Fred Mercaldo is a longtime domain name investor, developer, and broker primarily known for working with geographic .com domain names. Fred has led development and sales efforts for numerous geographic domain names that have become brands. In fact, I first came to know Fred when he was operating Scottsdale.com.

Fred’s company is called Geocentric Media, but he is considering a rebrand because his business has expanded beyond geodomain names. As noted in a lengthy post on LinkedIn, Fred is considering rebranding his company’s name to Omni World Media. He asked for feedback about this potential rebrand.

I like Fred’s Geocentric brand name, but I see his point about it being most specific to geodomain names despite expanding beyond that. With that being said, it’s “geocentric” whereby geo is the central theme but not exclusively, so it still works as far as I am concerned. I almost feel like Omni World is too broad of a brand name. Maybe that’s good.

Have a look at Fred’s LinkedIn post, and if you have an opinion one way or another, feel free to share your insights here or there.

I can’t say I ever had the desire to take a vacation on a dude ranch, but Peter Askew’s development of DudeRanch.com made that an appealing thought. Over the years, Peter shared photos and stories about his development of the brand he built, and I found myself researching a dude ranch vacation with my family.

Nearly a month ago, Peter mentioned that he was considering the sale of the domain name and business. Yesterday, Peter followed-up indicating the business was sold for an undisclosed amount. The deal was closed via the Quiet Light brokerage:

The Super Bowl was played last night, and a great deal of attention was on the Super Bowl commercials. In the recent past, domain names played a more minor role in the commercials, but that was not the case this year. There were quite a few standout domain names that played a prominent role.

I counted five exceptional domain names that were featured in Super Bowl commercials this year. I posted the commercials with the domain names below. I also posted a poll on X to see which domain name people like best:

Three weeks ago, Samba.com sold for $143,000 in a NameJet expiry auction. Samba.com is an exceptional domain name, and there are many branded companies that would benefit from owning it. At $143k, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that an aggressive domain investor acquired the domain name to be a portfolio asset. That doesn’t appear to have happened.

Samba.com now redirects to Samba.tv, the primary domain name of Samba TV, an analytics company specializing in television audience insights. Backed by substantial venture funding, Samba TV’s technology is integrated into numerous smart TVs, allowing advertisers to deliver more relevant ads and personalize content recommendations based on viewing habits.