Unfortunately, I am not privy to what the news is, but if you didn’t already see, Rick Schwartz has announced that there is going to be some BIG news later today:
“2008 is about to start with a BANG. A very BIG bang. What will it all mean? Stay tuned. This is a biggie! We are going to start the year off right.“
Stay tuned…
According to a report in the New York Times, Penthouse Media Group just invested $500 million into Various, Inc., operator of 25 social networking sites, including Adult Friend Finder and its related Friend Finder Network websites. Combined, Various’ companies have a reported member base of more than 260 million consumers, with about 1.2 million paying consumers.
The purchase shows how bullish a company like Penthouse is in the Internet marketing channel. As the Internet continues to mature, magazine and newspaper publishers have struggled to maintain viewership, and they’ve had to put out a strong web product to keep their customers satisfied. It will be interesting to see how Penthouse and the FFN leverage each other’s assets and industry knowledge to create a stronger company. It will also be interesting to see if they work under one company name or if they maintain their own brand identities.
At the recent TRAFFIC auction the FFN network paid $1.8 million for Seniors.com.
As he always does, Ron Jackson wrote a fantastic story about Frank Schilling and his domain empire. I highly recommend reading this article.
Thanks to Mike for sending me this link this morning: US Control of Internet Remains Issue
Resentment about the US control of the Internet continues to grow, and a UN sponsored Internet conference did little to quell this. The main issue is the control over the domain name system, which is currently held by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California based non profit organization. The US government retains veto power over ICANN, which is a contentious point for many countries. A few proposals were made to reduce or eliminate the US controls, but none were approved at the conference.
For the article, please click here.
The domain name Vista.com and the VISTA trademarks were sold by Innuity for $1.25 million. You can read the press release covering the sale here.
Sahar also has some commentary about the sale here. I think Vista.com is a fantastic generic domain name. It illustrates the topic of “domain usage.” Regardless of whether a huge company owns a trademark for the word, someone else can own it as long as the content doesn’t infringe on the other trademark.
Ron Jackson comes through again with a great article about Leland Hardy, scholar, professional boxer, sports agent, financial whiz, and owner of NewYork.com. Just reading the article makes me want to get to know Leland, and I think you will enjoy learning more about this brilliant person. Read the article here.
