WEBZINE

Verisign has purchased WebLogs.com for US$2.3 million dollars. The website is rather basic in appearance but receives close to 2 million pings per day from various updated blog entries around the world. This represents a good value purchase by verisign in my opinion, the domain alone is certainly worth a considerable amount given the popularity of blogs. Full details of the transaction can be found at the verisign website.

AOL looks set to buy weblogsinc.com and their associated assets which include engadget.com a popular tech site. The rumoured price is US$25 million. Details of the story can be found here.

Interesting that Google has a market capitalization of about $91 billion as compared to Yahoo with a market capitalization of $48 billion. As indicated in this article, I believe each company has its own strengths, with google being the king of search, but Yahoo being a true community portal offering great services like Yahoo messenger, groups, and chat rooms. That is why according to alexa, Yahoo is still rated as number one.

Looks like the highest domain sale for the past week as reported by dnjournal is king.com which was sold for US$155,000. The domain was sold via sedo.com and the domain now redirects to midasplayer.com who is also listed as the new owner.

Yahoo and MSN could possibly link their Instant Messenger services, so that users could send messages to each other. This move could be serious competition for AOLwhich currently holds 56% of the market and also the new google talk service. More details can be found here.

A domain conference run by famous domainer Rick Schwartz and attorney Howard Neu will be held at the Delray Beach Marriot between October 18-22. Details for TRAFFIC 2005 can be found here.

Apple have unveiled their new Ipod TV which will be able to play tv shows and music videos. In a deal with ABC Television, you will be able to download episodes of hit tv shows such as “Lost” the day after they screen for US$1.99 They will be available next week with a 30gb version costing US$299 and a 60gb version costing US$399. Further details on the release can be found here.

AskJeeves.com may drop the jeeves butler image, and the askjeeves.com domain in favour of the shorter ask.com domain and image. This would be a very smart move in my personal opinion. Further details can be found here.

Looks like Yahoo is joining MSN and Google in expressing an interest in acquiring a stake in AOL. More details can be found here.

The XBox 360 is set for release in the US Market on 22 November 2005. An interesting article and interview with XBox executve J Allard can be found here.