These days, we rely on our devices for everything, so it isn’t hard to develop a digital addiction. Addiction Specialist & Lifestyle Interventionist Brad Lamm explained how to unplug when he dropped by Mondays With Marlo. Brad said that you must power down at night, unless you’re a doctor or someone who needs to be available in an emergency. Learn to get off the grid and set some boundaries with 
Demand Media has announced a new web publishing service that it says is designed specifically for new gTLD registrants, at the category-killing domain names Designs.com.
Designs.com will provide users with tools to quickly build web sites for their new name, with no coding experience required, according to the site.
Conceptually, there’s nothing new about selling do-it-yourself web site building services alongside domain names of course; they’ve been around for over a decade.
But Demand says it’s tailoring the product to niche gTLDs, promoting certain features depending on the gTLD string in which the customer has bought. From a press release:
“A consumer using .FAN needs features related to sharing, ‘liking’ and growing a community, while a professional using .ARCHITECT needs features related to a strong visual portfolio and self-promotion,” explained Nick Nelson, general manager of Designs.com for Demand Media. “Until today, tools and templates have been designed for no-one in particular. New gTLDs are for specific audiences, so we must have tools that create a web presence with the same tailored approach, making the website and web address inseparable.”
It’s exactly the kind of marketing effort that new gTLDs are going to need if they’re going to be successful, particularly if they’re targeting greenfield opportunities such as small business owners.
Based on the little we know today, it almost sounds like innovation.
The Designs.com service will be made available via partnering registrars, according to the company. We can only assume that eNom and Names.com are a shoo-ins.
On the registry side, there’s nothing stopping the company adding the service to pretty much every new gTLD for which, as a registrar, it is accredited.
Demand has 26 active new gTLD applications and has rights to buy into about 100 of Donuts’ gTLDs, should they be approved by ICANN and win their contention sets.
I think this discussion on domains will be ongoing between lots of groups. I do not think the issue is just between SEO and domainers and extensions. I actually think this is the same issue for end users and domainers. I feel it is smart for a company to own the category or product they are in and maybe some other key domains. However, every domainer thinks they have gold and asks….when will 
I’ll admit it, I’m a CrunchBase addict. I visit CrunchBase.com at least three times a day, sometimes more. As a startup founder this is how I keep track of which firms are funding which companies and who is getting funded. If you don’t know what CrunchBase is it’s a platform run by TechCrunch updated by users to keep track of startup funding and it has become the most up-to-date source on the Internet for funding information.
Well now there’s a solution for addicts like me. Today TechCrunch announced Crunchbase Daily which despite having a broken image at the top of the page at the time of this posting, looks like exactly what I’ve been looking for.
Little bugs like this are also refreshing to see. It goes to show that companies big and small make mistakes and to be honest, as a customer it really doesn’t bug me because I know they’ll fix it and I’m excited about what they are doing. You can subscribe to the daily CrunchBase update here.
Video explains a little-known tool for finding relevant buyers for domainname names.
Over the years a number of tools have been developed to help names owners find buyers for their domain names. These tools typically search for similar domainnames as well as online advertisers bidding for the terms found in the name.
But the best tool for finding highly targeted buyers for your name is often overlooked. Perhaps it’s because the tool wasn’t designed for this purpose, nor is it marketed as a way to find domain name buyers.
In this video you’ll learn how to use DomainTools’ Domain Search tools to find highly targeted sales leads. The tool is free and doesn’t require a DomainTools account to use…although having an account unlocks an additional useful feature.
© DomainNameWire.com 2013. This is copyrighted content. Do not republish.
Latest domains news at DNW.com: Domain names Name Wire.
Like most people who blog about domain names, I get a fair amount of emails from people who have bought more than a few domainnames but just can’t figure out how to make money. The problem is they are working under the auspice that the more domainname you have in your collection the more money you can make. Sadly this is often far from the truth. Only a fraction of the name names out there have value, and many of the top investors have large portfolios of the best domains.
That being said, I cringe when I hear someone say that all the good names are taken, that is very far from the truth. The truth is that it takes time and solid research to find name that are real investments, rather than, well, just another domain name to add to your collection. If you find that you have a bunch of domain name but you aren’t making any money, there’s a good chance you’re a domain collector, not an investor. What’s always amazing to me is that people who aren’t making any money with domainname keep buying more, if what you’re doing isn’t working then it’s time for a course correction.
Here are the facts:
So just like an AA meeting, think of this as a DC (Domain name Collectors) meeting. The first thing you need to do is admit it, you’re a collector not an investor, now fix it.
As I told you in my last Lowdown post, when I was getting ready to head out for Cherry Hill, New Jersey to attend this past weekend’s bar mitzvah for Ari Goldberger’s son Josh, I was expecting the kind of BIG production that Ari is known for. Even so, the event wound up far exceeding my already high expectations.
At least two new gTLD applicants reckon ICANN has screwed up their Initial Evaluation, flunking their applications due to missing or mishandled communications.
Following Friday’s batch of IE results, which saw four failures, one angry applicant got in touch with DI to complain about discrepancies in how his bids were scored.
Dot Registry has applied for five “corporate identifier” strings — .inc, .corp, .ltd, .llc and .llp — and has made decent progress convincing the powers that be that they will be operated responsibly.
On Friday, its .inc bid passed its Initial Evaluation with flying colors while .llc and .ltd were marked as “Eligible For Extended Evaluation”, a polite code phrase for #fail.
Both of the unsuccessful bids scored 0 on question 50, “Funding Critical Registry Functions”, which is an automatic failure no matter what the overall score on the financial evaluation.
Applicants are scored on question 50 from 0 to 3 by showing that they have a “Continuing Operations Instrument” to cover three years of operations in the event that their registry fails.
Most applicants have been submitting letters of credit supplied by their bank, which promise to pay ICANN these emergency funds should the need arise.
A zero score indicates basically that no COI was provided.
But CEO Shaul Jolle claims that Dot Registry submitted a single letter of credit to cover all five applications, later amended at ICANN’s request so that each string in the portfolio was broken out individually.
“We then received a note that they now have whatever they needed and it’s resolved,” he said.
He noted that .inc, which passed on Friday with maximum score of 3, is covered by exactly the same LOC as the two applications that scored a 0, which doesn’t make much sense.
A second applicant, which does not currently wish to be named, has told DI that it failed its financial evaluation on a question for which it received no Clarifying Questions.
CQs are the handy method by which ICANN gave applicants a second shot at getting their applications right. Hundreds have been issued, the vast majority related to financial questions.
The common complaint to both failing applicants is that at no point did ICANN inform the applicant that its application was deficient.
We understand both applicants are currently in touch with ICANN management in order to try to get their predicaments resolved.