Single And Double Letter Domains Launch .CLUB’s First China Auction

High Value ".club" Domain Names

A Strong Appeal in Asia and the West for C.club, DK.club, PC.club and PJ.club

C.Club and twenty-four 2-character .CLUB domain names are set to hit the auction block on October 29, 2015 in a series of five fast-moving auctions with each auction lasting three days. The popularity and value of one and two-character domains is well documented as witnessed through their global sales and usage by major corporations across verticals such as:

• YP.com (Yellow Pages),
• HP.com (Hewlett Packard),
• SI.com (Sports Illustrated),
• EA.com (Electronic Arts),
• QQ.com (Tencent QQ),
• W.org (WordPress),
• and more. In fact, many companies’ brand identity has naturally morphed to be more prevalent in their two-character abbreviated form rather than full name.

This auction, to be held on the Chinese EachNic.com platform, marks the first time .CLUB Domains, the Registry behind one of the world’s most popular new domain extensions, is offering this set of domains in a public auction format. The domain inventory included in this auction has been hand-selected by the EachNic.com team to specifically appeal to Eastern and Western businesses and investors alike. Auction bidding starts as low as $5,000USD for the majority of two-character domains, making them accessible for businesses of all sizes and budgets.

.CLUB Domains has already sold reserved domains at considerable auction prices, including the sale of Wine.club for $140,000 in 2015 at the NamesCon Auction, which set the worldwide auction record for all new domain extension sales to date. This was their first and only auction, showing the demand for .CLUB domain sales. Likewise, interest in the first Eastern and Western auction of .CLUB names is expected to attract strong participation, especially with .CLUB’s active focus on buyers worldwide.

The auction platform will be available in both Chinese and English, and .CLUB will be offering a Concierge Service to assist Western buyers, thus allowing two ways to bid:

• Bid online from the EachNic.com auction platform. Once the auction begins, create an account and bid as frequently as you like. You can also enter a proxy bid for each auction for automated bidding. 
• Use the free Concierge Service and work with a professional bi-lingual domain specialist to guide you through EachNic.com’s registration and bidding process on your behalf and under your directions. This provides you the freedom to set your limits anonymously before the auction ends. To learn more, contact us at auction@nic.club.

Payments will be made through the familiar website Escrow.com for non-Chinese investors and through Union Pay for Chinese investors. To accommodate investors everywhere, teams of bilingual speakers will be available throughout the auction in U.S. and China time zones.

Be sure to frequently check http://nic.club/auction/ for the latest news and bidding links for this coveted set of 25 valuable domains. Auction inventory, reserves and dates can be found below.

Each auction will end promptly at 10:30 pm Eastern (7:30 pm Pacific) on the indicated End date.

List of domain names:

1. HJ.CLUB
• $5,000 USD
• 29-Oct-2015 (start date)
• 1-Nov-2015 (end date)
2. JC.CLUB
1. $5,000 USD
2. 29-Oct-2015
3. 1-Nov-2015 
3. YM.CLUB
1. $5,000 USD
2. 29-Oct-2015
3. 1-Nov-2015 
4. JS.CLUB
1. $5,000 USD
2. 29-Oct-2015
3. 1-Nov-2015 
5. GZ.CLUB
1. $5,000
2. USD 29-Oct-2015
3. 1-Nov-2015 
6. PC.CLUB
1. $5,000 USD
2. 30-Oct-2015
3. 2-Nov-2015 
7. YX.CLUB
1. $5,000 USD
2. 30-Oct-2015
3. 2-Nov-2015 
8. QC.CLUB
1. $5,000 USD
2. 30-Oct-2015
3. 2-Nov-2015 
9. DK.CLUB
1. $5,000 USD
2. 30-Oct-2015
3. 2-Nov-2015 
10. PK.CLUB
1. $5,000 USD
2. 30-Oct-2015
3. 2-Nov-2015 
11. ZS.CLUB
1. $5,000 USD
2. 31-Oct-2015
3. 3-Nov-2015 
12. CG.CLUB
1. $5,000 USD
2. 31-Oct-2015
3. 3-Nov-2015 
13. SQ.CLUB
1. $5,000 USD
2. 31-Oct-2015
3. 3-Nov-2015 
14. KF.CLUB
1. $5,000 USD
2. 31-Oct-2015
3. 3-Nov-2015 
15. ZI.CLUB
1. $5,000 USD
2. 31-Oct-2015
3. 3-Nov-2015 
16. YC.CLUB
1. $5,000 USD
2. 1-Nov-2015
3. 4-Nov-2015 
17. DS.CLUB
1. $5,000 USD
2. 1-Nov-2015
3. 4-Nov-2015 
18. YQ.CLUB
1. $5,000 USD
2. 1-Nov-2015
3. 4-Nov-2015 
19. ZQ.CLUB
1. $5,000 USD
2. 1-Nov-2015
3. 4-Nov-2015 
20. TB.CLUB
1. $5,000 USD
2. 1-Nov-2015
3. 4-Nov-2015 
21. C.CLUB
1. $50,000 USD
2. 2-Nov-2015
3. 5-Nov-2015 
22. JD.CLUB
1. $10,000 USD
2. 2-Nov-2015
3. 5-Nov-2015 
23. PJ.CLUB
1. $10,000 USD
2. 2-Nov-2015
3. 5-Nov-2015 
24. LY.CLUB
1. $5,000 USD
2. 2-Nov-2015
3. 5-Nov-2015 
25. GW.CLUB
1. $5,000 USD
2. 2-Nov-2015
3. 5-Nov-2015

About .Club Domains, LLC
Led by Internet entrepreneur Colin Campbell, whose prior successes include Tucows Interactive and Hostopia.com, .Club Domains, LLC is the award-winning registry behind the .CLUB top level domain name. The company recently launched Startup.club to support entrepreneurs building businesses around a .CLUB domain name. With more than 290,000 domain names sold to date .CLUB leads the pack of new domain extensions in sales and usage and was recognized at the 2015 Domain Industry Awards for Best Registry and Company of the Year. More information and links to register .CLUB domains are available now at http://www.get.club.

About EachNic.com
EachNic is China’s first professional domain trading and investing website. With over 400,000 registered members, and certified by both ICANN and CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Center). Its services include domain registration, aftermarket trading, brokerage, auction, reservation cancellation and parking and other relevant value adding services. Established in 2000, EachNic is one of China’s oldest and most trusted auction platforms for global domain name auctions. Built on powerful, robust bidding software and more than a decade of experience, EachNic is the only choice for internationally-minded domain investors and for new gTLDs in China.

EachNic was founded by one of the best-known Chinese Internet industry leaders, Mr. YAO Jinbo (current CEO of 58.com) on August 18, 2000, and was acquired in 2008 and ran independently since then by EJEE Group, one of China’s largest registrar service providers headquartered in Zhongguancun, Beijing, the Silicon Valley of China.

.WINE New gTLD is Here, Thanks to Politicians

.WINE: what about other Governments?

According to Jean Guillon: "We are thankful to Axelle Lemaire for its toughness and the action of its team but wasn't this an act of leadership to be able to force ICANN to act and to mobilize the international wine community, including the American one? In a nutshell, wasn't the political pressure applied on ICANN far more efficient than the protection mechanisms it offered at the beginning?"

Read on CircleId:
http://www.circleid.com/posts/201451005_wine_new_gtld_is_here_thanks_to_politicians/.

A wine club? Register your .CLUB domain name with Namebay.

.VIN & .WINE new gTLDs are here, Thanks to Politicians

It is no news that the .WINE and .VIN new gTLDs are to be announced soon by Donuts and if the month of November is the very month everybody has been waiting for, at the beginning of the Sunrise Periods, many questions arise regarding the protection of wine geographical indications.

Axelle Lemaire
There is a lot to say regarding the length of time it took to launch .wine and .vin new gTLDs and, most of all, how difficult it has been to protect its wine Geographical Indications (also called "wine GIs"). The "French way" has been very efficient in facing such a threat to our culture. That is to be demonstrated when these two new gTLD launch. France has had French experts working on how to protect wine GIs but we've also had politicians handling the problem and help find solutions.

Read the end of this article here on CircleId and prepare your .WINE and .VIN Sunrise Periods with Nameshield.

2 new Sunrise Periods have begun (.KYOTO and .信息)

Sunrise Periods
When:

1. .KYOTO:
   SUNRISE PERIOD START: Thursday, 1 October, 2015 - 16:00;
   SUNRISE PERIOD END: Monday, 30 November, 2015 - 16:00.
2. .信息 (information):
   SUNRISE PERIOD START: Thursday, 1 October, 2015 - 16:00;
   SUNRISE PERIOD END: Saturday, 31 October, 2015 - 16:00.

Register here:https://www.nameshield.com/

Source:
https://secure.nameshield.net/recherche-dispo/calendar.php?lang=en.

Register your .CLUB domain name with Namebay.

Domain names ending in ".sfr" (phone operator)

What to do with .SFR domain names?

SFR is a French mobile phone operator and was recently bought by another operator (Numericable). The .SFR new gTLD application is still in PDT status and it is not yet known if it will be withdrawn.

This article, writen in French, gives an example of a useful use a phone operator could have of its own new domain names.

Read the article on NDD.buzz.

New .NEWS domain names start to be adopted

The .NEWS new gTLD
Just for those who still do not understand what "gTLD" means, it stands for "generic Top-Level Domain". And for those who do not know what a generic Top-Level Domain is, it is a domain name extension: what comes in the end of a domain name. In www.fresh.news, the domain name extension is ".news".

Domain names ending in ".news" can be a good match for journalists but not only. If professionals from the paper and online press publish news, they are not alone: a news can be written by anyone, any business with a relation to posting up-to-date information online. Bloggers are concerned here.

Domain names which meet adoption
There are exercises I often do to see if a specific domain name extension meets adoption or not:

1. I check (weekly) new gTLD registration volumes so I can see which extension has increasing domain name registrations and which extension hasn't. My latest report was published (in French) here. You will note in blue the extensions which registration volumes increase in a significant way and .NEWS is one of them in my latest report.
2. I use the Google's "advanced search" to check how many websites really use this domain name extension. To find how many websites use a ".news" domain name you must first do a search on Google (whatever you like), then you should click on top-right on the little wheel and select "Advanced search". Remove what you searched for in the field entitled "all these words" and add "news" in the field entitled "site or domain". See below how to proceed:

Last time I proceed for .NEWS I found "about 716,000 results (0.24 seconds)".

.NEWS beats competitors

The .NEWS new gTLD has competitors and the biggest one is not .PRESS, it is .BLOG but .NEWS has many advantages:

1. it is multilingual;
2. it is cheap: $10 at the moment at some Registrars;
3. we do not know how much a ".blog" will cost since it has not launched yet;
4. ".press" is more for the press specifically rather than news in general.
5. registration volumes don't lie:
1. there are 24,936 ".news" domain names registered;
2. there are 7,239 ".press" doamins registered.

A problem I foresee with the .NEWS Registry

Anyone interested in following new about new gTLDs reads www.newsgtlds.com and you probably noticed that this website still uses an old ".com" domain name. Isn't it a pity to read news about new gTLDs on a website which uses an old domain name? The reason of this is that this website was launched long prior the launching of the ICANN new gTLD program but isn't it time for a change?

The problem I face here is that gtld.news is a Premium domain name and guess how much I would have to pay to change my old ".com" to "gtld.news"?

;-)

Sources:

• .NEWS by Rightside: http://rightside.co/about/top-level-domains/news/
• Google's advanced search for ".news" websites: https://goo.gl/VZqikt