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Some Saturday Updates

Elliot Silver
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Hope you are having a nice Saturday and that it is the start of a good weekend for you. Here are a few updates:

  • It’s been an interesting few weeks in the domain business. Lots of controversy on a few different issues. As domain investors, we always need to keep our ears perked and believe that everyone is looking out for their own best interests. It’s sucky, but that’s the nature of this fairly transient business where anyone with a few dollars can invest in domain names.
  • BigJumbo and Domain Sherpa are each giving $5.00 to Ronald McDonald House for every person that becomes a fan of BigJumbo on Facebook (up to $500/each).  There are now 192 fans of BigJumbo on Facebook, and before the special offer there were 139.  So if 239 (47 more) fans “like” BigJumbo by the end of the day tomorrrow, Ronald McDonald House will get $1,000! It’s an easy way to help this great non-profit.
  • Despite having the best month in a couple years this past January and doing steady business in February, March has been pretty dead for me on the domain sales front. I sold a couple of names but that’s about it. I haven’t really bought much either, but if you are feeling the pinch, it’s not really isolated to you.
  • I’ve taken quite a bit of flack in private (and in the comments) for  my article yesterday, and I am sure a portion of it is deserved. I was defending the reputation of a company that has a bunch of names that contain well known trademarks and had them listed for sale. I know I was told the names were registered by accident, but it still does look bad for domain investors and makes it easier to label our activities as squatting. I stand by what I wrote, but I can see why some people are upset.
  • DogWalker.com hit a pretty big milestone this past week – it’s 500 paid advertisement.  I’ve worked on the site more than I imagined when I started, but things have been going well. It’s very cool for me because it’s the first real site of mine that has taken off like this (excluding this blog) – both in terms of traffic and revenue. DogGroomers.com has not been as successful yet (still only in month 4), so I need to reconcile why dog walkers keep signing up and dog groomers are reluctant so far.

Tucows Wins Lorenzo.com UDRP

Elliot Silver
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Tucows LogoIn January, I reported that a company called Lorenzo International had filed a UDRP for the domain name, Lorenzo.com. This domain name is owned by Tucows and is a part of the company’s  NetIdentity suite of first and last name domain names, some of which have been the subject of successfully defended UDRP filings in the past.

According to the discussion in the UDRP decision (not yet available online), the company’s usage of Lorenzo.com is legitimate, and the complaint was denied. From the UDRP decision:

“there is no evidence that the Respondent’s continuing use of the domain name in the same way in connection with its Personal Names Service is not bona fide. The Respondent states that it was not aware of the Complainant or of its claim to trademark rights until it received the Complaint. The Complainant has therefore demonstrated that prior to any notice to it of the dispute it used the disputed domain name in the bona fide offering of its services.”

Based on prior results of similar cases, it’s not really surprising to me that Tucows prevailed in this UDRP. As a domain owner, it’s frustrating to see another UDRP case filed where one company thinks it has more rights to a descriptive domain name than the registrant.

A three person panel with Desmond J. Ryan AM, Dan Hunter, and David E. Sorkin ruled on this UDRP decision. Tucows was represented by AlvaradoSmith.

TechCrunch Article Should Update Characterization of Domain Company

Elliot Silver
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DomainMarket.comTechCrunch is one of my favorite websites to read, and I have to say, I spend quite a bit of time on the site. I especially enjoy reading articles by Michael Arrington, Robin Wauters, and Erick Schonfeld, two TechCrunch staff journalists. Unfortunately, I disagree with the portrayal of Mike Mann’s Domain Asset Holdings in yesterday’s article about Facebook’s UDRP filing for 21 domain names.

First, let’s start with the case. Facebook filed a UDRP for 21 domain names owned by Domain Asset Holdings that included the term “Facebook” in them. Some of these names include FacebookBabes.com, FacebookCheats.com…etc. Some might think it’s a cut and dry case, but with trademark law, there’s very little that is cut and dry.

When I was in college, there was a freshman facebook distributed to all RAs, administrators, and freshmen. I am sure there are plenty of other colleges that did and still do the same. Facebook the company did not coin the term “facebook” despite making it into a well-known brand. That being said, according to Domain Asset Holdings founder, Mike Mann, “those names were registered by accident and we are trying to give them back to them.”

My biggest issue with the article is Robin’s characterization of Mann’s company. The article stated that these 21 “domain names are all currently owned by a company called Domain Asset Holdings, a  known  domain squatter based in Potomac, Maryland.” The article linked to a legal action for the domain name CustomResins.com, which appears to have settled.

There are two organizations that handle UDRP cases: World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and National Arbitration Forum (NAF). According to the WIPO database, there were no UDRP decisions with Domain Asset Holdings listed as the respondent. The NAF database lists two decisions with Domain Asset Holdings as the respondent. Both of these cases ended with Domain Asset Holdings winning.

In looking at Domain Asset Holdings’ nameservers, the company appears to own over one hundred thousand domain names. Having just two UDRP decisions (not including the recent Facebook filing) is quite remarkable for a company with this many domain names. This surely isn’t the sign of a company that’s a “known domain squatter.”

Furthermore, Mike Mann is the entrepreneur who previously sold BuyDomains to NameMedia. I don’t know the purchase price, but I’ve heard it was many millions of dollars. I’ve seen BuyDomains lose very few UDRP cases. Both of Mann’s companies generally invest in descriptive domain names, not trademarks.

For whatever reason, Domain Asset Holdings “accidentally” registered a group of names with trademarks in them and is trying to give them back to the company (according to Mike Mann). In my opinion, the description of Mann’s company as a known domain squatter is quite inaccurate, and I would hope Robin considers changing it.

***Update***

Mike Mann posted a comment on Robin’s article today stating “we have 150,000 names many of which a machine registered.”

Domain Sherpa Ups the Fundraising Ante!

Elliot Silver
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DomainSherpa.comYesterday afternoon I wrote about BigJumbo’s special offer to donate $5.00 to my wife’s and my fundraising effort for the Ronald McDonald House for every person to “Like” its Facebook page, up to $500. The starting point was 139 fans, and we’re now at 174 fans.

This was very cool of them to do, and I have even better news to report about this today.

Domain Sherpa has offered to match the funds that BigJumbo donates. If 100 domain investors visit the BigJumbo Facebook page and click the big “Like” button on top, Ronald McDonald House will receive $1,000 in total from these two companies. It’s a pretty awesome gesture on the part of Domain Sherpa, and it’s greatly appreciated by me and the Ronald McDonald House.

The great news is that Karen and I reached our $5,000 fundraising goal. This $5,000 number was arbitrary, and every dollar will be beneficial to the Ronald McDonald House.

BigJumbo Facebook Challenge to Raise $500 for Ronald McDonald House

Elliot Silver
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As you are well aware, I’ve been raising money for the Ronald McDonald House, and things have been going well so far (thank you for that!) I was speaking with Andrew Allemann about ways to raise funds for the Ronald McDonald House, and he and his team at BigJumbo came up with a special offer that won’t cost you anything but will help RMH.

For every additional person that becomes a Facebook fan of BigJumbo from now until Sunday, the company will donate $5.00 to my fundraising effort for the Ronald McDonald House, up to $500 in total. It’s really simple to become a Facebook fan of the company, and by doing it, you’re helping RMH.

At the moment, BigJumbo has 139 Facebook fans, so if we can get that number to 239 (or higher) by Sunday, Ronald McDonald House will receive $500.  Can you help out and become a fan of BigJumbo by clicking the big “Like” button?

5 With John Ferber… Interview with Advertising.com Co-Founder

Elliot Silver
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Secret MillionaireJohn Ferber is most well known for being the co-founder of Advertising.com, with his brother, Scott Ferber. The Ferber brothers later sold Advertising.com to Time for somewhere in the ballpark of $500 million. While with Advertising.com,  John was named Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young, and he was also named one of IT Recruiter Magazine’s “Top Techies to Watch.” 

More recently, John co-founded a company called Domain Holdings, LLC, a domain name management and monetization company. The company’s portfolio of developed websites includes Handyman.com, HomeMortgage.com, Silver.com, and many other descriptive domain names.

John is also a philanthropist, and he founded a website called Microgiving.com, which is a “crowd funding website that lets you raise money online to fund a project” to help a non-profit organization. Based on his well-rounded background, it’s not really a surprise that he will be featured in an upcoming episode of ABC’s Secret Millionaire on Sunday, March 27th.

I had the chance to interview John so you can get to know him better prior to his Secret Millionaire episode:

ES: What were the keys to your success in growing Advertising.com from a great descriptive domain name into a multi-million dollar brand?

JF: Well a little history — Advertising.com was originally called Teknosurf Technologies — a coworker brought the opportunity to acquire advertising.com to our (My brother Scott and I were the founders of Advertising.com) attention and the initial price was 1 million and we weren’t interested, a few days later the price dropped to 100k if we could close on it that same day and our main decision was that we knew it was worth at least 100k, however we had no plans or intentions to change our name or any planned use when we acquired it.

Fast forward about 6 months later and we started getting feedback from our Sales Team that Teknosurf was not an intuitive name for the company and was creating friction in the sales process in the super important first 30 seconds of meeting someone and explaining who we are and what we do… Voila, it occured to us we owned Advertising.com and we quickly decided and implemented on changing our name to the company..

With that all being said we were never really able to measure the impact of our name/domain on our overall sales and growth of the company.. At the end of the day Advertising.com was purchased based on the underlying results of the company which was 750 employees, doing a couple hundred million in revenues, etc at the time….

So while I am sure that having the name was very valuable to the company, ultimately the purchase by AOL wasnt for an undeveloped premium domain name but a real, functioning, profitable business, that also had a great category defining domain name…

ES: How is Domain Holdings leveraging your knowledge and experience to build value on domain names owned by your company’s clients and partners?

JF: The entire company, every single person has historical internet marketing experience, from my expertise with Internet Marketing overall, Chad Folkening’s tremendous Domain expertise, Jason Boshoff our CEO (10 years SEO), Jeremy Kayne (former General Manager of Shop Local), Sean Sullivan a very successful domainer, etc, we combine all of our individual talents and knowledge together on behalf of our own portfolios as well as our partners.

We build our technology and solutions first for ourselves and once they are battle tested and proven to be creating value we extend them to our partners for their benefit as well.

ES: When people Google “John Ferber,” the first thing they’ll probably learn is your background with Advertising.com. What else would you like people to know about who you are, what you’ve accomplished, and what your goals are?

JF: Well first and foremost I’m really just a normal average guy, I love spending time with my girlfriend, family, friends, watersports, playing guitar, going to concerts, exercising, living an increasingly healthier lifestyle, and trying my best to enjoy life and treasure every moment as much as possible… I reside in South Florida and really love it down here, there’s so much do to all the time, never a dull moment…

It’s flattering that people think highly of what I’ve personally accomplished but i dont personally reflect on it much, I’m 37 years old and I think I have alot of value creation left ahead of me and I look forward to doing that, asides from my business interests, I have a yearning desire to try to help the planet and society be a better place in a substantial way, my foundation, The Microgiving Foundation is my first attempt at doing so, it’s a platform that lets people raise money for anything, with a particular focus on Hardship situations, we’re in year 3 of operations and growing more and more, but there is still alot of work to be done.. I have a few other concepts in my mind and hopefully in a few years I can start to work on those as well..

ES: Even after selling a company for somewhere in the ballpark of half a billion, you’ve continued to work hard and start new companies and organizations. What drives you in your endeavors, and why not just kick back and live the easy life?

JF: It’s in my DNA… Until I was about 21, I was honestly the laziest person alive, i did the bare minimum with everything, i.e. school, etc to get by and nothing more, then one day as if I was struck by lightning my entire attitude towards life changed… Suddenly I loved to work, school, etc… I finished college as fast as I could rather than coasting by and starting my first company just as I was finishing school…

I used to watch the same reruns on TV over and over, now I can not watch the same episode twice, From the moment I wake up til the moment I goto sleep my mind is racing and I am racing through the day trying to accomplish as much as I can and loving every minute of it…

ES: Over the last several years, you’ve become a philanthropist, giving millions of dollars in money and your time to non-profit organizations. What are your favorite causes/organizations, and how can others with less money become involved?

JF: I dont like to single out any specific causes, etc.. I have some personal feelings for MS, MD, CF, and Cancer because of friends and family whom I’ve known who’ve battled it, but I spend most of my philanthropic time and most of the money towards the Microgiving Foundation and trying to get more and more people to use it, etc…

The more people use it, the more people get helped, etc.. So I try to focus on the bigger picture as being an enabler for charity and being agnostic to specific causes… While nowhere near the scale that Mike Mann and his team has achieved with GrassRoots.org, I think we share some similar philosophies about the best use of our time and money is to help provide philanthropic services as widely as we can as opposed to any one specific cause…

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