Domain Name Wire Podcast

The numbers don't lie: people are hand registering more domains now than ever before. In the third quarter, people registered 13.1 million new .com and .net domains. That was a record for Verisign, beating the previous record set just three months earlier. Sure, some were expired domain backorders, but many weren't.  Earlier this year, domain investor Josh Reason came on the show to talk about his...

For Barbara Povše and her team at Slovenia's .si domain registry, things have always moved at a deliberate pace. That changed last month when Donald Trump triggered a frenzy of domain registrations. During a speech to the United Nations, Trump announced that his administration would start referring to artificial intelligence as "super intelligence." He followed up with an executive order. This led...

For three decades, Rick Schwartz has been building a portfolio of super-valuable domain names, and he sells them from time to time at eye-watering prices. This year, something changed. Rick decided to put domains like property.com, tryouts.com, and stud.com into the hands of builders. He organized the Beanstalk Challenge , giving people the opportunity to use his domains as the basis for new busin...

AI changes everything, and that includes domain names and the web presence business.  As Wall Street tries to figure out the winners and losers, many incumbent large tech companies, including GoDaddy, have seen their share prices fall. This week, I chat with Vinod Suresh, VP of Product Management at GoDaddy. Vinod explains how AI is impacting businesses through democratization, compression, and de...

Many top level domains applied for this year have a connection to web3: think .crypto and .nft. But for many years, web3 companies have offered alt-root "domains" matching these top level domains on blockchain-based systems. What happens if one of those alt-root systems wants to integrate with the matching real top level domain? And how can TLDs add web3 functionality within ICANN's rules? That's...

Verisign is introducing .web this year, but the idea for the domain dates back more than three decades. Today's guest was there at the beginning.   Chris Ambler, Director of Domains for Registered Agents, Inc., discusses the long and winding history of .web and his role in proposing the domain years ago.    Nah, he's not bitter at all about not getting the domain.   Even though Chris isn't involve...

The board of auDA, the group that oversees the .au namespace, just voted to make a sweeping change to registration rules for .com.au domains. It could mean a million or more domains lose their eligibility in a namespace of 3.3 million. On today's show, Erhan Karabardak , a former auDA board member and IP attorney, joins me. He was one of the seven people on the panel that came up with the recommen...

Two-thirds of the year is in the books, and what a year it has been. Technology is changing quickly, and this is impacting the domain business.   On today's show, I discuss my domain results so far this year and dig into some of the changes I'm making to my investing. I also discuss how I'm using the GoDaddy Auctions API to make bidding easier.  Also: .Net prices, GoValue, Radix, Unstoppable [Doma...

.AI is hot, but what do business owners think about them? On this show, I speak with two business owners who switched their businesses to .ai domains. One started with a .so and quickly realized the extension's limitations. The other started on a .com domain that ended up pigeonholing this business. First, I chat with Felix Ingla of Pedra . He launched his business on a .so domain and immediately...

The deadline to apply for a top level domain with ICANN was last Wednesday, and one company went big. Really big.   Link Freedom Group (LFG), a company associated with the team behind .link, followed through on its plans to apply for around 200 strings .    On today's show, LFG CEO Vaughn Liley talks about the thought process the company went through when selecting domains, the impact of the recen...

Last year NamesCon moved to Miami for its first conference under new ownership. There were a lot of cool changes to the conference…as well as some things that could be improved.   Today, I'm joined by Anthony Pomball, managing director of NamesCon and CloudFest Americas, and Christian Dawson, Executive Director of i2Coalition .    Anthony discusses changes coming to this year's NamesCon, and many...

Is the DNS the perfect backbone for a future full of agents? I previously talked to GoDaddy about Agent Name Service and Identity Digital about DNSid .  Former Tucows CEO Elliot Noss has another vision: Groundmark . On today's show, Elliot talks about the idea behind Groundmark and how decades of experience in the domain business have influenced his vision of the agentic future. Also: Wall Street...

Half of 2026 is in the books, so I invited DNJournal publisher Ron Jackson on the show this week to talk about the top sales so far. We discuss the top 15 sales and how the domains are being used, and Ron provides some perspective on this year versus last year.  Track the biggest domain sales on DNJournal's YTD chart . Also: .Web, Verisign earnings, US domain seizure, .io prices, new domain owners...

The clock is ticking down if you want to apply for a top level domain name. Applications close on August 12.  On today's show, I talk with someone who has launched a top level domain name to better understand the business. Colin Campbell founded and launched .Club, which he later sold to GoDaddy. Today, he discusses the cold, hard reality of running a top level domain name. We talk about how long...

Most people who have a full-time job and invest in domains count on their full-time job for their income. Today's guest is different: domain investing makes much more than his regular job. So why keep the regular job? Well, it's not so regular, and it's quite rewarding. Stu Maloff has been teaching for over 30 years. On today's show, he discusses how he got into domains, building his portfolio to...

We all have our war stories about trying to acquire domains from stubborn sellers. But Rob Schutz of Snagged has a story that might just top them all. Rob helped a company acquire a name from a domain seller who was, let's just call him, a bit erratic. To get the deal done, Rob had to deliver the money in gold coins, in person, at a neutral location. He even hired an off-duty police officer to be...

On this week's show, Nadya Frost of domain and hosting analytics company ShareShift shares interesting data about the .AI namespace , as well as other trends related to artificial intelligence. We discuss how AI is changing the technologies people use for building websites and how sites are optimizing for large language models. ShareShift focuses on the European market, so we also explore how that...

Last week, Internet Commerce Association announced changes to its board. Longtime board member Nat Cohen stepped up to the role of president, and Ryan McKegney is the new vice president. On today's show, both Nat and Ryan will join me, along with executive director Kamila Sekiewicz. We discuss the recent ICA meetup in New York and what the organization is working on this year. Also: Anti-trust cla...

Anand Vora, who oversees Namecheap's and Spaceship's domain businesses, joins me on the show this week.   We discuss Anand's history in the domain business, what it's like to move from the registry side to the registrar side, and what's in store for both Namecheap and Spaceship.   Also: Web3 integration technical group, NIXI nixes domain investors   Sponsor: Namecheap .AI auctions  

Human rights organization Article19 recently released a report titled Damming a river to catch a fish , examining how governments and other entities are increasingly turning to the DNS layer to censor content.   On today's show, Michaela Nakayama Shapiro of Article19 explains what the organization found and what can be done about it, including recommendations for registries, registrars, ICANN, and...

Nordic Domain Days took place in Stockholm, Sweden, last week. It was my first time attending the event, and the trip was very worthwhile. Not only was the content good, but the networking was solid as well, with many people I had never met. On today's show, you'll hear from five people who were at the conference, including a conversation with the event's founder, LG Forsberg. Also: Domain renewal...

Very few domain name investors ever reach the point where they do it full-time. It's even rarer when they primarily invest in non-.com domains. One investor who went full-time is Nikul Sanghvi. He was a part-time investor when the pandemic hit, and as his consulting work dried up, he took the plunge. On today's show, Nikul talks about some of the pros and cons of investing in domains full-time. We...

Artificial intelligence is having a huge impact on the domain name industry. One area it could help grow the business is if agents use the DNS for identity. Today, Identity Digital CEO Akram Atallah discusses the company's new DNSid , which it bills as "birth certificates for agents." We discuss the need for a standard and how Identity Digital's initiative differs from the one GoDaddy is building....

Top level domain company ShortDot didn't apply for any top level domains in the 2012 round, but it later acquired TLDs and has grown its portfolio to millions of second level registrations. On today's show, ShortDot CEO Lars Jensen explains why ShortDot was founded and how it has grown its registrations. He also talks about his expectations for the next round, in which ShortDot will likely be amon...

Phil Davis has named 750 companies and brands, such as PODS, since he started his naming agency, Tungsten Branding . The process led him to get into domain investing.   Grab a pencil and paper as Phil explains how he built his portfolio to 22,000 domains, almost solely with hand registrations.   He explains how the processes of naming companies and investing in domains are distinct. Phil also disc...