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Confirmed: MLB Acquires Angels.com

Elliot Silver
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8

The Angels.com domain name has been purchased by Major League Baseball, and Angels.com now redirects to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim website. The domain name was purchased at the end of August for $200,000 at a Sedo auction.

In my opinion, this was a smart acquisition for the baseball team, and it was a smart sale for the owner, who hasn’t been able to monetize the traffic that was presumably mostly looking for tickets, baseball gear, and other baseball related products. In 2007, Major League Baseball filed a UDRP for Angels.com, but they lost the decision. According to an article written by Andrew, the team was offered the opportunity to purchase the domain name back then for around $300,000.

As you can see from a prior post about sports team domain name, most professional sports teams (and leagues) understand the value of owning the team .com domain name. (Big exception: Dallas Cowboys who still down’t own Cowboys.com).

According to the most recent Whois update, the domain name is owned by MLB Advanced Media, LP, and the domain name is registered at Corporation Service Company.

Huffington Post Spotlight on .CO Registry and Juan Calle

Elliot Silver
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1

.CO Registry Founders ProgramThere was a nice article on the Huffington Post about Juan Calle and the .CO Registry. Aside from the mildly insulting comment that seems to equate domain parking with cybersquatting, it’s a pretty good article about the Registry and its marketing efforts, which have been led by Calle, Lori Anne Wardi, their internal marketing team, and the external advertising team at the Pappas Group.

The article discusses how Calle and his company went up against a registry powerhouse to get the rights to administer the .CO Registry and came out on top. Additionally, the Registry’s efforts to combat cybersquatting are also mentioned in the article. You can read a bit about those efforts in a previously written article.

One thing the article only briefly mentions is Calle’s previous Internet success. One of Calle’s companies, Straat Investments, owns and operates websites like ParisHotels.com, MiamiHotels.com, LondonHotels.com, and many other great cityHotels.com domain names through its Federated Travel brand.

Congrats to Calle and his hard working team at the CO Registry. This has been a hell of a year for him, and in my opinion, he deserves the TRAFFIC Domainer of the Year award.

Good Internet Marketing: Email Newsletter

Elliot Silver
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5

Waaaay back in graduate school for direct marketing (circa 2003), I learned about the importance of connecting with customers and clients. One of the easiest and best ways to do this is the email marketing newsletter, and I use Constant Contact for that after using their free trial. I want to share a recent example of good direct marketing via newsletter to give you a reminder about how well this works.

On DogWalker.com, I have over 1,100 registered accounts, with around 25% of them having paid listings.   This might seem like a good sales/close rate, but I believe if dog walkers take the time to register on the site, they probably have an interest in signing up for a listing, but I just need to convince them to spend the money.

After 8+ months of being live, I decided to send out the first newsletter a couple of days ago (see screenshot below). The newsletter discussed the current traffic levels on site, the two local marketing efforts done in the last month, and some of the Internet marketing efforts. I also listed the top city searches the site received in the last 30 days, which I think was smart because people can cross-check that list with the number of listings to determine whether their listing will stand out.

Here are the results of the effort so far:

  • Open rate: 28%
  • Opt out rate: 1%
  • Bounce rate: 4%
  • New listings created: 4

All in all, the open rate was pretty strong, especially for the summer. Most importantly though, it netted $200 in revenue, yielded very few complaints, and it opened the door for further communication. It was fairly quick to set up using Constant Contact, and I know they will help you if you run into trouble with the design (my Dad did it for his store and they helped him set up his newsletter a couple of months ago).

If you run a website with subscribers (paid or not), you should have a newsletter. I have the option to use one for my blog, but I generally have too many things going on to create a newsletter for a smaller audience.

BP Cares About BPCares.com

Elliot Silver
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27

BP CaresThere was a lot of commentary on Rick’s Blog when he mentioned that he bought and was successfully monetizing many BP-related domain names. It seems that whenever Rick writes something controversial, there are dozens of opinions voiced in the comment section of his blog, and this post was no different.

I received a Google News Alert today about an article appearing on Charlotte, North Carolina’s Fox affiliate website about the owner of BPCares.com. Apparently BP wants to acquire BPCares.com from the registrant, and he isn’t interested in selling it to the company. According to the article, the domain registrant purchased this and other companyCares.com domain names apparently after seeing NBACares.com used in action by the National Basketball Association.

The article mentioned that BP has tried to buy this domain name more than once and that the company keeps calling him about the name, but it didn’t mention whether BP threatened a UDRP or any other legal action. In my opinion, it wouldn’t be outside of the realm of possibility if it did threaten legal action, especially since the owner apparently confirmed that he registered other names related to other companies.

Smartly, the domain owner does not appear to have BPCares.com monetized (or even resolving to another website), and he didn’t mention a sales price, so perhaps his aim wasn’t to profit from the BP brand. However, it does appear to be listed for sale on Sedo without an asking price.

I don’t understand the motive for having this article written, as it only serves to show that he did register the domain name along with other corporate domain names that are similar. A quick search shows the registrant also appears to own GoogleCares.com and DisneyCares.com. If the registrant or someone he knows hadn’t mentioned the situation to the news station, it likely would have remained below the radar.

Let’s hope for his sake that BP doesn’t care enough about BPCares.com to take legal action because that could get quite expensive.

PeoplesBank.com Expires; Who Is to Blame?

Elliot Silver
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7

On July 30, 2010, PeoplesBank.com expired, and it now appears to be coming up for auction on NameJet. The previous registrant was Maine Bank and Trust, located at 6 Atlantis Way in Lewiston, Maine. According to some research I did, TDBank is (or was) located in that space, which jives up with the @banknorth.com email address used by the registrant, since Banknorth is now known as TD Bank (they were known as TD Banknorth for a while).

I’ve done some research, and it appears that the ownership of this domain name is about as confusing as the history of bank mergers, acquisitions, takeovers, and other activities that faced many local banks. Maine Bank and Trust owned this domain name (and is still listed as registrant). Similarly, Maine Bank and Trust also owned MaineBank.com back in 2001. If you visit MaineBank.com now, you’ll see a message that says Maine Bank & Trust is now People’s United Bank, and you are forwarded to Peoples.com.

The strange thing to me is that People’s United Bank and TD Bank do not appear to be related. Somehow, TD Bank ended up with PeoplesBank.com, while People’s United Bank ended up with Maine Bank & Trust, but not the PeoplesBank.com domain name that shows Maine Bank & Trust as its most recent registrant.

Making things even more confusing is the historical information on TD Bank’s website regarding the Peoples brand name: “The company first opened its doors as Portland Savings Bank in Portland, Maine, in 1852, and later grew through a series of mergers and became Peoples Heritage Bank in 1983. At the turn of the millennium, the opportunity for growth presented itself again as Peoples Heritage Bank, through several acquisitions, expanded deeper into New England and took the name Banknorth.”

Although this particular domain name has not had a website on it in quite some time, it’s an important domain name for security purposes.

Across the United States and throughout the world, there are a number of People’s Banks. Some of these banks include:

  • Peoples United Bank (Peoples.com)
  • The Peoples Bank (ThePeoples.com)
  • People’s Bank (PeoplesBank-WA.com)
  • Peoples Bank (PeoplesBancorp.com)
  • PeoplesBank (BankAtPeoples.com)
  • People’s Bank (PeoplesBankMTW.com)
  • Many more can be found by searching Google

Hopefully someone from TD Bank, People’s, or possibly one of the other banks known as Peoples will make sure this domain name doesn’t fall into the hands of someone who could potentially use it maliciously. Compete shows that over 6,000 people a month visit PeoplesBank.com.

Example of Smart Usage of a Generic Brand and Domain Name

Elliot Silver
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9

Walking through a farmers’ market a couple of days ago, I saw a shop with BBQ sauces, spices, supplies, and seasonings. One unique product I saw was seasoned skewers, which are grilling skewers that contain seasonings on the outside, allowing your chicken or beef to be seasoned from the inside while being grilled. Seems like an interesting concept.

I think the company did a great job choosing a name for its product. Had the company been called XYZ seasoned skewers or something brandable like Taste Skewers, I probably would have forgotten what they are called. Smartly, the company owns and brands its product as “SeasonedSkewers.com”

I think it’s smart because it’s branded as its product description. The company could have chosen a cutesy brand, but people probably would have referred to the product as seasoned skewers. Additionally, if they hadn’t called themselves the product name, it would have given a competitor an opportunity to enter the space, since the product is unique but not one of a kind.

If your company develops a new product, sometimes the smartest thing to call it is exactly what it should be called.

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