Controlling Interest in BodyBuilding.com Sold for $100 Million

Elliot Silver
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According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, and also reported in Tech Crunch, Liberty Media has paid $100 million to acquire a controlling stake in BodyBuilding.com. Liberty Media is an investor in Internet holding company, IAC, parent company of Match.com, Chemistry.com, Ticketmaster.com, and many other category leading websites.
Bodybuilding.com hosts both a fitness social networking community/forum with 100,000 participants, and it is an e-commerce website with body building supplies, vitamin supplements and fitness clothing. According to the Tech Crunch article (citing ComScore figures), BodyBuilding.com received over 2 million unique visitors in November.
Domain investors often cite Hotels.com as one of the few companies that built an entire business around a category killer generic domain name. While this is certainly true, I think there are many other companies, like BodyBuilding.com, that have built strong businesses around a category killer generic domain name. A category killer domain name doesn’t necessarily have to be mainstream to become a $100 million business. Sometimes niche category killer domain names can be just as effective, as long as a solid business plan is in place.

Breaking News: Oversee Acquires Moniker

Elliot Silver
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According to this just distributed press release, Oversee.net has acquired domain registrar Moniker. I assume this is the news to which Rick Schwartz was referring this morning. More information about this can be found on Moniker’s homepage.
It will be interesting to see what will happen with the two major domain conferences (DomainFest and TRAFFIC) and their live auctions. Domain Sponsor (an Oversee.net company) is a founding partner of DomainFest, which features the SnapNames Live Auction from January 22-23, and TRAFFIC features the Moniker Live Auction on February 20 in Las Vegas.
I am sure we will soon learn more about how this news will impact the industry.

BIG News in the Domain Business

Elliot Silver
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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…

Penthouse Invests in Friend Finder Network

Elliot Silver
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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.

Frank Schilling: The Real Story

Elliot Silver
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As he always does, Ron Jackson wrote a fantastic story about Frank Schilling and his domain empire. I highly recommend reading this article.

US Control of Internet Remains Issue

Elliot Silver
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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.

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