Home Blog Page 1144

Brand Fail: Qwikster by Netflix

Elliot Silver
-
11

Netflix

My wife mentioned that she received an email from Netflix this morning announcing some sort of name change. I did a bit of research, and I saw that the company is spinning off its DVD shipping service into a separate company called Qwikster.

According to the Netflix blog, “Qwikster” is sort of a play on words. “We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery,” said Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO of Netflix.  Luckily for Netflix,  Qwikster.com  was available for the company to acquire, and they did so via Sedo (according to  Whois records  indicating Sedo’s transfer service had possession of it in June).

I am surprised by the name Netflix chose because it’s confusing. In fact, when I first heard the news, I did a Whois search for Quickster.com to see when Netflix bought it, and that domain name is parked.  Not only is the beginning of the name different (Qw vs. Qu), but the middle is as well (ik vs. ick).

Both Quickster.com and Qwickster.com are owned by different entities – one is registered by a company called Brand Certified and the other is registered by DNStination, so perhaps these domain names are owned by entities on behalf of Netflix.

I would hope so anyway, because it seems that even Google is confused.

Cheesecake.com Goes on The Market

Elliot Silver
-
82

I received an email from David Clements this weekend announcing that Cheesecake.com is on the market. Clements and a partner launched an e-commerce website over a year ago and has decided to put the business up for sale.

According to Clements, “the site, contacts, photography, logo, etc are included. We use a third-party for the shopping cart and some other functionality so the new owner would need to continue that business relationship or do some coding.” The price for Cheesecake.com is $500,000.

I am a big fan of cheesecake, and I think it’s a great gift. In fact, I sent clients and friends cheesecakes from Junior’s for the holidays a few years ago. Google’s Adwords keyword tool shows an exact match search volume of 0ver 200,000, so there are a lot of people looking to buy cheesecake.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see a company like Junior’s or even 1-800-Flowers make a play for this domain name. If you happen to be interested in discussing a sale, be in touch with David. I am sure you could also reach out to Domain Capital for financing options if that’s of interest.

* This was NOT a paid post, and I wasn’t asked to post this nor am I being compensated in any way.

Top 10 Strange Incoming Google Referrals

Elliot Silver
-
6

It’s the final Saturday of the Summer of 2011, and I hope you are enjoying yourself. I want to share what I think are the top ten strangest incoming  referral  keywords to my blog this past week. Here they are in no particular order:

  • How much does it cost to kill an elephant in Africa?
  • Rick Latona’s secret
  • first sexual encounter india
  • Lisa bloom fiance **(Sorry, Braden!)
  • Guinness world records sex
  • h t t p : / /w w w. e u r o d n s . c om
  • WWW.dont.com.xxx
  • “fb ads” pregnancy
  • What should i prefer .co cctld or .net gtld
  • NameCheap offers 4.99$ for a Domain because GoDaddy’s CEO Bob Parson Killed an Elephant

 

Report: Barnes & Noble Buys Borders.com

Elliot Silver
-
1

Crain’s Detroit Business is reporting that Barnes & Noble was the winning bidder for the domain names of the now shuttered and bankrupt Borders, which I assume includes Borders.com . In addition, it was reported that B&N also bought Waldenbooks domain names as well, another book store that had been owned by Borders.

The auctions for Borders’ assets sold for a total of $15.8 million, although the totals weren’t broken down by individual units. Barnes & Noble was not the only buyer though, according to Crain’s. The sale was handled by Hilco Trading LLC.

According to the article, “Hilco said Barnes & Noble was one buyer of the assets, which included “a global portfolio of trademarks; the Borders, Waldenbooks and Brentano’s trade names; Internet domain names; and the Borders.com e-commerce website.””

Barnes & Noble also owns Books.com, which forwards to the company’s primary website.

“King Gavin” .XXX Advertisement (Video)

Elliot Silver
-
5

A friend sent me this video that I want to share with you called “King Gavin Makes it Rain.” It’s an advertisement for the .XXX domain extension that I believe was created by the ICM Registry, to encourage people to learn more about .XXX domain names at About.XXX. The video was uploaded to YouTube just a few days ago, but it already has over 700,000 views. Pretty good viral marketing.

What is TeaParty.com Worth & Should The Band Sell The Domain Name?

Elliot Silver
-
26

I had a post written discussing the Business Week article about the TeaParty.com domain name that is owned by a Canadian band of the same name. The band has owned it since the early 1990s, which is pretty cool considering that there are many great domain names that haven’t been registered for that long.

Anyway, Mike Berkens wrote a post pretty much covering what I wrote, so I am going to change the direction up a bit. Instead, I want to know what you think TeaParty.com is worth in light of the Tea Party movement, and I created a poll to find out.

I’d be interested in knowing your thoughts on whether the band should sell the domain name. If the Tea Party is a short lived “movement,” it could turn out to be a KerryEdwards.com situation, where the domain owner turned down a large offer and the domain name returned to its minimal value after the Kerry Edwards campaign ended. Should the Tea Party pick up more steam and become more mainstream, the domain name could have more value.

The band could move to something like TeaPartyBand.com or TeaPartyMusic.com or something they could hand register. What are your thoughts?


1...1,1431,1441,145...1,559Page 1,144 of 1,559