, I use them all the time. A little frugality can go a long way.

We all know the registration and renewal fees can get astronomical at times. This becomes especially true when you have a portfolio with hundreds or even thousands of names in it. I personally have let names drop because of a high renewal fee I wasn’t willing to pay at the time. Sometimes though, I find good promo codes that ease the cost a little letting me keep some money in my pocket to use elsewhere. It is possible to save while domaining.

Now if you haven’t done this already, finding promo codes can be as easy as Googling the name of the company and adding the terms “promo codes” in the search with it. There are many websites out there with promo codes you can use.

I specifically wanted to share a site with you named DomainPromoCodes.com. A site like this can help you save a little money here and there with the promo codes that are offered. The basic premise of the site is to save while domaining. It doesn’t get any easier than that.

If you check out the site, you’ll see it seems user friendly and is dedicated to doing nothing other than providing domainers and other consumers with promo codes for saving money. There are promo-codes for most of the industry’s main registrars like GoDaddy.com, Moniker.com, Name.com, Yahoo.com and many others.

Currently, there are many promo codes being featured, such as:

* GoDaddy.com “goaz2001ai” promo code. With this code, you pay $6.99 to cover the domain name you are registering plus the ICANN fee, which gives you almost $4 in savings because the normal price is $10.69.

* Yahoo “199” promo code. If you use that one you can have your domain for $1.99 for the first year if you’re a new customer with them.

Those are only two examples of the many offers available. There are a variety of other offers to be used for many different types of discounts. There are just too many promo-codes on the site to mention here, but that gives you an idea of the type of deals you can get.  It is definitely worth taking some time to check out.

*Paid Review

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The following is a guest post written by Morgan Linton. Morgan is the President of Linton Investments, a Los Angeles-based Domain Investment Firm. Morgan runs a ccTLD Brokerage Newsletter and is the publisher of ccTLD Investors magazine. Morgan writes about his adventures in Domain Investing on his blog – MorganLinton.com.

With the .CO launch getting closer and closer I thought now would be a good time to review some important information about the TLD so you can make smart moves from the beginning! I am quite confident that the .CO launch this year should be one of the most impactful TLD launches in the history of the industry. While there are people lined-up on both sides of the table – when it comes to .CO there is a buzz going-on that you just can’t ignore!

So here are five things you should know about .CO – feel free to comment and add #6, #7, etc.

1) The Global Sunrise started April 26th and goes until June 10th. This is for people who have a trademark and the corresponding exact-match domain that would like to get the .CO. One important note here is that the trademark holder needs to have registered the exact-match domain before 7/30/2008.

2) Landrush runs from June 21st through July 13th and allows anyone with an interest in commercially valuable domains to apply for registration before general availability. Any domains that have two or more interested parties will go to auction and be sold to the highest bidder.

3) General Availability is July 20th and at that point .CO will be available to anyone in the world. This question comes-up a lot so it’s important to be clear here – anyone in the world can register a .CO – it is not limited to residents of Colombia in any way.

4) .CO is NOT a TLD for Typo-Squatters! The people at .CO are working very hard to create a globally-recognized and respected TLD. While many Domainers might think that .CO opens the door for new typo-domains be warned that the .CO folks will be working hard to prevent this.

5) When people in a focus-group were asked what .CO means to them the top answers were, “Company” and “Corporation” – having YourBrand.CO is a great way to represent your brand or product-category online.

Landrush starts in a little over a month and I am officially excited! .CO is coming and I think it’s going to change the Domaining world forever.

What do you think?

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