Acro.net – Technology Rants & Raves by Acroplex®

As an impulse domain buyer, when I saw the domain KissNote.com listed for sale on the Domaining.com timeline I clicked on it.

The domain was being offered on CAX.com with eCOP.com as the escrow – another pair of great services by French domain entrepreneur, Francois Carrillo.

In June I sold KissBank.com on Sedo for $4,500 and in my opinion KissNote.com is by far superior.

Because I used the “Buy Now” option on CAX.com I was also rewarded with 5% of the sale price, credited to my eCOP account.

The process of paying and receiving the domain has been automated very much since my first purchase of a domain at CAX.com several months ago. With the introduction of eCOP, there is now a comprehensive messaging system in place, with email notifications as well.

The only “complaint” would be that in the messaging system, the messages arrive in a condensed format and one needs to click on the image of an envelope to expand them. They appeared to be empty to me until I hovered over the envelope. I would suggest to Francois to add a “Click me” line of text for numskulls like me

I will be using CAX.com and eCOP.com again in the future. Great service, Francois!

I’ve seen this happen time and again: a seller, perhaps eager to promote their wares, tags the domains for sale as “premium”.

The sad truth is that very few domains would qualify as such. In plain speak, the term “premium domains” is being abused, left and right.

To be considered “premium”, a domain name must meet certain strict requirements. It doesn’t matter if it’s a dictionary word, it must be a common and non-obscure one.

Domains that are words which carry a lot of negativity fall outside the “premium” category as well. Excluding the factor of controversy, a buyer would rarely pay premium price for a domain that reeks of negativity.

Generally speaking, premium domains are .com, .net and .org domains of short, clear, brandable and positive character. They are words – preferably verbs or nouns – which cannot be misspelled; at least not by 8th graders.

Surprisingly, premium domains can contain a dash or be two-worders. An example of a premium domain is PremiumDomains.com – a domain marketplace by Domaining.com owner, French entrepreneur Francois Carrillo.

Visit PremiumDomains.com to view (and buy) some examples of premium domain names.

French domain investor Francois Carrillo shares his story about how he chose the domain name eCOP.com for the domain escrow service he provides, at his blog Domainware.com.

The image used at eCOP.com is very memorable, as much as the domain itself. Francois mentions that he went through a lengthy research for the owner of the image, in order to purchase rights for its use:

So I decided I absolutely wanted this photo for my site.
This way when people visit, they will not immediately forget the site.
The challenge was to find who was the owner and had the right on this artistic photo. After a deep search I found he was:
S. Demmitt, a photographer from Los Angeles. I contacted him to negotiate the rights to use it for my site.
The negotiation was friendly, and we quickly found a deal of mutual interest.

It took me two minutes to locate the eCOP image’s creator, using a little known online service called TinEye.com

One can upload an image or link to its URL and TinEye will provide other existing variants and matches.

The service also exists as a browser plugin (Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera, Chrome) with which you can right-click on an image on a web page and TinEye will search for it.