Did 50 Cent Invest in .Club?

I heard about the major launch party the .Club Registry threw in New York City to celebrate the launch of the .Club extension. I wasn’t able to attend the event, but I heard it was a fun time for those who could make it. I didn’t watch the video of 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson) speaking at the event until last night, and when I did, something that he said caught my attention.

Shortly after the introductions from .Club’s Colin Campbell and Jeffrey Sass, beginning at around the 2:02 mark, it sounds to me like 50 Cent said, the only thing that I regret is that I didn’t meet these guys sooner so I could have bought more of their company.” I am not 100% certain that those were his exact words, but that is what it sounds like to me.

I reached out to representatives from the .Club Registry to ask for more information about this comment, and CEO Campbell said, “we really can’t disclose any terms as everything is confidential between the two companies. In the future we may be able to disclose more.”  The .Club Registry website  mentions a “partnership with award-winning rapper, actor and entrepreneur, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson.”

Mr.  Jackson is a savvy businessman having been an investor in Vitaminwater, which was later sold to Coca-Cola, and he was also a major player behind the G-Unit brand. This is something I will keep an eye on.

.Club has been spending quite a bit of money marketing the extension, and it’s good to see. Even though I haven’t invested in any .Club domain names, I assume those who have are happy to see the company spend money marketing its domain names. The Registry advertises on several domain blogs (including this one), has sponsored domain investor events, and they are getting the word out about .Club domain names with GoDaddy home page takeovers. I think this type of marketing effort is good for .Club and probably benefits the domain investment space as well.

The Registry is in business to sell .Club domain names, and it seems to be working quite well for them. In fact, NameStat.org (which I wrote about a couple of days ago) is now showing that .Club is the best selling gTLD, having surpassed .Guru.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

30 COMMENTS

    • But you never have and not everybody reads other blogs. I do understand why you might not want to, since they’re up in your nav bar but you shouldn’t miss the obvious because of that.

      This is interesting to me from a marketing perspective. Besides the problems mentioned in my last post. Paying to be on blogs like this one, where the blog owner won’t even buy any domains. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement. With the 50 cent deal, they should have had something where he at least mentions it somewhere, like Twitter of Facebook, haven’t seen anything. You would think that somebody who might be an investor and a “savvy businessman” would have.

    • Who the hell cares what he said? Are you surprised there would be some confusion with the new TLDs that are less than a year old? I am not. I think it’s petty to write a post to criticize someone for misspeaking, especially when others have already been all over it.

      As for “Paying to be on blogs like this one, where the blog owner won’t even buy any domains. ” Why do my investments even matter with respect to advertising? My blog reaches a pretty wide audience, and there are plenty of people who read it that do invest in the new domain names (AKA their “target audience”).

      Regarding the “endorsement” comment… I am not paid to endorse one thing or another. Advertisers pay for banner spots on my blog. That’s it. The content of my blog posts consists of topics that interest me or that impact my business.

      The publisher of the NY Times may not patronize all of his advertisers, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t advertise.

      BTW, one reason they likely advertise is because people like you seem to like talking about it, and the old adage is that there is no such thing as bad press.

    • “Who the hell cares what he said?”

      Who cares? I can’t believe you actually posted that. You would think the guy you pay to promote would get it right. There is nothing good about getting it wrong.

      “old adage is that there is no such thing as bad press”

      Really? So if you’re a restaurant, do you think press about how dirty your restaurant is and failed inspections isn’t bad? I’ve seen that old adage repeated by people who don’t understand marketing. So yes, there actually is a such thing as bad press.

    • Yeah, I do think it is a bit embarrassing, but I am not the type of person to make fun of someone for making a mistake. I really don’t think it matters in the whole scheme of things.

      In the whole .Club launch party story, this is what I found most interesting, and I was surprised nobody else seems to have heard that. I guess everyone was caught up in the whole “OMG he said .com!!!”

      Ok, perhaps you are right about the restaurant situation.

    • GTLD’s have a long losing history, If I was a domain blogger I wouldn’t risk my reputation on it, better to stand on the sidelines.

      Any investment in GTLD’s would be a losing one, I’d much rather donate that money to feeding children who DIE of starvation every day, Obviously most domainers don’t think this way, they would much rather feed investors of registries who pollute the world wide web with their crappy GTLD’s.

    • As I said, “Even though I haven’t invested in any .Club domain names, I assume those who have are happy to see the company spend money marketing its domain names. ”

      I’ve also said many times over the last few months, I only bought 4 new gTLD domain names:

      n.Holdings
      n.Ventures
      g.Holdings
      Silver.Ventures

      I am firmly on the sidelines when it comes to my investments.

      I happen to find the topic of new gTLDs interesting, especially because posts like these generate passionate comments, and my job as a domain blogger is https://www.domaininvesting.com/job-domain-industry-blogger/

    • There’s a song by the band journey, [in the eye’s of a woman].
      I have to say, when i see Raider’s eye’s, i know she means business and she speaks the truth.

  1. Elliot,

    Are you related to DNF member “Vision”?.. Let’s hope we don’t see the same kind of reporting every time a celeb or known corporation registers a GTLD.

    Anybody can pay a celeb to market their product so long as it isn’t toxic, Give 50 cent another 10 years and he’ll be selling reverse mortgages.

    • Nope… my only account on DNF is EJS. I don’t post there very often aside from infrequent sales posts.

      Makes more sense to post things here, where I am compensated for sharing.

  2. Petty?

    @Elliot, with all due respect…

    The fact that $0.50 himself accidentally referred to it as a .COM(!) in conjunction with the Mayor of Las Vagas similarly referring to .Vegas as Vegas.Com at Domainfest is HUGE!!!!

    It proved what Team Schwartz has been saying all along! Anybody who registers a .whatever will surely see his traffic and email continuously leak to the .com guy.

    May as well pack up your bags and head home, boys, this gtld party is now officially over!

    • I completely agree that there is going to be lots of confusion, but I think that is something that is more confined to the short term. If you go out and ask 50 random people about the new gTLDs today, there is going to be a lot of confused looks on their face. My prediction is that there will be far less confusion in the future, especially when Google gets involved.

      This is why I don’t think it’s all that surprising that he may have misspoken. Embarrassing perhaps, but not a prognostication that the new gTLD program is doomed.

    • “a .whatever will surely see his traffic and email continuously leak to the .com guy.”

      Your exactly right on this point and that’s why buyers will always be willing to pay the big bucks for the .com… I’m currently in negotiations where I have a potential buyer from the UK, there are several GTLD’s that would connect well with their company and rather than spending up to $30 a year on one of these, they have been working diligently for the last month trying to raise $80,000 for the domain.

      Any company who busts their butt trying to make a name for themself is going to demand the most common address, NOT the confusingly similar one.

  3. OMG, I am so embarrassed that he said .com instead of .club! Mortified is probably da better word. After I stopped laughing hysterically, I realized that this is EXACTLY why da gtlds will never work for that very reason.

    Either own a .com or lose your traffic to the guy that does, it’s really that da simple.

    • Exactly, .com will always be the dominate and most widely used TLD, there is no erasing that, it’s implanted into our minds as 50 cent proved.

      Ask the GTLD investor if he would open a store in New York City population 8 Million VS opening a store in small town North Carolina, population 3000, Naturally they would choose NYC, but when they find out how much it’s going to cost for the property, they opt for the small town instead because it’s affordable.. Monthly sales in NYC $1M a month, monthly sales in Small Town NC, $1000 month.

      Domains are referred to “virtual real estate” for a reason, only most GTLD investors still DON’T get it.

  4. Rofl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Holy SH@#$@#$! Open mouth, insert da foot! Way to blow an entire tld!

    Someone is about to lose a lot of da money!

  5. A new shirt should be presented to read:

    MyInvestmentJustWentSouth.Com.Club or

    IJustLostMyMoney.Com.Club or

    IJustDestroyedThisTLDsChanceOfSuccess.Com.Club or

    AskMeWhyGtldsAreABadIdea.Com.Club

  6. One nice thing about GTLD’s is they can be used as a tool during negotiating for the dot com, if buyers don’t want to spend the money, you reply back suggesting a more affordable option where they can register the .Guru or Ninja or dot whateever for a fraction of the price, This does two things, it sends a message that your not motivated to sell which works to your advantage, and it suggests that they settle for second best, like a Mercedes salesman suggesting the more affordable KIA, making them want it even more.

    • LOL, so tempted by a high $x x x .ninja right now. I can spare the cash, but I’m too cheap to pull the trigger. Or perhaps more accurately, whip the nunchuks. 😀

    • Absolutely, but it’s also a risk, EventManagement.com could be sold and developed by another end user before they got around to buying it, it could happen depending on how long they waited.

  7. Is it too early to predict the death and destruction of all gtlds? Or, are you going to make me wait a few more weeks so I can say I told you so?

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Recent Posts

Handoff to Dan on Imported Leads Can be Confusing

0
I've been using the lead import option at Dan.com more regularly. Although the 5% commission is not ideal, transactions tend to move more quickly...

ArtificialIntelligence.com Goes Up for Sale

7
I tried to buy the ArtificialIntelligence.com domain name multiple times over the last 10 years. The emails I sent to the registrant went unanswered,...

EU Gives More IP Protection to Food & Drink Producers

0
Did you know that some well-known food and drink varieties are protected intellectual property regulations? Popular types of drinks and foods that are protected...

Price Testing

1
In 2022, my wife and I decided our kids were ready for some big mountain skiing and we planned a trip to the Rocky...

GoDaddy Making You Sign in to See What You Renewed (Updated)

3
This morning, I noticed something different in a domain name renewal email from GoDaddy. Instead of telling me exactly what domain names I renewed...