.BIZ is not quite the basket case that some domainers make it out to be. I have seen many well used .BIZ domains while searching Google. Personally, I'd much rather use a good keyword .BIZ domain than some cute two or three word .COM or some 'pronouncable' 4-5 letter .COM all of which will likely require much more promotion than a good keyword domain will. Sure, we all want a .COM name but what comes before the '.' is probably more important than what comes after especially if you don't have a multi-mllion marketing budget to make DOFY.COM (or whatever) become the next ebay!
Last year I sold at least six .BIZ names in the $1,000-$2,250 range, eight to ten in the $500-$1,000 region, and, probably, another 25 in the $100-$500 range. I am currently selling off some very good .BIZ domains here on DNF cheaply currently but .BIZ names aren't worthless and I am keeping many, many of them. You won't 'roll a million' with .BIZ but few of us persuing the available drops of any extension today are going to do that with anything unless we already own it or have a cool mil or so to buy it.
On the other hand, I haven't a clue as to why the biggest registrar suddenly needs about $3.00 more than most registrars any of us here would use for .BIZ registrations or renewals. Did they loose their .BIZ registration franchise or did Bob Parsons just figure that this was novel way to pay for his Super Bowl ads or a particularly desirable celeb?? Or, does he figure that people will actually buy expired .BIZ names and that this increase will cause a nice avalanche of .BIZ names for his TDNAM site? Today a registrar may prefer that you let names expire rather than renew them given the profits they make on their expired domain sales and, yes, even .BIZ names do sell well at TDNAM.
I've just started the first 'transfer out' trickle of many of my 2,550 or so names at Go Daddy. It is impossible to ignore $2.00+ savings on .INFO and .NET at Moniker and $3.00 savings on .BIZ nearly everywhere. If anyone has true ICANN registrar (NOT reseller) recommendations, they would be appreciated by me and probably others here who own .BIZ names and who use Go Daddy.
