Chicago (IL) - Ever wonder what the oldest registered .com domain is on the Internet? After all, they haven't always existed. In fact, it was just 24 years ago this month that the oldest domain was registered. It was www.symbolics.com, owned by the Symbolics, Inc. company who, back in the day, was a leading software development firm with software projects designed back in the 1980s which appear very much like modern software designs seen today. For example, they had developed a fully object-oriented operating system called Genera, which today still exists as Open Genera, for Alpha CPUs. Their domain was registered on March 15, 1985 -- when the Internet was brand new.

Read the whole "TG Daily" article HERE.

Toy retailer ToysRUs has paid $5.1m (£3.6m) for the Toys.com domain name.

The amount has surprised onlookers and hints at a deeper commitment to online retailing for the toy giant.

It is believed to be the biggest payout for a domain this year but has some way to go to beat the $14m paid for sex.com in 2007 or the $9.5m paid for porn.com.UK domain name seller Sedo said it had seen prices halved for .co.uk domain names since the economic downturn started to take hold.

Brand kudos
But, said Sedo's business development manager Nora Nanayakkara, more small- to medium-sized businesses are buying domains.
"Sales have tripled as businesses see the value in having a presence online," she said.
"In the case of ToysRUs it could be that they are thinking of rebranding or increasing its online presence," she said.
"Toys.com is going to put them in the top search ranking and is likely to give them kudos in terms of brand recognition," she added.

In the US, domain name prices have remained stable, according to Ron Jackson, editor of the Domain Name Journal. He said that the average .com domain was selling for $2,688 (£1,904) in the fourth quarter of 2008 compared to $2,788 (£1,976) for the same period in 2007.

Selling online
For many online, it is a way to buck the downturn, he thinks.
"The severe recession is forcing businesses to look for the most cost effective, efficient way they can possibly operate and for many that means establishing or reinforcing a web presence," he said.
"This is especially true of brick and mortar retailers. There is much less overhead involved in selling toys for example online than through hundreds of cash-draining big box retail stores."
The Toys.com auction, which took place last week, saw a series of bidders for the domain. But as the price hit $3m (£2.1m), only two were left - ToysRUs and National A-1 Advertising.
The domain had previously been up for auction and went to a company called Faculty Lounge for $1.25m (£886,000).

The Indian Premier League, which has emerged as a hot media property and redefined the concept of sports in India, is likely to continue its upbeat streak, despite the recessionary trends.
Industry experts at the FICCI Frames 2009, which saw a large gathering of media and entertainment industry players, feel that the forthcoming second edition of the T20 event will attract advertisers and media buyers at the same pace.
Echoing the industry’s sentiments, the annual FICCI-KPMG report on the industry said, “Gauging by industry reaction, IPL is expected to continue as a prime driver in the media and entertainment industry for the coming year.”

Read the whole "Business Line" article HERE.

CNN reports:

England's Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff have become the highest-priced players in the Indian Premier League after being bought for $1.55 million each.

Friday's auction saw the world's richest Twenty20 league's eight teams bidding to take on 17 players from a list of 42.

Batting star Pietersen and all-rounder Flintoff, both former England captains, easily exceeded their reserve prices of $1.35 million and $950,000 respectively.

Pietersen was picked up by the league's bottom side -- the Bangalore Royal Challengers -- while Flintoff is headed for the third-rated Chennai Super Kings.

Both will only receive half of their massive fees in their first year because of being available for only three of the six weeks of the tournament.

Pietersen, who with Flintoff is playing a Test match in Jamaica against West Indies, was stunned by the price he fetched.

"It's an unbelievable amount of money and I can't wait to get out there," he told Press Association.

The Challengers' owner, billionaire Vijay Mallya, told the IPL's official Web site that he had always been keen on Pietersen.

"He would be a superb addition to the team. We had a list of players before the auction and KP [Pietersen] topped that list. We needed to strengthen our batting and I was prepared to pay more for him.

"It is a worthwhile investment and ensures the balance that we wanted in our team," Mallya said.

Flintoff said he wanted to concentrate on the Test series before turning his mind to the IPL.

"I am very pleased. However, I am here playing a Test match, so my mind is full of that and the IPL is in six weeks' time.

"It's not been in the back of my mind on tour, I just regard it as a massive bonus."

A third former England captain, Paul Collingwood, sold for $275,000, just above his reserve price of $250,000.

England's Test stars have been given a three-week window to appear in the tournament which takes place from April 10 to May 29.

They did not take part in the inaugural competition last year because of a clash with the early summer Test series against New Zealand.

Players given an IPL contract are paid on a pro-rata basis.

South Africa's JP Duminy amd the Australian fast bowler Shaun Tait also attracted keen interest in the sale.

The Mumbai Indians picked Duminy up for $950,000 -- $650,000 more than his reserve price -- and Tait went to the Rajasthan Royals for $375,000.

The huge salaries underline the commercial success of the Indian Premier League which was launched to huge fanfare last year, but has raised fears among traditional cricket supporters that it could undermine the status of Test cricket.

The Economic Times reports:

The next IPL Twenty20 extravaganza may unfold at Lord's as well. The tournament, which had a smashing debut earlier this year, is expected to be split with five weeks of action in India and three weeks in UK where it is expected to draw in sub-continental diaspora as well as English fans. The IPL proposal has been discussed with the English board which has evinced keen interest in the possibility of staging a part of the competition that was won last time by Jaipur Royals.

The competition is scheduled for April-May and the player auction for the second season will be held in February next year.

The IPL governing body is expected to consider the proposal for two venues when it meets on January 3 and even though the schedule and revenue model need to be finalised, the scheme is expected to go through.

It's likely that the tournament will kick off in India and then move to the UK for three weeks before it returns to India for the final matches.

"IPL will become more of an international event and other cricket boards are also likely to be supportive. Indian interests will be safeguarded in the revenue model and the game will benefit overall," said well-placed sources.

What organisers have to look at is whether the scheduling clashes with major fixtures in England or India.

The eight-week IPL window is any way inked into India's cricket calender and any hitches are expected to be resolved with technical teams already carrying out a survey of facilities in England.

Given that IPL drew in top talent from across the cricketing world, adding an England leg will make the event even more high profile.

English cricketers missed out in the first edition of the game as their board held them to domestic commitments. With IPL's impressive revenues being shared and the event being played at home, the English board could reconsider its objections.

From the Guardian's '21st Century Sport': A year on:

Twenty20: Auctions, helicopters and India's big win

In September 2007, India's victory over Pakistan in the final of the first World Twenty20, played in Johannesburg, drew a worldwide TV audience of more than 400 million. India had caught the Twenty20 bug and this was the catalyst for the Indian Premier League, launched last spring. The IPL has changed world cricket for ever.

'Cricket is a religion in our country,' said Lalit Modi, who dreamed up the IPL with a senior executive from IMG, the sports marketing group. Modi sold the TV rights, for a league in which not a ball had been bowled, for $1.026bn. He lured India's richest men and Bollywood's A-list to the IPL player auction, one of the strangest events of the year. Franchise owners spent $35m in eight hours of bidding. The first tournament ended in June, but its aftershocks are still being felt as cricket governing bodies around the world race to create new properties to take to market. The second World Twenty20 is in England next June and the unloved ICC Champions Trophy will become another 20-over competition in the West Indies in 2010.

ESPN Star, the Asian pay-TV broadcaster, paid nearly $1bn for rights to the Twenty20 Champions League, a new competition for first-class sides rather than countries, though that has been postponed because of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Most of the money goes to India, Australia and South Africa, with England picking up scraps. The deal puts further pressure on English cricket. The Indians have the economic power – and they are using it – to change the cricket calendar.

England will almost certainly have to move or give up their May Test matches, releasing their best players to the IPL, and have pinned all their Twenty20 hopes on a new domestic competition (due in 2010) and their deal with the Texan billionaire, Sir Allen Stanford, to play T20 in Antigua. There was outrage when Stanford promoted that five-year deal by landing a helicopter at Lord's and showing off $20m in $50 bills in a Perspex box – an event that matched the IPL auction for novelty value. Money talks. The biggest winners are India and all the players who get IPL contracts. To many cricket followers the biggest loser is the game itself, with Test cricket under threat.

Plus • Half of England's players say they would retire from international cricket if it was the only way of clearing the way to play in the IPL. • The ECB talk of hosting 'foreign' Test matches at Lord's. Pakistan and Australia have both discussed the idea.• Pakistan move all home one-day games to Dubai for three years from 2009.

It was the late Estée Lauder who, in the midst of rough economic times, said: “When things are bad, if a woman has a little perfume and a new lipstick, she feels like a queen.” And it was by knowing a thing or two about how women felt that Estée Lauder became very rich. Grim though things are, it's encouraging to know that somewhere is buzzing and, you've guessed it, it's the perfume counters that are reporting booming business....

The world wide web has encouraged a new breed of what American Elle called “perfume fanatics, supersniffers who... seek out esoteric notes, celebrate superior dry downs, host sniffing parties and swap samples of their latest discoveries”.

Read the whole Times Online article HERE.

UPI reports:

Market researchers said online shopping perked up dramatically on Cyber Monday, the digital deal-making day that is the Internet's answer to Black Friday.

Web monitor Akamai Technologies said a record 6.7 million visitors per minute clicked on approximately 280 Internet retail sites by 3 p.m. Monday, up from last year's 4.6 million visitors per minute tally, the newspaper said.

"Things are better than expected," said David Fry, whose company operates online retail sites for major retail chains. Traffic was up 30 percent to 60 percent and revenue up 10 percent to 20 percent compared with a year ago, he said.

If you are not sure what 'Cyber Monday' is, click HERE.

Live Current CEO and Chairman, Geoffrey Hampson, the Company’s President and COO, Jonathan Ehrlich and Chief Corporate Development Officer, Mark Melville all invested in the round. 

Please see the news release HERE.

The Economic Times reports:

Anshu Jain, head of global markets at Deutsche Bank, has bought a minority stake in Mumbai Indians, the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket team owned by Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, ET has learnt.

London-based Mr Jain, a keen cricket enthusiast who is often seen at the Lord’s cricket ground enjoying matches, is said to have picked up the stake in his personal capacity. Reliance did not respond to an emailed query asking it to confirm the information, while Deutsche Bank does not comment on personal investments of its executives.

According to a person familiar with the matter, Mr Jain's investment in the Sachin Tendulkar-led Mumbai Indians was made "some time ago" and was for sheer love of the game. One estimate is that his stake could amount up to 15%.

The franchise for Mumbai Indians, which includes cricketing stars such as Harbhajan Singh, South Africa’s Shaun Pollock and Sri Lankan Sanath Jayasuriya, was won by Mr Ambani for $119.11 million as part of a high-stakes auction in which he outbid liquor baron Vijay Mallya. Mr Mallya later successfully bid for the Bangalore team called Royal Challengers.

Mr Jain, it is now hoped, may take a more active role as a minority investor, and use his contacts to rope in some English players for the Mumbai Indians, the person familiar with the matter said.

Several IPL teams are targeting marquee players such as Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff, but so far the English Cricket Board has been reluctant to allow England players to take part in IPL.

Mr Jain’s investment is an expression of his personal love for the game and not because the Mumbai Indians is in need of money, the person familiar with the matter said.

Check out the great selection of holiday gift deals by clicking the image below:

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The Perfume.com Gift Guide includes expert picks from fragrance guru Grant Osborne, founder and editor of Basenotes.net, a fragrance site that's full of great info about perfume and cologne.

The peak holiday shopping season for online retailers kicks off just after US Thanksgiving, on 'Black Friday' and especially 'Cyber Monday'.

BTW, If you have not checked out The Daily Spritz, the blog of Perfume.com lately, it is definitely worth a look.

Live Current will issue a press release about its third quarter 2008 results early Monday morning.

You can access the Q HERE.

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In the third quarter there were several key developments -- e.g. BCCI.tv launch, Karate.com development partnership.

Televisionpoint.com reports:

The Champions of the first Indian Premier League (IPL), Rajasthan Royals, runners-up Chennai Super Kings and multi starrer Deccan Chargers are seeking to raise money by diluting their stake in these entities as they gear up to make big bucks in the new season.

While some of these teams have already roped in investment bankers or financial and business advisory firms such as KPMG to work out valuations, financial experts and valuers differ widely in their estimates.

On their part, these teams are expecting valuations of $ 250 million, but experts like Sanjiv Agarwal of Ernst and Young say they won't be surprised if some of the multi-starrer teams command valuations two or three times that figure.

Agarwal was part of the E&Y team that had done the valuation for Team India some three years ago. Today, he puts Team India's valuation at $ 5 billion.

The first IPL season was a huge success and some franchises such as Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals even managed to break even or spin profits....

When contacted, KPMG executive director Rajesh Jain refused to put a valuation for any IPL team. But he said value estimates for a team would be done solely on the basis of cash flow. He said quite a number of investors, both domestic and foreign, were looking at acquiring stakes in IPL franchisees for strategic purposes.

The market buzz is that media firms, ADAG, Sahara Group, Future Group and financial entities such as ICICI Venture, Sequoia Capital and India Value Fund are exploring opportunities to join the IPL bandwagon. Names of some international players like Providence, Macquire Bank, DE Shaw, Deutsche Bank, Alcazar, Engelfield are also doing the rounds as possible investors in IPL franchisees.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

In the era of the 52-inch plasma television set, marketers at Sprint Nextel Corp. are banking on football fans to seek out a decidedly smaller viewing experience.

For the first time Thursday, a National Football League game -- the Cleveland Browns vs. the Denver Broncos -- will be broadcast on Sprint mobile phones as part of the wireless company's exclusive partnership with the league. That partnership deal is valued at about $500 million over five years.

Over the next seven weeks, Sprint will phone-cast the eight games that are televised solely on the NFL Network, the league's cable channel. For the past three seasons, the NFL has struggled to persuade major cable operators to include its channel in their basic programming packages.

With the NFL Network is available in only about 40% of American households, Sprint executives hope the NFL games can do for their company what the league's Sunday Ticket package has done for satellite-television provider DirecTV Group. Sunday Ticket, which is exclusive to DirecTV, allows dedicated fans to see every NFL game on Sunday afternoons, and has been crucial to DirectTV's growth.

"Live compelling content is a game changer in the mobile industry," said Steve Gaffney, Sprint's director of sports sponsorships.

For the NFL, the Sprint phone-casts are part of a series of experiments with digital media aimed at discerning how fans will consume football in the future. NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co., conducted similar experiments this summer, showing highlights and a handful of events from the Beijing Olympics on mobile phones.

"We know a lot of fans find themselves displaced, and they are using devices like mobile phones for more tasks," said Brian Rolapp, the NFL's senior vice president of digital media and media strategy. "With 60% of our revenues coming from media, we'd be foolish not to do something like this."

The planned phone-casts are part of Sprint's NFL Mobile Live package, which is available on most Sprint handsets. The package can be purchased for $15 a month, and is also included as part of Sprint's Everything plans that start at $69.99 per month.