Go Daddy CEO Blake Irving has taken to Twitter this evening to respond to various tweets about the company and recent changes in its advertising focus and acquisitions. Â Irving is using his personal Twitter account to reach out to people who posted comments in the wake of Go Daddy’s acquisition of hosting company, Media Temple.
It doesn’t appear that some of the tweets were initially made to elicit a reply from Go Daddy, but Irving is promoting the positive strides he sees the company making. Â In my opinion, it is rare that the CEO of such a large company is personally responding to complaints and negative feedback in such a public manner. I can’t recall seeing something similar in this business, but perhaps someone can enlighten me.
There seems to have been quite a bit of acrimony since news of the MT acquisition was announced. From what I’ve been reading on Twitter and elsewhere, some people have accounts with Media Temple specifically in order to avoid working with Go Daddy for various reasons.
Irving has encouraged people to DM him for more information about the changes.
@AntDeRosa @kim If/when @GoDaddy wins it back–by our bold new vision, elegant new products, amazing support or otherwise–DM to let me know
— Blake Irving (@Blakei) October 17, 2013
​@Doctor_V @mediatemple All our future @GoDaddy ads will focus on value, not women. Here’s an example: http://t.co/bKLmrawSFO #itsgotime — Blake Irving (@Blakei) October 17, 2013
​@jeresig (mt) will stay same: fully autonomous. @GoDaddy however is changing a ton: New leadership, ads & mission http://t.co/hvgjKMrOUJ — Blake Irving (@Blakei) October 17, 2013
​@jasonsantamaria It’s far more than a pitch–changes happening at @GoDaddy are very real. I’m here to talk if you ever want to learn more. — Blake Irving (@Blakei) October 17, 2013
​@ginatrapani (mt) will stay the same: autonomous in both servers and people. @GoDaddy on the other hand is changing a ton. DM me for dets — Blake Irving (@Blakei) October 17, 2013
​@jasonsantamaria That “old” @GoDaddy is just history now. With a new mission and leadership, we’re really a new co. DM me for the scoop.
— Blake Irving (@Blakei) October 17, 2013
​@marcoarment In the few months I’ve been CEO @ @GoDaddy a lot’s changed: new leaders, design, checkout, ads & a new mission. DM me to chat
— Blake Irving (@Blakei) October 17, 2013
I doubt he’s tweeting himself- usually ceos have “personal brand builders” who do social media for them. But the best line was “With a new mission and leadership, we’re really a new co.” Maybe that’s why they dropped the dotCOM from their name.
My bet is that it’s him.
Not difficult to tweet, and it would be risky to hire someone to tweet as the CEO when one wrong reply to someone can make him look very bad, and even worse if it was found out that it wasn’t him.
I’ve also seen Go Daddy in general appearing more in my social media stream – for example on Facebook, trying to tag on to last night’s new episode of the Canadian Dragon’s Den.
Basically the post was saying that entrepreneurs cannot afford to enter the Dragon’s Den without having a website.
Maybe stop lying to people saying the registry charges $80 to redeem domains, when in fact, this price is set by Godaddy and is pure profit:
http://support.godaddy.com/groups/go-daddy-customers/forum/topic/redemption-fee/?pc_split_value=3
Where on the Godaddy site does it say that? If they do say it and it’s not true, you should send him a message on Twitter to ask.
The registry (for COM/NET) charges $40 and requires a cumbersome process where a form has to be filled manually (this is not available via EPP, the API that is usually used by registrars) with a number of historical data (including whois information) of the domain.
Some registrars charge even over $200 for this, as with domains registrars set their own pricing and must publish it on their website.
The link at the bottom of my post shows the Godaddy message board. I’m also putting it at the bottom of this post. Hopefully the link is displaying:
http://support.godaddy.com/groups/go-daddy-customers/forum/topic/redemption-fee/?pc_split_value=3
Correct, they are allowed to charge whatever they want. But Goddaddy says, “we are required to pay this fee to them to acquire the domain name back for you”, that is simply false. 🙂
Its good to see GoDaddy interacting and trying to retain their customers. Good work.