I want to share a press release I saw today that appears to show a great decision made by a portfolio platform website. According to the press release, “4ormat, an online portfolio platform used by tens thousands of creatives in over 125 countries worldwide, announced today that it will now be known as Format (format.com) following the closing of a three year long acquisition of the much sought after domain name.
When I initially saw the title of the press release, I was hopeful that the company was changing its branding to make it more intuitive. Indeed, that is what happened. 4ormat was probably created to sound like “format,” but when you actually annunciate it, the brand sounds like forormat (in my opinion). With this rebranding, the company seems to have abandoned the “4ormat” branding altogether, and the website now shows that he company is called Format.
I did some research, and I could not find a public sale price for the Format.com domain name. Judging by the verbage used in the press release, my guess was that the company paid for the Format.com domain name in installments, although that is just a guess. A screenshot from October 2013 shows that the company had been using this domain name since at least then, although the former 4ormat branding was present. This seems like it was an expensive acquisition, and I would assume the company will be very happy with this rebranding.
Congratulations to the company for getting this exceptional domain name and smartly rebranding.
Smart move indeed. One of those situations where it is hard to imagine it would be anything but a major win for the company, no matter how high a price they paid for the domain.
4mat is great, 4ormat, not so much.
i mock their audacity. domain names are passe. funny hats are the way to get your internet site noticed.
Rejected runners up:
4mat
form4t
ph0rm4t
The Takeaway that nobody is talking about is:
If you are serious about your BRAND… don’t build your website in anything other than a DOT COM (And selected Country Codes), proven over and over.
Pay NOW or Pay dearly later….
In the meantime the New gTLD irrational/Bias reporting/interest slowly but surely… DYING.
Hundreds and hundreds coming this way…
Elliot, I can hardly believe you caved in and are $howing that annoying AD/Skin, seriously.
Taxi! Taxiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!
I am not going to turn down a significant revenue opportunity on my blog that helps others make money… unless you want me to start charging (big, big $$$) for subscriptions to overcome the loss of advertising revenue.
The irony with a complaint like this is that people would be applauding if I shared a way for them to make additional revenue with very limited downside. IE: Consider all new revenue opportunities with limited or no downside!
Elliot,
Thanks for the reply “The significant revenue” yet to be seen, perhpas you need to read what Thedomains.com had to say about the “non-existent” conversion rate …
Don’t see it as a complaint but rather as an unsolicited “User feedback” (just in case you care about the site UX) after all you are entitled to my opinion 🙂
The main purpose of that skin/background is to trick the browser into clicking thru ( = desperation) …I have done it ‘accidentally’ probably a dozen times at another very popular aggregator just to quickly exit…
Your blog your rules…
I do not do affiliate deals for advertising on my blog. Advertisers pay a fixed rate at the beginning of their advertising term. I get paid no more and no less based on the success of the ad campaign.
All banners and advertisements on my blog (with the exceptions being a few in-text links from a long time ago and my fundraiser 125×125 banner) are paid placements.
Feedback is always appreciated.
thanks for the explanation…
I do appreciate the unbiased information you provide (nowadays scarce and hard to find) as a matter of fact my upcoming website will have a gorgeous logo in part due to your writings on the subject (your re-branding) …
Cheers
Robert.
Awesome – and thank you.