The T.R.A.F.F.I.C Down Under Conference will be getting underway Tuesday, November 18th at 8am in Queensland, Australia.  That’s about 4pm EST Monday evening here in the U.S.  This conference will be held at the Sheraton Mirage Resort, one of Queensland’s most beautiful spa and beachside resorts.  Day one kicks off with Domain Strategy sessions featuring presentations by Dan Warner of Fabulous and Rick Latona, this will be followed by an Industry Development strategy session.  CEO of ICANN Paul Twomey will be the keynote speaker after lunch, the rest of the afternoon will be dedicated to Australian domains and the .AU extension.   Wednesday’s sessions include Acquiring Domains strategy, Web Development strategy with presentation by Ron James, Founder of Namepros.com.  After lunch sessions include Monetization Alternatives and Asset Sales sessions.  Of course there are dinner parties scheduled both days and a load of activities to choose from during the breaks including paintball, zorbing, surfing, and visiting a wildlife sanctuary.  As always it looks like it will be a very informative conference with top industry speakers and good strategy sessions.
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I just got an email from Bido.com saying they are still working on things and should be coming back soon. For those of you who do not know, Bido.com is an online auction house that auctions off one domain name per day.

The following is directly from the email I received today…
Just a quick message from the Bido team! It’s been some time since we last sent an update to the members. We’re still gearing up for our relaunch, we make progress with it each and every day. We recently put a server online that went a little haywire and sent out quite a few emails. If you were affected by the mishap, we sincerely apologize for the numerous emails that made it to your inbox. Please forgive us! On a parallel but unrelated note, Sahar made a post to his blog Conceptualist.com on the first of October, where he mentioned the following; “A quick Bido update, we are still testing the site, added new features, spent way too much on new hardware. We expect to bring Bido back in about 2-4 weeks”.

My only question is when are they coming back? Sahar said Bido was coming back in 2-4 weeks but that was on October first. I just emailed Bido and will let you know when I hear something.

I personally enjoy Bido.com and look forward to their comeback.

UPDATE: Jarred at Bido emailed me back saying they have no firm date but they are making progress every day.

This news is just over a month old but is new to me.  Talking to a few of my domainer friends this morning they hadn’t heard of this news either.

Shawn Hogan of Digital Point Solutions, Todd Dunning of Kessler’s Flying Circus and Brian Dunning of Thunderwood Holdings are being accused of defrauding eBay in a cookie stuffing scheme that made it appear the defendants should be paid commissions.  eBay claims the defendants created a software program that redirects a user’s computer to eBay’s website without the user knowingly clicking on an eBay link.  Once the cookie is stuffed on the user’s computer any future purchases would award the defendants an affiliate commission.

To read the full story visit CourtHouseNews.com and click here to view a copy of the law suit.

On a personal note I will rarely be using Digital Point Forums.  The only use for me is access to some good designers at very reasonable prices.

Bankrate, Inc. has purchased Bankaholic.com for $12.4 million with up to an additional $2.5 million earn-out payment available if the blog reaches certain performance points in the next 12 months.

The seller, John Wu has been blogging about the banking industry on Bankaholic.com since July of 2006.  He started the blog at only 20 years old, he is now about to turn 23 in November.  This is one heck of a birthday present.

Here is the link to an interview with John on WebProNews.com.

From what I read in the interview John Wu will stay on with Bankrate to help with the blog.  I’m thinking he wants to make sure to get that extra incentive of $2.5 million.

With everything that is going on with the banking industry I personally think this is a great purchase by Bankrate.  Bankaholic.com has tons of banking traffic and has become a very trusted site for information and advice.

Hmmm just a hunch but I am thinking that domainers are going to see what else they can register with “aholic” at the end of it.

SmashFactory.com, Bidjit.com and Escrow.com are teaming up to hold a 3 day online domain name auction in which part of the proceeds will benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation. This auction is a wonderful way for domainers to be able to “give back“. There is a 15% auction fee, of that auction fee 10% will be directly submitted to the Make-A-Wish Foundation by Escrow.com. The remaining 5% will cover any auction and escrow fees.

If you wish to sell a domain name it must be submitted to SmashFactory.com before September 15th.

Our parent company DomainSubway.com will not only be submitting a few domain names for auction but will definitely be buying a few as well.