Wait a minute, what? When did Sedo become a porn website?

***WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGE BELOW – DO NOT LOOK IF OFFENDED BY NUDITY***

Let me start off by saying I don’t know how long or if anyone else has noticed this before, but this is a first for me.

So this morning I was heading over to Sedo.com to check out the .ME auction and instead of bidding action I found sex and boobs. I made the honest mistake of thinking that the short link to the auction was Sedo.me. I know that they have done several .ME auctions in the past and used something similar. After making the mistake I realized I should have typed in Sedo.com/me.

Ok, I cut off as much of the nudity as possible, but you get the point. If you want to visit the full site go to Sedo.me, and no I’m not linking to it.

I’m writing this post for two reasons.

Firstly, register all your name brand extensions. You don’t have to do this for every single domain name you own, but the ones you have developed into major brands, yes. Over at ScienceFiction.com we have done as much as we can within reason, acquiring (.co.uk, .us, .co, .cm and .xxx). Sedo.com knows this, even they own Sedo.xxx. I just don’t understand how they can promote .ME auctions and not own Sedo.me. Things that make you go hmmm…!

Secondly, the .ME auction is doing very well. If you’re not aware of the auction then wake up, it has less than 24 hours left. 22 .ME domain names have bids of over $1,000 and another 20 have reached at least $950.

Here is a screenshot of the top 10 bids as of 12:53pm EST 2/8/12.

Visit Sedo.com/me to get your bids in and check out the auction action.

Also head over to Domain.me/blog, .ME did a short interview with me which was published earlier today.

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Francois, owner of Domaining.com, has organized a special domain name sales newsletter that will benefit sellers and bloggers. The idea is for the blogging community to promote January 9th’s Domaining.com newsletter, giving it more eyes for sellers and increase newsletter reach. In addition to the blogger circuit the newsletter will be broadcast on two popular domaining forums, DNForum.com and DomainState.com for even more exposure.

What’s in it for the bloggers?
We will get paid a share of any sales commissions generated from Monday, January 9th’s newsletter. I decided to have any of my individual profits donated to Elliot Silver’s Ronald McDonald House fundraising efforts. On a side note, I have to say Elliot Silver, John Ferber and Craig Rowe have been big influences on my own personal charity work in the last couple of years.

What’s in it for the sellers?
Monday’s newsletter is getting a lot of extra exposure because of this promotion. Bottom line, more people looking at it means a higher chance you have to sell something.

So go ahead, submit your domain name for the newsletter before tomorrow’s deadline. Visit cax.com/submit/newsletter/ and submit one domain name, only one. Good luck!

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Ok no, Netflix.com did not forget to renew its domain name, but this is funny. Still, within the humor are several important messages.

1. Don’t forget to renew (auto renew) your valuable domain names.
2. Buy easy to spell and pronounce domain names, nothing too tricky.
3. Secure your developed brand by purchasing available typos.

Watch the entire clip, it’s funny. If you just want to see the part about Netflix.com forgetting to renew it’s domain name, skip to the 1:01 minute mark.

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The news of .XXX sponsoring a powerboat broke late last week, so I am a little late to posting. Although late, I think it’s great news. Any chance of getting the word out about domain names is awesome and this is certainly a BIG way to do it!

This is now the second boat that .XXX has sponsored within 30 days. In mid-September ICM Registry sponsored our industry’s only conference on a cruise-ship, DNCruise.

Either later this week or early next I plan on posting my two cents about .XXX. In the mean time, here is the press release direct from ICM Registry released on September 30th.

.XXX RACING TO MAKE ITS MAIDEN VOYAGE AT OFF SHORE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS IN KEY WEST, NOV. 11-13

Palm Beach Gardens, Florida: ICM Registry, the company behind the .xxx top level domain (TLD) announced today that it is entering world class powerboat racing with world champion driver Mike Seebold to compete at this year’s Off Shore World Championships in Key West, Florida.

Seebold and the team will be unveiling the all new race boat at TRAFFIC, the domain investment conference in Ft Lauderdale on Oct. 15-16^th, where guests and some surprised beach goers will get a chance to see the Miss .XXX powerboat blast along the coastline for a few test runs.

“We are extremely pleased to have a champion of Mike’s caliber join the .XXX Racing team and we look forward to lots of success with the .XXX Powerboat Team both on and off the water”, states ICM Registry Sales Director, Vaughn Liley.

“We are excited to be part of the .XXX team and were going to make them very proud in Key West as we go for the World Championship”, stated champion powerboat racer, Mike Seebold.

.XXX puts internet users in control of the content they wish to view or avoid, the .XXX indicates to the consumer that the website is likely to contain adult material, so they can now make an informed decision, whether to select or avoid. For more information about .xxx please visit www.about.xxx

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Disney purchased ClubPenguin.com in August of 2007 for $700 million, $350 million cash and potentially another $350 million based on performance goals. At the time of purchase ClubPenguin.com had more than 12 million members with roughly 700,000 of them paying $57.95 per year. Do the math, that is over $40 million per year in revenue.

You would think with this kind of revenue Disney would have renewed their domain name for ten plus years and or set it up on auto renewal. Instead, on June 13th the domain name expired and today the website went down. The website has been down for over 8 hours!

By tomorrow Disney will have the domain name renewed and millions of children will be playing their favorite game again, but I am sure some Disney executive is getting ripped a new one for this muck up!

Lesson of the day for all of us, renew your domain names on time, in advance or setup auto renewal.

Below is a screen capture of the expired page, going to Network Solutions.

For more information on this story visit CBSnews.com.

*Update* It appears the domain name has now been renewed until 2020. The website, at least for me, is still down.

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