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University of Florida Domain Name Issue

Elliot Silver
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3

Sorry, Mike, I have to call the University of Florida out for this domain name / website / branding issue I saw during today’s football game against the University of South Carolina. During a break in the game, there was a UF sponsored commercial, and it directed visitors to a website to learn more about Gator Nation.

Instead of sending visitors to the University’s main website (either UFL.edu or UF.edu since both are owned by UF), and instead of sending them to the athletics department and booster website (GatorZone.com), the commercial directed people to GoGatorNation.com. Mind you it’s not the privately owned website at GatorNation.com, it’s GoGatorNation.com.

Unfortunately, the school doesn’t own Gators.com, which would be the ideal website. Incidentally, that domain name is currently parked with Frank Schilling’s Internet Traffic.

To make matters worse for University of Florida, not mentioning the football team’s loss today, but GoGatorNation.com isn’t even the main website. No, it’s actually a forwarder to a different landing page: TheUFAdventure.com. Even worse, all of this traffic that was sent to the website is being turned away. The site is still apparently under development. There’s not even an email capture form to tell people when the website will be ready. What a waste.

From my perspective, the public University should have used its allotted air time to direct people to the primary website, or perhaps a page within the website. It really seems the University of Florida has a domain name problem.

Report: OWS to Pay $8,000 for OccupyWallStreet.net

Elliot Silver
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9

According to a report this morning in The Atlantic Wire, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has decided to spend $8,000 to purchase the  OccupyWallStreet.net domain name. The domain name was hand registered on September 23, 2011 by a Florida resident.

It appears that OccupyWallStreet.com is already owned by someone involved with the OWS movement, although the registration has privacy protection on it. That domain name currently forwards to the group’s website at OccupyWallSt.org.

The Atlantic Wire report also cites a tweet that OWS was offered the opportunity to purchase Occupy.com for $150,000. In my opinion, the report’s author mis-labeled the owner of Occupy.com as “some domain squatters,” which is inaccurate since the domain name was purchased well before the Occupy movement started. A cybersquatting definition can be found on Wikipedia.

As I mentioned previously, the domain name is being shopped around by attorney Karen J. Bernstein  on behalf of the domain owner.

According to The Atlantic Wire report,  OWS is not interested in buying Occupy.com right now because of the high cost. Perhaps the group will raise funds via the $8,000 domain name and decide to purchase the domain name at a later date.

Thanks to RKS for sending the link.

Auction Arms Smartly Upgrades to More Relevant Domain Name

Elliot Silver
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3

Auction Arms  is described as “the original online auction website devoted to guns and the outdoors.” Since inception, the company has used its AuctionArms.com branding for its website. According to Ammoland, the company recently underwent a domain name change, and it will now use GunAuction.com for its website.

The article quoted company CEO and founder, Manny DelaCruz, who said, “The new domain name is one that is more relevant to what we do online, and contains words that are more often searched for at the most popular search engines.”

This is something I stress when selling domain names to end user customers. A descriptive domain name can be easier to remember than a niche brand, and it can help with search engine rankings. If more people are searching for “gun auction” than for “Auction Arms,” and the company has a stronger ranking for the term, it will be beneficial.

It does appear that the company will retain its Auction Arms branding on the new website.

BabyCarrots.com: Great Marketing on a EMD

Elliot Silver
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3

When you have a chance, I’d like you to take a look at a fantastic marketing campaign undertaken by a group called “A BUNCH OF CARROT FARMERS.” It’s easy to find the website, because they use the exact match domain name to promote the product: BabyCarrots.com.

BabyCarrots.com is an innovative website that promotes and celebrates baby carrots. There are games, videos, facts, and other fun aspects of the website. Seriously, if you like good marketing campaigns like I do, you will really come away impressed with this website.

Based on the Whois registration data, I believe it’s safe to assume the marketing campaign was created by advertising agency powerhouse Crispin Porter & Bogusky. It’s not a new website, but I just discovered it the other day and it’s very cool.

How Hipster Acquired Hipster.com

Elliot Silver
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7

Hipster is a fairly well-funded start up company that has received quite a bit of good publicity in tech circles. Until recently, the company was operating on the domain name, UseHipster.com, since Hipster.com was owned by another company.

In May of 2011, Hipster announced  funding of $1 million, and I recommended that the company use some of this money to purchase the Hipster.com domain name. My belief was that as the company continues to grow and increase brand awareness, the price to acquire Hipster.com would grow as well.

Not surprisingly, the company had been trying to acquire the domain name for quite some time, and the effort finally paid off, as Hipster now owns Hipster.com.

According to  company founder, Doug Ludlow, acquiring the domain name took quite some time. “Obtaining the domain was a 7 month process of going back and forth with the original owner.  Lots of negotiation and discussion.  In the end, we reached a combination of cash and stock that worked for both parties,” said Ludlow in an email to me. “Also, a little Pabst Blue Ribbon was thrown in for good measure :)”

The price and terms of the deal remain confidential.

The company is now forwarding UseHipster.com to Hipster.com. In addition, the company already uses the @hipster Twitter account. Congratulations are in order for Ludlow and his Hipster team. I think the acquisition of the domain name now will pay big dividends.

Report: Canadian Starts Company After AppleiMac.com Settlement

Elliot Silver
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11

There was a report in today’s Calgary Herald that I found interesting and somewhat surprising, and I want to share it with you.

According to the article, a 17 year old Canadian high school student named  Abdul Traya registered the AppleiMac.com domain name in 1998. It was just before Apple launched its new computer line, and apparently the company wanted the domain name but didn’t register it.

After a legal letter from Apple, Traya was able to settle with the company for a significant amount of money.  Traya reported that he received an “undisclosed sum – an amount, he admitted, that was almost enough to retire on.”

Perhaps Traya’s age worked in his favor, and Apple didn’t want to spend time filing legal papers, especially since Traya was a minor. Also, perhaps the company felt it was important to use the domain name ASAP and thought it was worth the money to settle immediately rather than using the court system. The quicker UDRP system didn’t come into existence until December of 1999.

Whatever the case, I think Traya got somewhat lucky because there are hefty penalties in the US for cybersquatting (up to $100,000 per domain name), and the UDRP system isn’t expensive and doesn’t take very long. It was nice to see that he used the settlement to help start his company though.

Aside from this interesting information, I take issue with one part of the article:

“Still, there are those who do set out to make money from domains, said University of Calgary professor Tom Keenan.

“It’s called ‘cybersquatting,’ ” said Keenan.”

Of course that is only true when you consider trademark infringing domain names. There is a multi-billion dollar, completely legal, domain investment business built on descriptive/generic domain names that cannot be trademarked.

There aren’t a whole lot of people and companies that legally make money from domain names, but I believe publicly traded companies like Marchex, Tucows, and Demand Media (to name a few) would disagree with the definition of cybersquatting as making money from domains.

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