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GoDaddy

GoDaddy is a privately owned, Internet-based company that provides a variety of services including domain name registration, web hosting and e-business software sales. The company, which is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, was founded by Bob Parsons. Parsons previously owned a financial services software company, which he sold in the mid-1990s upon retirement. He came out of retirement in 1997 to form Jomax Technologies, the predecessor to GoDaddy.

Since it’s inception, GoDaddy has risen to become the largest domain registrar in the world, with tens of million of domains registered to its clients. The company ranks as the world’s largest ICANN-accredited registrar; it’s approximately four times larger than its nearest competition. Recent corporate acquisitions include Outright, Locu, Afternic, and Media Temple.

GoDaddy has redefined Internet hosting services, and it has been the recipient of numerous industry awards and accolades. Among these awards are the 2001 Arizona BBB award for Business Ethics and the 2011 SC Magazine award for Best Security Team. In 2011, it ranked number four in the Phoenix Business Magazine list of “Best Places to Work in the Valley” and it made the 2012 Forbes list of “Best 100 Companies to Work For.”

Known for its sometimes controversial commercials and interesting spokespersons, GoDaddy also sponsors a number of charitable causes in support of domestic violence and child abuse awareness, and sports events, including NASCAR and the Super Bowl. In 2013, the company shifted its advertising strategy to focus more on small to medium sized business owners (SMB). Reflecting this change, its commercials and advertising materials shifted from “sexy” to smart.

Christine Jones, Former EVP of Go Daddy, to Run for Arizona Governor

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According to a tweet this afternoon, Christine Jones, the former Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for Go Daddy, filed paperwork to run for the office of Governor in the state of Arizona. Ms. Jones will be running on the Republican party ticket, and the election will be held on November 4, 2014.

Wisely, Ms. Jones owns the exact match domain name, ChristineJones.com, and it appears that she will use the domain name for her campaign website.

For many years, Ms. Jones was the second most public face of Go Daddy behind its founder, Bob Parsons. When there were policy or legal issues regarding Go Daddy or domain names, Ms. Jones was often cited in mainstream news reports.

Here’s wishing Ms. Jones all the best in her run for Governor!

Go Daddy Promoting Domain Buy Service on Landing Pages

Recently, I’ve noticed that Go Daddy appears to be promoting its Domain Buy Service more heavily on default landing pages. Have a look at the screenshots below, and as you can see in the first screenshot, the most prominent link on the page is a link to “Learn how you can get this domain,” which links to the page with information about Go Daddy’s Domain Buy Service. The other screenshots show other variations of the default landing page.

If you aren’t familiar with the Domain Buy Service, it allows people to inquire about domain names that are privately owned. The cost is $59.99 per domain name, and the buyer pays a 10% commission if a deal is struck. A representative from GoDaddy will negotiate on the buyer’s behalf in an attempt to close a deal.

My guess is that Go Daddy is

CarlosDanger.com Registered Yesterday

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New York City Mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner was in the news again  for apparently sending dirty messages and possibly photos months after he had resigned from Congress for doing something similar.

According to the NY Post article referenced above: “The other shoe dropped yesterday for Anthony Weiner, who was forced to admit he engaged in a months-long sexting affair with a woman — a year after he resigned from Congress in disgrace — using the bizarre online alias Carlos Danger.”

Shortly after news broke yesterday,

Go Daddy .LA Auction Results

Go Daddy Aftermarket Director Paul Nicks provided the results of the .LA auction held by Go Daddy that finished earlier today. In total, the auction generated a little over $25,000 in sales, with 112 of the 273 domain names selling (minimum opening bid was $100 for each).

It would be great to know how many new .LA domain names were registered while the auction was being promoted, but I doubt that information will be shared.

Listed below are the domain names that sold along with their prices. Payment has not been posted for any of the domain names, so they are all technically “pending sale” until the deals close.

.LA domain auction results:

Go Daddy .LA Auction Ending Soon

Along with Go Daddy’s repositioning of .LA domain names, the company is also hosting an auction of .LA domain names. Individual auctions are concluding within the next few hours.

There are just under 275 domain names included in the auction, and the domain names I searched appear to be registered to a company called “Dot LA Marketing LLC.” You can read more about the company and the Go Daddy partnership in a Los Angeles Daily News article published a little over a week ago. According to Go Daddy’s Paul Nicks, “GoDaddy is running the auction and does not have any ownership in the domain names.”

The minimum bid on the domain auctions is $100. The domain name with the highest bid currently is Simply.LA, which has a high bid of $560. At the time of this post, the five auctions with the highest bids are:

Watch the Repositioning of .LA

You’ve probably read about the repositioning of Laos’ .LA ccTLD extension by  Go Daddy. If not, check out the Wall St. Journal press release  for more details. In short, Godaddy will be marketing .LA domain names to a Los Angeles audience and selling the domain names for $39.99/year. I think this is interesting and will almost be like a test case or practice for other geographic TLDs such as .NYC.

As someone who is interested in marketing, I am most interested in seeing how the registrar plans to market these domain names further. Some things I will be watching for include:

  • Will they undertake off-line marketing efforts to make the public aware of these domain names?
  • Will their marketing efforts target to people outside of Los Angeles?
  • How will the company make small businesses and consumers aware of the extension and then help with adoption?
  • Is this a one time effort or will it be ongoing?
  • How much of an impact will the repositioning have on total registrations and developed websites?

There are many questions to be answered, and I think the learnigs from this brand repositioning will help guide the company for when the new gTLDs roll out either later this year or shortly thereafter.  I also think other TLD registries and registrars will be closely monitoring the company’s efforts. If they aren’t, they might want to put it on their radar. Perhaps it is much ado about nothing, but it could be important.

Aside from marketing interests, as a domain investor, I am also interested in seeing how this marketing effort will impact the market. Essentially, this may be somewhat of a microcosm with respect to gTLD extensions. If it takes hold in Los Angeles, I imagine other markets and verticals could see the same. Perhaps it will be confusing to consumers, and that will also be something to monitor. Ultimately, if consumers adopt .LA en masse (unlikely in my opinion) it will be something we all should note because it could be the same with other TLDs.

The repositioning of .LA by Go Daddy will be interesting for me to observe, and it will be interesting to see what happens in that market (if anything).  

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