This morning, TechCrunch published an article about a banking and financial services startup called Vivid, a self-described “unique mobile banking app.” While the startup’s brand name is Vivid, it uses the Vivid.Money domain name for its website. There’s nothing really wrong with using a .Money domain name, but in my opinion, Vivid should add “Money” to its branding, and either be known as Vivid Money or Vivid.Money. I think brands operating on new extensions should embrace the extension, and it is especially important in the case of this startup called Vivid.
Vivid Should Embrace Its .Money
Donuts Hiring Senior Director, Marketing Innovation
There seem to be quite a lot of people in the US and throughout the world who are looking for a job right now, and I want to share a new job listing in the domain space. Donuts posted a job opening on LinkedIn for the position of Senior Director, Marketing Innovation. The job listing says the job will be based in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area, which is one of the six Donuts offices listed in the job posting.
Here’s an excerpt for the job posting, which describes what the position entails:
More Companies Buying TLDs Than Domain Portfolios
In 2018, Afilias published a sponsored article on CircleID announcing that the company was looking to buy domain extensions at NamesCon. That was a couple of years ago, and the company is advertising on Domain Incite with a prominent banner that makes it clear the company is still seeking to acquire TLDs. That got me thinking about whether there are more companies looking to buy domain extensions or more companies looking to buy domain name portfolios.
MarkMonitor Publishes New gTLD Quarterly Report for Q1 2020
MarkMonitor is one of the leading brand protection and domain name management companies. The company has many Fortune 500 customers, and it also works with a variety of businesses of all sizes – from startups to major corporations. In its position, it has a very good view of the domain name landscape and can offer a unique perspective.
This afternoon, the company tweeted about its New gTLD Quarterly Report for the first quarter of 2020:
What’s your #gTLD and #TLD strategy? We review what’s new and what’s changed in the .Brand landscape by industry. Download the report here: https://t.co/SQMBwVtEUY#gTLDs #Domain #DomainNames
— Clarivate MarkMonitor (@markmonitor) May 27, 2020
Future Goes Viral with New gTLD Music Hunt
Musician Future sent fans on a music hunt across 149 different domain names to find music “leaked” from Future’s new album. The viral tweet announcing this Internet scavenger hunt of sorts was shared this afternoon on Future’s Twitter feed:
— FUTURE/FREEBANDZ (@1future) May 14, 2020
Meredith Rebranding App to MyLife Using My.Life
In April, I reported the sale of My.Life, a domain name that was owned by Donuts and sold to Meredith Corporation. It was a large cash sale with a two part payment plan. At the time of the sale, I did not know why Meredith acquired the domain name, but it looks like the company may have acquired it for a rebrand of an app it recently acquired.
On the homepage of My.Life, I can see links to an App store app called Stop, Breathe & Think, which has thousands of reviews. News of Meredith’s acquisition was announced in October of 2019.
I noticed the launch of My.Life after Bob Hawkes just tweeted about it this afternoon: