Domain names help Verisign beat analyst forecasts

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 19:30:03 +0200

COM and NET registry Verisign has just reported its results for the second quarter of the year. Analyst expectations were for revenue figures somewhere around $166.5 million. Helped by its naming operations, Verisign beat those forecasts at $168.7 million.

The company ended its second quarter (from April to June 30th) with a profit of $35.2 million, up from $34.9 million for the same quarter a year ago.

The bulk of Verisign's business is now centered around domain names, in particular its management of the COM and NET namespaces. The company claims 101.5 million active domain names in those two suffixes at the end of Q2, a 9% increase year-over-year.

In May, Verisign inked a deal with Symantec to sell its authentication business for about $1.28 billion in cash. A purchase which should complete 3 months after the sale date of May 19.

Sex.com for sale (yet again)

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 13:01:18 +0200

So sex.com is once again making headlines. Sedo has just announced that it has been retained by Escom LLC, the owner of the domain, to handle its sale through its second-hand domain sales platform.

The name will be sold along with two related trademark registrations, making this a pretty complete package for any interest buyer.

There's little doubt the name will sell, but at what price? Just how valuable is it on today's Internet? Enough to see Escom cover some (if not all) of the $14 million loan it took out to buy the domain in 2006 and has since been unable to repay?

Stephane Van Gelder - Domain market

Domain names help Verisign beat analyst forecasts

Sex.com for sale (yet again)