WW.com: Weight Watchers Rebrands as WW

September 24, 2018

In July of this year, I reported that the WW.com domain name appears to have sold. WW.com previously sold in 2014 for an undisclosed price. Although the Whois record was private and the domain name did not resolve in July, I speculated that Weight Watchers may have acquired the domain name. In addition to the fact that Weight Watchers’ initials are “WW,” the domain name transferred to corporate brand protection registrar SafeNames, where Weight Watchers registers its domain names.

Last week, I updated the article I wrote because WW.com started forwarding to WeightWatchers.com. Although the Whois record remains private, it could be assumed that Weight Watchers acquired the domain name because it wouldn’t make sense for anyone else to forward the domain name.

This morning, it was reported that Weight Watchers is rebranding as WW. According to an article published this morning on CNN Money, “Weight Watchers really wants to let you know that it’s not just a diet company — so much so that it’s changing its name to WW.” Smartly, the company bought the matching WW.com in advance of the rebranding.

Since noticing the changes to WW.com, I periodically

Apple Marketing New iPhones on a .Apple Domain Name

Elliot Silver

September 21, 2018

Apple is now using its .Apple domain name extension in a meaningful way.

According to an article written by Benjamin Mayo in 9to5Mac, Apple is using Experience.Apple as a marketing tool for its new line of iPhones, the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. From the article:

“Apple is using its own top-level domain in a major way for the first time. Visit http://experience.apple/iphone/ on a mobile device to see the new microsite for iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max.”

A Google search for “site:.Apple” shows just two other .Apple domain names indexed: Newsroom.Apple and Nic.Apple. The newsroom url forwards to a page within Apple.com, and it is primarily used as a link sharing url. The Nic url also forwards to a page within Apple’s .com website that discusses the .Apple TLD policies.

Surprisingly, the company

Top .com Branded Companies on the 2018 Inc. 5000 List

Elliot Silver

August 16, 2018

The 2018 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing companies in the US was recently published. I noticed two domain industry companies that made this year’s list. The .Club Registry reported revenue growth of 419 percent and 2017 revenue of $7.2 million. Namecheap reported 78% revenue growth and 2017 revenue of $109.1 million. Kudos to these two companies.

While looking through the list, I saw quite a few companies that use their .com domain name in the branding. I thought I would highlight some of my favorite .com branded companies from the 2018 Inc. 5000 list:

Scientist.com
Calm.com
Lob.com
HealthCare.com
Reverb.com
Signs.com
RealEstateInvestor.com
Forever.com
Cabinets.com
AustinRealEstate.com
Jane.com
Confirmation.com
ClassicCars.com

There were quite a few companies (57 in total) that use .com in their branding.

Beyond .com branding, there were

Even.com and Even Financial Branding Confusion

August 7, 2018

Take a quick look at Even.com and then take a quick look at EvenFinancial.com. Both businesses have blue logos and both companies look like they are in the financial services sector. Making it even (pun intended) more confusing is that both logos simply say “Even.”

Both companies are well funded. According to Crunchbase, Even.com has raised $52 million in funding. Also according to Crunchbase, Even Financial has raised $27.9 million in funding.

Here are excerpts from Crunchbase about these two companies – see if you can tell which one is which:

“an NYC based fintech company focused on evolving how financial institutions connect with consumers and provide them the best product recommendations at the right moment, facilitating an on-demand and personalized customer acquisition experience across the entire financial services ecosystem.”

“a technology company building a new type of financial institution: one that automatically manages your money for you. “

The first one was from the Even Financial profile and the second one was from the Even.com profile.

When I did a Google search

Bob’s Discount Furniture Upgrades to Bobs.com

Elliot Silver

August 2, 2018

Bob’s Discount Furniture is a home furniture chain with stores throughout the United States. The company started in New England, and it has a pretty big presence in the northeast US. Smartly, Bob’s (as it is more commonly known around here), appears to have upgraded to Bobs.com, which is currently forwarding to MyBobs.com. I would not be surprised to see the company opt to move its website to Bobs.com in the future though.

For quite some time, Bobs.com had been owned by a band called The Bobs. A recent screenshot on Screenshots.com shows a notice stating that the band is no longer touring or doing live shows. I made an offer to buy the domain name in October of 2017, and I was told they had recently declined a better offer at the recommendation of a domain broker. Out of respect for the former domain name and the privacy of our conversation, I will not reveal the offer they told me they declined.

I recently checked back in on the domain name and noticed it was forwarding

Duck.com Has 6 Figure Offers

Elliot Silver

July 24, 2018

The majority of participants in yesterday’s poll about the value of Duck.com believe the domain name is worth more than half a million USD. This is not a surprise to me because of the utility of the Duck.com domain name along with the companies that could use Duck.com as an upgrade. In addition, Google owns Duck.com, so it obviously would take a major offer to persuade the company to sell its domain name.

I had a conversation with someone on Twitter who pegged the value at $10,000 – $20,000. I responded that I would pay more than $50,000 for Duck.com as an investment. In my view, animal domain names are quite popular right now, and I am sure I wouldn’t lose money in the $50,000+ range.

In response to throwing out my offer, two other domain investors also made offers via Twitter. Finlead, which owns and has owned some awesome domain names, offered $100,000 to buy Duck.com. George Kirikos, whose company also owns some fantastic domain names like 511.com, Math.com, and School.com, offered $200,000 to buy Duck.com.

Clearly, these Twitter-made offers are

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Brand Marketing

WW.com: Weight Watchers Rebrands as WW

Apple Marketing New iPhones on a .Apple Domain Name

Top .com Branded Companies on the 2018 Inc. 5000 List

Even.com and Even Financial Branding Confusion

Bob’s Discount Furniture Upgrades to Bobs.com

Duck.com Has 6 Figure Offers

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