discredit.org

Its been an interesting year for me. I have acquired some great domains and was inspired to write about my domaining experiences here on the blog. I’ve made a great deal of friends in the domaining world and now have a wonderful network to rely on when needed.

The dnpimping.com domaining comic has been quite popular with visitors. Just recently, the comic was mentioned on NameTalent.com, you can view the entry here. Its entries like this which keep me motivated to run the blog. I’ve received positive comments from a number of domainers in the industry all telling me to keep up the great work.

Just recently I registered a .CM domain name and boy what a journey that has been. Its been quite disappointing to see all the delays in such a promising extension. To add on to this there are a number of people spreading bad information about the .CM extension. Some of these individuals run blogs that have a strong reader base. There are those that complain about the domain registration fees, which work out to $175 a year. Yes this is quite an expensive domain registration fee, but think about the opportunities a new extension such as this one presents. Who cares about how companies are advertising the domain as a typo extension. There is an opportunity to make money here folks, if you want to believe that the extension is a waste of money then give it some time. I will say that within the next 4 - 6 months we will hear about several $x,xxx sales for the .CM extension. Once these sales hit the record books there will be an influx of domainers trying to buy into the hype. Remember, domaining is built on publicity although some want you to believe it is good old fashion business. Regardless if the information being written is positive or negative you are still promoting the extension.

I plan on having even more fun with the blog, look out for future comics but also stay tuned for a new video series. Thanks to all my readers who have kept me motivated during the starting phases of dnpimping.com, I will have a special treat for all of you coming very soon.

DNPimping.com has slowly started to form a schedule for updates. Here is what you can expect on a few of the days:

Tuesday - Domain Spotlight
Wednesday - What is Domaining?
Friday - Domaining Comic

I am debating on whether to add a theme for Monday and Thursday. I tend to relax away from the computer during the weekend, so for now no themed days for Saturday and Sunday. We shall see!

I can’t wait until domaining is considered a profession and kids declare that they want to become a domainer at there school’s career day. That is the focus of today’s comic. Enjoy! If you would like to contribute an idea for a future comic feel free to email info@dnpimping.com or call us at (909)257-PIMP. If your idea is used we will give you a $20 GoDaddy.com gift card!

Well it’s official, I am the proud owner of LOFT.CM, my first CM domain name. All of the other CM domain names are awaiting auction. I registered LOFT.CM because of the real estate market. I am a huge fan of lofts and plan on purchasing one in Downtown, Los Angeles in the next few years. It would be ironic if this domain name actually helps contribute to the purchase of an actual loft. I hope those that participated in the .CM Landrush have had the chance to register some great domains. I am looking forward to hearing about the opportunities which await with the landmark “typo” extension.

Here is the email that I received from NameJet:

Dear NameJet Customer (dnpimping):

Congratulations you successfully won a .CM Landrush domain auction.

Below you will find a summary of the domains ordered for your NameJet account:

Type Amount Description / Status

Landrush Auction Bid (registration NOT included) $0.00 loft.cm / Successful

TOTAL BILLED: $0.00 USD

.CM Landrush - What’s Next?

The next step is for NameJet to add the name to the appropriate account at the sponsoring registrar. This can take up to 3 business days, but is typically much faster. You will receive an email from the sponsoring registrar with login and account information at that time.

The accredited registrar for the above domain is eNom, Inc. If you have previously won domains at NameJet, they will be added to your existing account with this Registrar.

Otherwise, a new account will be created for you at www.eNomCentral.com. You will automatically receive an email with your account login name and temporary password within a few days.

2-Year Registration Payment to Registrar

You will need to enter a valid credit card in your Registrar’s account to process your Landrush 2-year registration fee of $350 USD per domain. This is found on the MY INFO page when logged into your account with eNom. Once the domain has been added to your account, they will attempt to process your order within 48 hours. Once complete, you will receive an email order confirmation for the registration fees. At that time you will be able to update your host records.

Our Technical Support staff is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to assist with NameJet questions. For assistance, when logged into your account, please submit a Support Center ticket from the Help page.

We thank you for using NameJet for your Landrush .CM Domains.

As this email is not monitored, please visit our support center at http://www.namejet.com/Pages/Support.aspx if you have any questions or need to contact us.

Sincerely,
NameJet Technical Support
1.425.974.4687

It’s that time again, for another What is Domaining Wednesdays Podcast here at DNPimping.com! In today’s podcast the caller actually mentions a golden keyword. I’ll go ahead and give it away, the keyword is television! The caller states that he heard about domaining on the television. This sparked me to think about if I had ever had the pleasure of hearing the word domaining on any of the major networks. My answer is I have not, but I did see a recording on the web from MSNBC which was probably televised at one point or another.

I tried searching for the video clip but I was unable to find it. I did however find the MSNBC article which pertained to domaining.

Enjoy the podcast!

[audio:http://www.dnpimping.com/audio/dnpimping.com_podcast_whatisdomaining-04.mp3]

September 1st will be the official launch date for our new Domain Spotlight Tuesdays. I’ve already chosen the first domain name to feature in this series. Here is a little hint for you. The company’s colors include orange and the name begins with am H and ends with an R. I wonder how many of you can guess which company this is. If I gave away the fact that they have become quite popular for the type of products that they serve to people all over the country, I bet a few of you would get it right away. Whelp, you’ll have to wait till next Tuesday before I reveal the company name! I actually picked up this marketing product while I was staying at a hotel in Las Vegas! That should of given it away right there!

September 1st was an extremely productive day for me. As some of you know I run a couple of businesses in addition to domaining. These businesses required the majority of my attention on Tuesday and I am pushing Spotlight Tuesdays back another week because of this.

As always thanks to all of my readers!

Today, NameJet sent an email about how the CM pre-order phase is now closed. They also provided information on the Auction process beginning. For your information I have included the email in its entirety below:

Dear Valued NameJet™ Customer

The Pre-Order process for .CM domains is now closed. We are now ready to start the Auction process.

General Auction Details

As NameJet receives the updates from the Registry, the status of each pre-order will change. As auctions start or single pre-order domains are awarded, the status will also change. You can easily view the status of your domains from the .CM Pre-Order page from within your NameJet account.

• If you were the only bidder with a pre-order for a domain, you will be awarded the domain between Wednesday August 26th and Thursday August 27th. NameJet will send you a $0.00 order confirmation along with additional instructions.

Multiple bidder auctions will be scheduled to start on August 28th, with end dates over the next few weeks. Close dates will be between Monday, August 31st and Monday, September 14th, there will not be any weekend or U.S. Holiday Auction End Dates.
Auction Process
You will receive an email with the start and scheduled end dates and times for each auction that you are a participant. In addition, we will send you an email with a Daily Auction Summary. Once an auction starts, you will be notified if you are outbid, with a quick link to access the auction and increase your proxy amount.

The minimum starting bid for all auctions is $50 USD. Enter your proxy bid, and NameJet will automatically bid on your behalf UP TO your maximum bid. You can come back at any time and increase your proxy bid.

Each auction will have a scheduled close time between the hours of 10:00am and Noon, PT.

• When logged into your NameJet account, you can view all active auctions on the My Auctions tab.

Keep a close eye on closing auctions with our Last Minute Board. This page is updated once every 1 minute so you can monitor the status of auctions that are closing in the next 24 hours.

• By clicking on the .CM Pre-orders link, you will see a list of all pre-orders and their current status.

• Once domains have been awarded, the Manage My Domains section will indicate which registrar will be contacting you regarding next steps to managing each domain.

Auction Payment Process
When the auction closes and you are the winner, NameJet will attempt to charge your account within one hour. While payment is expected at the close of the auction, we do offer a 7-day grace period. Email reminders will be sent daily with a list of any auctions that remain in a pending payment status.

• Payment is by credit card or wire transfer only. We do not accept PayPal.

• Auctions over $5,000 require a bank wire transfer.

• If you intend to send a bank wire transfer for payment, we suggest you start this process immediately upon the close of your auction. Some banks can take a few days to process, and we post to your account Monday through Friday only. Please let us know that your wire transfer has been initiated.

• Bank Wire instructions can be found on our Support Center. When logged into your account, go to Help / Support Center / Answers. Article #1054 is the first one listed.

FAQs and Technical Support
We encourage you to read through the FAQ’s to become more familiar with the NameJet bidding process. Likewise, our Help / Support Center page has many articles which will answer specific questions about our auction site.

Our Technical Support staff is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to assist with NameJet questions. For assistance, when logged into your account, please submit a Support Center ticket from the Help page.

We thank you for using NameJet for your Landrush .CM Domains. As this email is not monitored, please login into your account and visit our Support Center if you have any questions or need to contact us.

Sincerely,
NameJet Technical Support
1.425.974.4687

A little something I like to call Domaining Overload! Inspired by my initial experiences in the domaining world. I tried to do way too much as a new domainer. Enjoy today’s comic and make sure to come back every Friday! If you have an idea for a comic, feel free to email us at info@dnpimping.com or call us (909)257-PIMP.

This morning I checked my email and what do I see? A headline from the domaining.com newsletter which states that Domain Name Wire has posted an entry entitled Epik Acquires DNKO Auction Platform, First Auction on Friday. In my eyes this is a huge acquisition. Only a few domainers actually know that I have had the chance to communicate via email with a handful of people associated with the DNKO auction site. On my previous blog, discredit.org I wrote a couple of entries in regards to how the auction platform performed from the day that it started. Since I am working on merging the old blog’s database into DNPimping.com I will let you read a few of the past entries here:

May 18th, 2009

Bido Competitor? DNKO Domain Name Auctions

Is someone out to compete with Bido? Another domain name auction website has surfaced and this time is not offering one domain per day but a multi-auction platform to offer several domains a day. There has been some buzzing around the domaining blogosphere about the site as well as on the various domaining forums I visit from time to time. I don’t know what to expect from such a site, but can definitely say from what I have seen thus far that they seem like a serious contender for Bido. Although they mist be contending for the position that Bido currently holds, they will have a great deal of work to do. Bido is currently one of the hottest domaining sites around and has established its brands making it very well known in the domaining world. As far as DNKO is concerned, I could barely remember the 4-letter combination and mis-typed the domain twice. As a brand I can’t see the letters DNKO being remembered as well as the Bido combination. This could definitely lead to troublesome experiences when marketing the site. Another aspect of the site I will touch on now is design. Currently the design of the site in my opinion does the business justice. It looks as if it is a professional platform which will help you auction off your domains to the masses, although I do like the Bido design more it is only because of the fact that I have seen the Bido design in action! I won’t truly be able to see the DNKO design in action until 3PM PST today as that is when the first set of auctions will be held. With each auction lasting a total of 60 seconds and extending 15 seconds per bid, this should definitely draw some attention. Not to mention they chose 3PM PST as a starting time period. This time gives people who are currently wrapping up any bidding business on Bido, which ends at 2PM PST some time to gather a few refreshments and head over to the DNKO site.

Tomorrow after watching the Bido auction, I will make my way over to DNKO.COM and watch what everyone is starting to buzz about! Let the domain auction battle begin!

Best Regards,

Jason Thompson

May 18th, 2009

Bido’s Competition Takes A Dump. DNKO EPIC FAIL!

After watching the bido auction for dentaltechnicians.com, I decided to walk over to the market and do some grocery shopping before lunch. As soon as I got back I put the groceries down in my living room and went over to dnko.com the supposed bido slayer. As soon as I log into the site and head over to the auction area I am presented with this screen:

There is definitely a lesson to be learned here. If you are going to release such a service, why not release it in beta form first to a select amount of end-users so you can test the site thoroughly. Especially when you are entering into a market which thrives off of domain auctions. If you present yourself as an unstable platform on the day that your site’s main feature launches, then what are people going to think of you? Well I don’t know what other people are thinking but I can definitely share my opinion. Here are a few comments directed at my experience with dnko thus far:

If the site crashes in the middle of my auction, what happens to my domain? Better yet, what happens to the bidders that have made winning bids on the domain?

Why would you release a site without beta testing it properly?

If you enter into a domain auctions as a service, why didn’t you develop a product better than bido?

Once bido enters the multi-auction platform stage, what do you think will happen to your site?

Since your site obviously shows that it has a great deal of bugs from jump, how much attention did you pay to the security aspect of the site?

Do you think you should close your doors for a while and try to fix all the problems with the site?

I have plenty of more questions to ask in regards to the epic fail of dnko’s service launch, but I am hungry now and its time to eat. Maybe my questions will pose a little food for thought with the creators of the site.

Best Regards,

Jason Thompson

May 18th, 2009

DNKO Update

There are some major problems at the new domain auction website DNKO. With the release of the site today it looks like they are having issues with hosting and might actually try to be switching providers as we speak. If you go to dnko.com right now, it will direct you to the following link: http://66.109.18.70/~dnkocom/loginform.php

I sure hope they didn’t think they would be able to run a domain auction site off of just one server. Hopefully if they are moving the platform to a new provider that it is a load balanced solution which will allow for bandwidth shaping to better direct traffic and reduce the risk of epic fails in the future. DNKO it would be nice for you to issue some sort of press release or update in regards to the exact reasons why your site is have so many problems at this time. I have checked my email through out the day and you have not provided your members with any sort of updates. What in the world is going on over there?

May 19th, 2009

DNKO Update

The founder of dnko.com was hospitalized earlier today for high blood pressure and chess pains. His doctor told him to go straight to the emergency room in his area. Some are lead to believe that these issues have been induced by the problematic launch of the DNKO.com auction website. After chatting with a few people in the DNKO auction chatroom today, the majority of people were positive about the website and are willing to work with Mark, the founder of the site on getting through these website gliches. Past that, I ask all the domainers within our industry to keep Mark in your prayers and to pray for him to get well. He is definitely a valued asset to our community and DNKO will be just as valuable once all the gliches are worked out.

Best Regards,

Jason Thompson

To sum it up I was a bit disappointed in the deployment of the auction platform. On another note, apparently my blog was indexed for the key term “DNKO”. At one point I was actually indexed on the first page of google for the term. As I write this blog entry I am now indexed on the second page of google. Although I won’t go into much detail, I was contacted a few times by different associates of the DNKO site about the entries that I wrote. Perhaps, I will share a little more information about this in the future! For now, I truly do respect the move Epik has made and I am sure they will turn DNKO into a success!

On August 19th, 2009 my cat was neutered by the local animal shelter clinic. In Los Angeles, California it is a law that if you adopt a cat from an animal shelter, then you are required to have the cat neutered within a few months of your adoption date. This date is dependent upon the age of the cat that you adopt.

While trying to find the address of the animal shelter that I initially adopted my cat from, I ran into several different sites which provided me with inaccurate information on the location of the shelter. In other words it took more time than it should of to locate the right shelter to visit.

Personally, I feel that the lack of an effective Internet presence for such an important cause as animal adoption does nothing but harm the potential chance of an animal finding a good home. If an individual is searching for a local animal shelter and the information returned is not what they are looking for, some will simply give up and delay the adoption process.

In my efforts to connect people with animals that need a home, I have decided to develop a website which will index all of the animal shelters in the United States. I feel that this project is needed and could care less about the monetary aspect. I will be funding the development of this project with my own money.

Although I stated that I wouldn’t be registering domain names until half of my portfolio has been developed, this is a definite exception. My last visit to the animal shelter transformed me in ways that I can not explain. The fact that the majority of animals at the shelter, cats and dogs alike will be put to sleep because of the lack of awareness concerning animal adoptions does not sit well with me.

With this transformation within myself, comes awareness. With this awareness I have decided to use my technical ability as a domainer for a good cause, ensuring that more animals are given a fair chance in this world. I’ll make sure to keep everyone informed on the development process.

My cat actually just jumped into my lap while typing this blog entry. This just reiterates why I have decided to start this project.

Welcome to another What is Domaining Wednesdays Podcast here at DNPimping.com! It’s hard to believe that this is already the third podcast.

Another caller is featured in today’s podcast. If you are like me, the definition the caller provides for domaining will impress you.

If you know anyone who would like to be a featured caller for the “What is Domaining Wednesdays” have them call (909)257-PIMP. (Google Voice made me do it!)

As always enjoy and if you didn’t get a chance to listen to last week’s podcast click here!

[audio:http://www.dnpimping.com/audio/dnpimping.com_podcast_whatisdomaining-03.mp3]