The new weekly domain sales report is out at DNJournal.com.The report is headlined by the second biggest domain sale reported so far this year, one that weighed in at over $380,000.Our new all extension Top 20 Chart includes 14 .coms, four country code domains and a pair of .nets.

Final preparations are underway for the Domainer Mardi Gras Conference that opens in New Orleans Thursday at 5pm (U.S. Central Time). Aftermarket.com, who will stage a live domain auction at the show Saturday afternoon, just posted their catalog for the event – one that reflects a strategy to emphasize quality over quantity.

New research shows there is a great opportunity for domain owners to profit from a huge untapped pool of small business end users. Only 44% of the small businesses surveyed have websites. The rest are completely missing the 63% of consumers who check the web first when looking for local products & services.

The February Cover Story is out at DN Journal. It is the story of Ron Sheridan, the highly regarded Business Development Director at DomainSponsor who just left that position. As Frank Schilling told us, “Ron’s fingerprints are on every facet of the modern domain industry.” Orphaned at 7, here is how Sheridan soared to the top in our industry.

Bido.com is set to make a comeback next week. The one-name-a-day auction platform debuted early last year but went dark due to repeated technical snafus. The company plans to load upcoming auctions into their system Monday (Feb. 16) with the first auction to begin Thursday (Feb.19).

Though Yahoo spurned Microsoft’s offer to buy the company last year (and subsequent overtures to buy just Yahoo’s search business) it is starting to look like Microsoft intends to get Yahoo’s search expertise one employee at a time if necessary. For the third time in the last 90 days Microsoft has lured a top executive away from Yahoo.

Massive wildfires are raging through Australia’s Victoria state destroying lives and property. Victoria is home to many well-known domainers. One of them, personal friend Michael Gilmour, is appealing for help with an effort to speed relief to people who have lost everything.

The new weekly domain sales report is out at DNJournal.com. A pair of strong country code domains headed the .coms off at the pass to lead this week’s all extension Top 20 domain chart. RT.TV sits at the pinnacle after a strong $62,500 sale. The .com response began with a $35,000 sale of a three-letter .domain

That is the improbable leap that Apple Computer Co-Founder Steve Wozniak is about to make. Fresh off his appearance as the keynote speaker at the big domain conference January 28th, Wozniak is joining the cast for ABC-TV’s next season of their hit ball room dancing show that debuts March 9th.