Brand Marketing

Trump Tavern on the Green?

3

Tavern on the Green in Central Park

It seems that Donald Trump and the Trump Organization have their eyes set on re-developing and re-opening the famous Tavern on the Green restaurant in Central Park, which closed back on new years day 2010.

The company appears to have gone so far as to secure the domain name TrumpTavernOnTheGreen.com, in the event the city awards him the right to re-build the shuttered restaurant. The domain name was registered in February of 2009, and it’s registered at Go Daddy to the Trump Organization.

A New York Post article this morning reports that Trump has apparently reached a deal with a labor union that represents former employees, and that is a key component to anyone opening the restaurant.

Although Mr. Trump mentioned that he doesn’t intend to add “Trump” to the name of the restaurant, the domain name that was secured by his company appears to indicate otherwise (or at least it’s a defensive registration).

It is a bit surprising that the domain name was originally registered by the company back in 2009 though, since development rights had been awarded to Dean Poll, operator of another well-known Central Park restaurant, The Boathouse.

Incidentally, the Trump Organization also appears to own the domain name, TrumpOnTheGreen.com, although I can’t imagine the restaurant being know as “Trump on the Green.”

Daily Deals Site Coming to Sold.com

I was doing some research today, and I saw a Google Adsense banner that caught my attention.  Generally, an ad for a daily deals website wouldn’t receive any attention from me, but the name of this new website is what caught my eye: Sold.com.

Sold.com is owned by a company called Dominion Enterprises, which operates a number of websites in many verticals (see list of businesses here). Some of these businesses operate on great descriptive domain names, like Homes.com, Boats.com, Parenthood.com, HotelCoupons.com, and a few others.

Previously, based on cached pages indexed in Google, it appears that Sold.com was a real estate website, working in conjunction with two Dominion Enterprises websites,  Homes.com and ForRent.com.

In my opinion, the daily deals vertical seems to be a fairly saturated market with companies like Groupon operating and marketing heavily. With very limited barriers to entry though, it seems pretty easy for a company to open up shop, and owning a fantastic domain name like Sold.com can only help the company.

If you are interested in learning more about what Sold.com will offer or when it will launch, the website encourages people to follow its Facebook page.

NFC & AFC Champions: Generic Domain Names

7

The AFC Championship and NFC Championship games were played tonight, pitting the New York Jets against the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Chicago Bears against the Green Bay Packers.

The NY Jets use NewYorkJets.com for its website and the Pittsburgh Steelers simply use Steelers.com.

The Chicago Bears use ChicagoBears.com and the Green Bay Packers simply use Packers.com.

As you are probably aware, the two teams with the team name .com domain names won their respective conference championship. The Super Bowl that will be played in Dallas will feature a matchup of Steelers(.com) vs. Packers(.com).

If only the Dallas Cowboys had acquired Cowboys.com…. although they still can by using Sedo.

Why I Believe Overstock Has “Become O.CO”

In a pretty surprising  announcement today in a press release, Overstock.com Chairman and CEO  Patrick Byrne commented, “We have become O.CO.” Byrnes went on to say, “As a lifestyle destination, consumers can find absolutely anything on O.CO whether they are shopping for furniture, bedding, clothing, and jewelry, buying a car or home, and, soon, looking for their next vacation spot.”

It’s not often that a large retailer announces a re-branding effort like this, and it looks like the company may be ahead of the curve, as .CO will go more mainstream during the Super Bowl. The press release mixed Overstock.com and O.CO, and I think we will probably see a lot more O.CO and less Overstock.com in the near future, as using both would probably be harmful to the brand as that would be confusing.

In my opinion, Overstock has become much more than a company that sells overstocked items cheaply, as the brand name suggests. By transitioning to O.CO, the company that has done it’s best to become known as the big O, will now become the big O.

In a way, it’s similar to how Kentucky Fried Chicken moved towards the KFC branding when fried foods became a negative stigma in the US.

With the marketing efforts of the .CO Registry supporting companies like Overstock and Go Daddy, I think we are going to see more companies using .CO domain names in the next few years.

Overstock Buys Another “O” Domain Name

OverstockI just received word that Overstock has acquired another single letter “O” domain name. The company purchased O.co.za via Sedo for $9,000. The .co.za extension is South Africa’s ccTLD.

Overstock also made two other public “O” domain name acquisitions within the past year: O.biz and O.co.

Some people believe the company may be making these efforts in order to be in a better position for when O.com comes available. That would make sense, especially in light of their US trademark for O.com.

It will be interesting to see if Overstock continues to acquire “O” ccTLD domain names. It would seem that these public sales could impact their negotiation ability.

Could Facebook Launch a Mail Service on FB.com? ** Updated **

Facebook.At the end of September, I wrote an article speculating that perhaps Facebook purchased FB.com in private. There hasn’t been any public acknowledgement about whether the company bought it or not (or who may have bought it if Facebook didn’t), and the domain name still does not resolve.  See update below.

Multiple websites are reporting that Facebook will be holding an invite-only event in San Francisco on Monday, November 15th, and it is expected they will announce a new email system or platform that Techcrunch has dubbed “Facebook’s Gmail Killer.” According to the folks at Techcrunch, this project has been referred to internally as “Project Titan.”

This is pure speculation, but it would be pretty neat if they launched this mail service on FB.com (if they own this domain name now confirmed that Facebook owns it). Assuming it is a mail service they intend to launch on Monday, they could also use another name like FacebookMail.com (which they already own), or they could just tie it in with Facebook.com.

In my opinion, launching a mail service on FB.com would be a great idea. I am sure there are still plenty of people who still think Facebook is just for social networking, despite the company’s growth and evolution. By using FB.com, they could somewhat disassociate from the Facebook brand, which could make a mail service @FB.com look more professional and serious. I think it would look strange to receive a job application from someone emailing me from Facebook, perhaps somewhat unprofessional in my opinion.

Google moved away from the Google name when it started its GMail platform, and I think it would be a smart idea for Facebook to use FB.com for mail, if they did in fact acquire the domain name.

**8:45pm Update**

As Andrew pointed out within the last hour, the Whois information for FB.com has changed, and Facebook is now listed as the owner (see screenshot below).  Additionally, FB.com is now forwarding to Facebook.com.


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