Brand Marketing

Arizona Daily Star Now Found at Tucson.com

If you visit the  Arizona Daily Star newspaper website, you’ll notice that the url has changed. Instead of using AZstarnet.com for its url, the newspaper can now be found on the Tucson.com domain name. All articles that once appeared on AZstarnet.com have been migrated and now forward to Tucson.com urls.

Historical Whois records show that the newspaper company has owned this domain name since at least 2000 (this is the earliest archived record). The domain name had reportedly previously been used as more of an events-related website prior to the change. The company plans to introduce a paywall at some point in the near future.

I am not all that familiar with the Arizona Daily Star, but this transition is

Mark Cuban’s Cyber Dust App Makes Texting More Private

cyberdust-logoIf you are one of over 2 million followers of Mark Cuban on Twitter, you are most likely aware of the Cyber Dust app his company recently launched.  Billed as a safe and private alternative to texting by offering a disappearing message service, Cyber Dust “leaves no trace of the messages, and they are not stored anywhere,” according to an article about the app published on Business Insider in April.

Being able to securely send text messages and pictures without fear that they will unknowingly be used against a  person in the future is a big draw, as is knowing that the company isn’t storing the messages. Despite the fact that it isn’t first to market, I think  Cyber Dust has a chance to thrive, especially with the support (financial and marketing) of Cuban.

I downloaded the app and signed up to check it out, and found that it is simple to get started. From my standpoint, one of the coolest aspects of the app is  

Peace Corps Domain Name Expires

PeaceCorps.comIt looks like the Peace Corps has accidentally allowed one of its important domain names to expire. Although the Peace Corps uses PeaceCorps.gov for its website (and most likely it’s email addresses as well), the PeaceCorps.com domain name expired within the last week and it is pending renewal.

If a visitor goes to PeaceCorps.com right now, a Network Solutions landing page will appear, and there is a message in the top right corner stating, “peacecorps.com expired on 01/06/2014 and is pending renewal or deletion.” The organization should be able to renew the domain name to reactivate it as it was before.

Should the domain name not be renewed in the next few weeks, it will most likely be

Bevii – Bad Execution at UNC

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BeviiI read an interesting story today about a guerrilla marketing campaign that went wrong. According to The Daily Tar Heel, a UNC student attempted to promote his new social media website, Bevii, and he “emailed approximately 17,000 students Tuesday under the pretense of an Alert Carolina message.” He reportedly had hand registered the AlertCarolina.com domain name to send the email.

Obviously this was problematic, but for more reasons than you might think. The student presumably made many people nervous when they received the email because it does look like a warning about a campus shooting. According to the article, the Bevii website is now

Company Rebrands as Revenue.com

Revenue.comYesterday afternoon, a press release published in the Wall Street Journal announced that a company called VIRURL, Inc. has smartly rebranded itself as Revenue.com. In the video I embedded below, company CO-Founder and CEO Francisco Diaz-Mitoma explains what the company does. The video hasn’t been updated to reflect the name change, and you can hear and see how the original brand name might be confusing to some.

According to the press release, this advertising company’s mission is “giving publishers the needed tools to earn more ad revenue,” and Revenue.com would help them get that message out there. Perhaps it’s just me, but a name like Revenue.com sounds like it would be a financial or accounting companny rather than an advertising company. Based on its mission, it will probably be a good fit.

The Revenue.com domain name has been owned by

Merlin Kauffman Launches Soothe

SootheIt’s great seeing some of the entrepreneurial people in the domain space starting new ventures. I want to share news about a new venture that was recently started by Merlin Kauffman. Soothe is “an online and mobile app that connects people who want to book same-day in-home massages with the best hand-picked massage therapists.” Wisely, Soothe can be found at Soothe.com.

Merlin privately  acquired  the Soothe.com domain name in May of this year, and the business was launched soon thereafter. The purchase price for the domain name was not released, but I am sure it was expensive.

According to its website, “Soothe is now the largest massage provider in Los Angeles, and has plans to be in every major city in the USA within 24 months.” That is some incredible growth to go from a startup without revenue to its current positioning. In addition to its massage service offerings, the company also has a line of massage products under the Soothe brand. One of the nice things about the Soothe name is that it is a meaningful descriptive term, and it’s also a great brand.

Congratulations to Merlin on his company’s rapid growth, and I wish him all the best as he builds Soothe. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Merlin making more news soon.

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