After a brief hiatus, Jamie Zoch at Dotweekly.com has returned to blogging.  Jamie lost all of DotWeekly.com in a hosting move and decided to take some time off .

Jamie always had good content and interesting insights, so I’m glad to see him back at it.  Frankly, domain blogging seems to be a sea of copycatting daily domain lists, weekly sales reports, and who bought what.  Jamie always had a knack for coming up with new content.  It takes a lot of work to crank out that original content.

As reported by a number of sources, Melbourne IT (ASX:MLB) is selling it’s Digital Brand Management (DBS) to Corporation Services Company (CSC) for $152.5 million AUD. Melbourne IT had originally purchased the Digital Brand Management unit from VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) for $50MM USD in 2008 and merged it with their existing corporate clients.

ICM Registry, the registry operator for the .XXX top-level domain (TLD) exclusively used for online adult entertainment, announces today that IRIS SARL, based in Luxembourg, has secured an additional 25 Premium Domains in a deal worth $185,000.  This is the second significant order from IRIS who previously acquired $650,000 of premium names back in September 2012.

The new .XXX names include singles.xxx, sexvideos.xxx, adultchat.xxx and many more popular niche sectors of the adult market.

The Chairman of IRIS commented.” We have spent several months analyzing the key adult search terms and with our SEO experts and have chosen a further 25 Premium XXX names that are highly popular adult search terms. In addition, the recent changes by Google have seen a dramatic increase in traffic to our other .XXX sites and this is without doubt, a solid investment in the future”

Steve Winyard, ICM Registry Vice President, added, “IRIS have been diligent in their approach to launching their initial sites and have some leading technology and ideas which will make a huge impact when launched. We are once again delighted with this further investment and will work to support them and introduce them to the very best partners we know, in order to help them achieve their goals.

[via Press Release]

Sedo is brokering Internet Real Estate Group’s Chocolate.com and the web business. The site is a marketplace for fine chocolates that lists 250 vendors and their over 5,000 products.

“The Chocolate.com domain name and address is one of the most sought after plots of virtual real estate on the Internet,” said Andrew Miller, Managing Director of Chocolate.com. “It is the global equivalent of the best address on Madison Avenue, Rodeo Drive, or Champs-Élysées.”

“When a rare, internationally-appealing name like Chocolate.com is put up for sale, it has the power to shift an entire market,” said Kathy Nielsen, Director of Strategic Alliances at Sedo. “With record-breaking domain sales under our belt and a strong network of potential buyers, we’re optimistic that Chocolate.com will be a landmark sale and are excited to help make it happen.”

The name and website has been listed before for $6MM USD and then lowered to $4.95MM USD. Sedo has not published an asking price and the domain has yet to actually be listed in the marketplace.

[via Press Release]

Disclaimer: DNN’s co-founder and managing editor, Frank Michlick, consults SedoMLS through his company DomainCocoon.

You a little less than 7 hours of the time of this post to register for next year’s Webfest Global in Santa Monica (formerly known as DOMAINfest Global) for $1,095. The rate will increase by $200 as of tomorrow. Webfest Global will be organized by Oversee.net’s DomainSponsor and will be held atFebruary 5-7, 2013 at the Fairmont Santa Monica.

The even features a party at Samuel Oschin Space Shuttle Endeavour Pavilion on February 6^th. Webfest Global conference attendees will enjoy the rare opportunity of having dinner and cocktails directly under this amazing vehicle.  Former NASA Astronaut Garrett Reisman will make a special appearance to share stories, answer questions and show souvenirs from past missions.

Another great night is planned at The Magic Castle where DomainSponsor has reserved the entire nightclub for its farewell dinner party.  Built in 1908, the Magic Castle is an historic Victorian manor that was a showplace for some of the world’s greatest magicians.  Since the Magic Castle is a private club, this is a rare chance to gain entrance and witness magical performances up close and personal.

Domain Marketplace Sedo launched a new version of their German homepage today. According to an email sent at launch the focus of the redesign was the domain buyer:

• Easy access to domain search and search results
• The focus on buyers means that the homepage tries to answer the most frequently asked questions from buyers.
• The display of Showcase, Top domains and Domain sales has been updated.

[via Consultdomain (German)]

Disclaimer: DNN’s co-founder and managing editor, Frank Michlick, consults Sedo through his company DomainCocoon.

Eleanor Bradley, former Director of Operations for Nominet has been appointed to the role of Chief Operating Office (COO) for the UK registry. She also joined the Nominet board.

[via Nominet News]

Since many domain investors keep lists of domains ready to purchase when there are specials available, we figured we’d let you know about a current special that one of the early registrars, AIT Domains, is running for a limited time. You can register or transfer any COM, NET, ORG, INFO, BIZ or US domains for $2.99 including private registration and ICANN fee. No coupon code is needed.The price is only valid for the first year of domain registration and a limit of five domains per customer applies. Find out more about the special on their site.

The applicant who recently launched their preregistration and information site about .AUTO, also launched a site for their application for .FOOD. There are two other applicants for the same TLD.

And in order to avoid having to report the trickle of the other releases, here are some of the other sites for this applicant’s TLDs, which are not yet fully launched as the company informs us, since the content is not complete yet. The active sites have “over a million pages worth of content” a company spokesperson told DNN.

• sucksdomainia.com
• corpdomainia.com
• sportdomainia.com
• citydomainia.com
• techdomainia.com

Their main site at Domainia.com also allow pre-registrations for most of the TLDs applications.

See the press release after the jump.
(more…)

Earlier today Domain Guardians released a list of big brands that are using Premium Domain names on their website. The Domain Guardians team writes about the list on Facebook:

Together with a number of industry peers, we have compiled a list of major companies that have acquired and own premium domain names. [...]

Thanks to all for your contributions and support!