Frank Schilling

On Monday in the United States, it was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (MLK Day), a federal holiday that honors the slain Civil Rights leader. When you search Google for “Martin Luther King, Jr,” The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change website is the top result, allowing people to learn more about Dr. King, his life work, and his legacy.

According to its website, The King Center was “established in 1968 by Coretta Scott King, The King Center is the official, living memorial dedicated to advancing the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” The non-profit organization “has been a global destination, resource center and community institution for over a quarter century. Nearly a million people each year make pilgrimage to the National Historic Site to learn, be inspired and pay their respects to Dr. King’s legacy.”

Frank Schilling, whose Name Administration company owns hundreds of thousands of domain names, owns  MartinLutherKingJr.com. Although the domain name could likely earn significant revenue on this day (and probably even February’s Black History Month) if it was parked, Schilling has it forwarding to The King Center website.

Schilling doesn’t have to do this, since Dr. King is a historical figure and Schilling could likely create his own website, but I think it’s a classy move. **Update** As someone pointed out in the comment section, this is something that is done by Schilling year-round, not just on the one day the US honors Dr. King.

I read yesterday morning’s  Internet Traffic update sent to clients by Frank Schilling, and there are a few points that I think will be of interest. Most notably, Schilling has given clients full access to the robust DomainNameSales.com platform his company uses to negotiate and close domain sales.

The platform offers a variety data for domain owners to use in order to negotiate a fair deal. Of course, the site will give the owner access to all of the domain name’s data like traffic and revenue, which is standard with other platforms that also provide parking. What sets this platform apart from others is that it catalogs information about the people and companies inquiring about the domain names.

“This powerful suite of information about your inquirer is your data and you will be able to manage the information and communications that you share with them. This system will ultimately help you sell more names for more money and help you make informed decisions about the trend of your names and their value. It is the secret of how I sell more names, for more money.”

One thing that would be neat is if the platform could attempt to track who is actually inquiring about the domain name. It would be great if it could search Google, LinkedIn, and other sources for references to the person inquiring as it relates to the domain query. For instance, if someone named Frank Schilling was inquiring to purchase DomainNames.com, it would search for Frank’s name and domain-related articles. It would also be helpful if it tracked and searched IP addresses and email addresses. These are things I do manually but could likely be done via  algorithm. This, of course, wouldn’t be fail proof, but it could save some time.

While some people speculated that Schilling’s DomainNameSales.com platform could be damaging to other leading aftermarket platforms if it were to become used by people parking with Internet Traffic, I think the update sheds some light on the platform and shows that this speculation isn’t quite accurate.

“If you’re like me, you don’t have a huge team of in-house brokers. This system will let you select from a list of competitively priced third party brokers, or to broker the names yourself if you have the time.”

I’ve seen Name Administration’s in DNJournal’s sales report, and more often than not, those are reported by aftermarket websites like Sedo or Afternic.

I think there is the potential for Internet Traffic to hire domain brokers to close deals on behalf of its partners, but that hasn’t happened. If it did, it would likely put downward pressure on commissions in the marketplace, but I have no idea if that’s in the cards or even desired. One might assume that if it was being considered, it would have happened quite some time ago considering Name Administration owns hundreds of thousands of names already.

It’s been fun observing the growth of Internet Traffic and thinking about how the company could quietly become a leading player in the domain space. It really illustrates the importance of trust in the domain space, and it shows how much goodwill Schilling has earned amongst his colleagues.

I read an article discussing Aerin  Lauder’s aspirations of building a successful fashion empire similar to that of Tori Burch’s company. Of course, I was most interested in speculating how the granddaughter of the legendary Estée Lauder  would potentially market her brand online.

A couple of quick historical whois searches likely produced the answer. Aerin.com is currently owned by Aerin, LLC on Fifth Avenue in New York City. While I could go and search business records for the state of New York to see who owns this LLC, I think a historical Whois search may be even more accurate, since it’s possible that a manager would be listed on the LLC instead of Lauder.

A historical whois search from January 2011 shows the name has been registered to a person with the same email address as the current registrant, but the physical address was listed as 767 Fifth Avenue Suite 4200. This physical address happens to be the same as the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation, and of course, Ron Lauder is Aerin’s father.

Even more interesting to me is the provenance of the domain name. In 2010, the domain name was owned by Frank Schilling’s Name Administration. Whoever bought it likely paid a handsome sum for the domain name. According to the NY Post, Aerin Lauder is the third largest shareholder in the billion dollar company founded by her grandmother.

Although Aerin.com doesn’t currently resolve, it would seem likely that the domain name will be used by Lauder, and it could become home to the next fashion empire.