As just announced in blog post, LeadRefs has just released their latest version of their lead generation tool. The new version of the tool now mashes up the data of the list of dropping and expired domains with the amount of leads available to sell the domains. It also has a paid membership now – the Search Package for only $24.99 or the Expired Package for $49.99 a month, which includes the Pending Delete, NameJet exclusive, SnapNames exclusive and GoDaddy exclusive leads along with 100 daily lead generation searches. The free trial is now limited to three days. For those who don’t have the time to follow all of the leads, the service now also offers a brokerage service.

Elliot’s Blog had a number of helpful posts as to how best use this tool:

• How I Used LeadRefs.com
• Another Way to Use End User Lead Generation Website
• When NOT to Use LeadRefs.com
• LeadRefs.com Works

After CO Internet, the operator of the .CO registry recently announced that their renewal rate was about 66% at the end of July and “expect to see somewhere in the nature of 68-69% renewal rates for July once all late renewals are totaled“. The first drop catching providers have now added the ability to go after expiring .CO domain names, with NameJet being the latest company to add the ccTLD. NameJet is also featuring pre-release .CO names from their partner registrars, such as propertytaxes.co and 204.co.

[Updated] As far as we and our readers here at DNN know, .CO backorders are currently available via:

• Aftermarket.pl
• DomainMonster
• Dropcatcher.co
• Hexonet
• Name.com
• Namejet

Did we miss anyone? Let us know in the comments. Are you planning to backorder any?

More details on the .CO backorder/drop process can be found in this post on The Domains.

We recently received word that the deal announced in the post below never completed. The announcement has since been removed from the Epik blog.

[Ed. Updated March 17th, 2010]

Rob Monster announced on the Epik.com blog [Ed. Post Removed] today that expiring domain name service provider JustDropped.com has been purchased and will be incorported in to the Epik.com offerings. JustDropped claims to receive 400,000 monthly unique visitors and have 42,000  email subscribers.

Monster and JustDropped.com creator Dan Rubin plan to make improvements and updates to the site, expand the drop catching capabilities and further integrate services in to the existing services of Epik auctions.

Monster states on his blog that “I like drop-catching even more now that large numbers of worthwhile names are being dropped on a daily basis.”   With many registrars moving domains in to auctions before they actually drop, DNN has seen the quantity of good dropping domains take a huge dive.  There are still good domains dropping but this market seems to be one that is dwindling not growing.