In a recent letter sent to my inbox, NetworkSolutions.com emailed regarding a domain that will be expiring soon, and they encourage me to place a back-order for the domain name at NameJet.com. The domain name they are emailing about is a .net version of a .com domain name that I own. The title of the email reads “DOMAIN.NET Can Be Yours: Find Out How” ( real domain edited out ) and further along in the email it states: “Since you have registered the same domain name with a different extension, we want to inform you that (DOMAIN.NET) may become available soon through our domain auction provider, NameJet™.”

When the two companies were still working together NSI promoted back-order service provider SnapNames in whois searches and on their site. Since dropping that alliance and forming the Namejet partnership, they have continued their promotions, but previous to now I do not recall an email campaign to domain owners in this manner. NSI seems to be making every effort to squeak more profits from their expiring domain inventory and maintain their market-share.

This tactic by NSI of emailing domain owners when a similar extension domain is expiring seems reminiscent of emails that desperate domainers are often found sending out trying to sell the .com owner the .org, .net or .whatever. The pitch probably works some of the time, especially to an uninformed domain owner who doesn’t know .com from .cm

Read on if you want to see the email in it’s entirety.

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Skenzo, a leader in traffic monetization solutions, has appointed Vaibhav Arya as their Chief Technology Officer.

“Mr. Arya’s appointment is in line with our aggressive plans to bring on board the smartest people in the industry”, explained Divyank Turakhia, Co-founder and CEO of Skenzo, “Vaibhav brings the experience and proven technical leadership that would allow Skenzo to continue being at the forefront of innovation. I am certain that he will be an invaluable member of our management team.”

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The Internet Commerce Association (ICA), the business association for domain name registrants and investors, has announced that Philip Reynolds has been elected to the Board of Directors.

Reynolds is very familiar with domain name issues and trends and has advocated for the interests of registrants in the past. He is the general manager of Thought Convergence, a domain management/domain technology provider and parent company of TrafficZ , where he is responsible for the company’s day-to-day operations.

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Marchex’s (MCHX) business review aggregator OpenList has entered a partnership with Cityloans LLC’s AtlantaLoans.com. The site will be using the OpenList business and business review data on this and other domains.

“AtlantaLoans.com allows Atlanta residents, people relocating to Atlanta and others that need to find Atlanta financial service providers quickly and easily” said AJ Martin, the founder of Cityloans LLC network which includes AtlantaLoans.com. “We looked at every potential content partner and found the OpenList platform to be the hands down winner in the local space”. “We are excited to be working with OpenList.com and look forward to rolling out many more cities very soon” added Martin. Those cities will include TampaLoans.com, BostonLoans.com, MiamiLoans.com, LosAngelesLoans.com, ChicagoLoans.com and NewYorkLoans.com.

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Domain Strategies, a leading domain developer, has announced the appointment of Scott Fasser to President and Chief Operating Officer and Natalie Grinblatt to EVP Corporate Development. The company, which recently teamed up with Salient Properties to develop Wifi.com, has also selected John Maffei for the position of CEO of Wifi.com.

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Live Current Media, previously known as Communicate.com, has partnered with the newly created DLF Indian Premier League to build their official website, IPLT20.com. Live Current has agreed to be the cricket league’s exclusive online content provider for the next 10 years, signifying their first cricket-related relationship for the company, who owns the premium domain Cricket.com. Live Current plans to build and launch Cricket.com, as the sport’s global hub, in the future.

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Communicate.com has changed its name to Live Current Media Inc. and made a big-time acquisition, buying Auctomatic (a web2.0 eBay listing management company) for $5 million in cash and stock. These moves signal a new beginning for the company from Vancouver, Canada.

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According to a report by PEhub, Demand Media has raised another $35 million USD in series D financing. Richard Rosenblatt’s company has now raised $355 million in total VC funding since its March 2006 founding.

An article on the New York Times politics blog, The Caucus, covers the domain name registrations during this years U.S. Presidential race.  The article points out the domain names that the Republican National Committee has registered and points to the difference in strategy that their opponents on the other side of the aisle seem to have. 

This e-mudslinging strategy of registering domain names with your opponents name, creating mini-sites (think swift boats), speculating on running mates, etc is really nothing new as far as politics go, but it is interesting to note from this article that the Republican party has registered so many domains, while the Democratic National Committee has registered so few and none of them seem to contain the names of any Republican candidates.  

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There’s a new article in the New York Times titled “Coins in the New Realm” by Brad Stone.  The piece is an adaptation of the International Herald Tribune that came out yesterday and is the fourth publication to focus on Domain Fest Global. Previous pieces include Fortune and LA Times.