And here are the winners of the 2012 Targeted T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Awards as they were announced at a Brunch during the Targeted T.R.A.F.F.I.C. show this morning:

Best new monetizing Solution

• DomainPower.com

Best overall Domain Solution

• Sedo.com

Best Domain Blog

• DomainSherpa.com (Cyger)

The “we get it” award

• SalesForce.com

Developer of the year award

• Alan Dunn (DomainHoldings)

Broker of the year

• Dave Evanson (Sedo.com)

Sponsor of the year

• Escrow.com

Domainer of the year

• Frank Schilling

Domain Hall of Fame

• Chad Folkenning
• Michael ‘Mike’ Mann

Plus the Bandit Berkens “Goodwill Ambassador Award”, which went to Judi and Michael Berkens.

See the videos of parts of the awards ceremony over at DomainGang’s Youtube channel and see the original nominees here.

With Frank Schilling’s recent post predicting “most high quality name traffic will leave it’s present PPC deal looking for something better“ and a conference on domain development happening this week, we found the topic of our latest guest blogger perfectly fitting.   – Adam Strong , DNN editor

Mass development is the most recent trend in monetizing domain names, and it is being hailed as a successful, scalable alternative to parking. You are told that mass-developed sites will rank well in the search engines over the long term, driving more traffic and earning you more revenue. I am skeptical to say the least.

What exactly are we trying to solve here?

(more…)

As reported by The Domains and Domain Name Wire earlier today, the former owner of the domain name mint.com stands to reap the rewards of the sale of the site to Intuit. But this was more than a simple domain name against stock deal and the previous domain owner was actually an investment firm.

According to TechCrunch the former owner of the domain name mint.com (Hite Capital), which was just sold with a developed site to Intuit for 170 million USD, received a significant amount in series A stock for the domain name, which should be “worth a ‘couple of million dollars,’ says one source [to TechCrunch], after the acquisition”. Hite Capital also invested money into mint.com in the series A and series B investment rounds – according to CrunchBase, so maybe they did not only give them the company the domain name. However they are not listed as an investor on mint.com’s website.

DomainTools whois history shows that the domain was owned by “Mint Investment Management Co.” in New York until April 19th, 2007. Aside from the floor (12th vs. 15th) this address also matches the current whois of HiteCapital.com, where the owner, admin and tech contact, Erik Jacobsen, also is using a @mint.com email address. Mint Investment Management Co. was founded by Larry Hite who also is an active investor and managing director at Hite Capital Management LLC

Tickets for Domain Convergence, which touts itself as Canada’s premier yearly meeting of domain name owners, developers, investors and entrepreneurs, will go up by $100 tomorrow. In order to register for the early bird price of $649 Canadian, participants will have to register tonight.

The conference includes speaker such as the Castello Brothers, who will keynote on “The Future of Domaining – Building Your Brand” and Christian Heilmann, a Developer Evangelist from Yahoo! who will talk about development without reinventing the wheel.

Disclaimer: Frank Michlick is editor at DNN and chairman of the DomainConvergence conference.

Godaddy has introduced a new product that enhances their “Cash Parking” domain parking service and gives domainers one more domain development option. The “Quick Content” service provides customers using “Cash Parking” with content to further develop out their domain names. The service is a $49.99 annual fee.

Providing content and monetization services for domain owners now puts Godaddy in to a similar realm that other “development” companies such as WhyPark and DevHub. (more…)

Rick Latona has announced the opening of aeiou.com, an alternative to traditional domain parking.

The site allows domainers to quickly turn their parked domains into optimized landing pages for a small fee. The “Rapid Site Development mini site” costs $250 and provides buyers with a design, five pages of content, and all the marketing they need to improve search engine positioning and increase revenue. (more…)

In an effort to collect more tax revenue, the state of New York has passed a law claiming E-commerce companies using affiliate marketers who reside in the State actually have a presence in the State and thus are subject to New York sales taxes. E-commerce companies are taking notice and have started sending termination notices to their affiliates. [via Domain Name Wire]

Careers.org has teamed up with Domain Strategies, a leader in domain development, in an effort to create the ultimate career development resource center.

“When I registered the domain and founded Careers.org in 1995, it was my hope that one day the site would be recognized as among the leading career information web sites in the world,” explained Marc D. Snyder. “Having the chance to work with Rob and Scott and the Domain Strategies team is making that dream a reality.” (more…)

BP Holding Group announced today the launch of another development project on one of their premium domain names, PRICES.COM. The company has partnered with Shopping.com, an Ebay company to create a comparison shopping engine on the domain name.

Company CEO Michael Bahlitzanakis informed Domain Name News about the release and their efforts to build more sites. “As part of our continuous effort to build high-end sites, BPHG Media and it’s design arm, BPHG WebOart have built the ultimate price comparison shopping engine. A partnership forged between Parent company BPHG Media and Shopping.com, a subsidiary of eBay. This was a project which was long overdue for us in the market place. Prices.com is a one-stop shop for online shopping.”

The site revenue is still based on a pay-per-click model but it provides an enhanced experience to a typical parking page pay-per-click model. “We help shoppers make quick, easy and informed shopping decisions by presenting them with a comprehensive array of products from their favorite brands, reinforced by extensive product reviews and ratings from across the Web.” Bahlitzanakis plans to roll out an affiliate program targeted at domainers and to eventually incorporate a way for merchants to directly advertise on the site.  The company had previously launched Weblog.com in August of 2007 and has hinted at plans for another major site release on one of their other premium domain names in the coming months.

The latest issue of Canada’s Financial Post Magazine focuses on the quick rise and Fall of Guelph-based Geosign, a company that raised a $160 Million USD investment from American Capital for a minority stake in the company and shortly thereafter ran into difficulties with their main business mode.

We’ll have more on this story later today.

[via Financial Post]