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AP Report: Answers.com (ANSW) to be Sold for $127 million

Elliot Silver
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Answers.comI just read an Associated Press report on Bloomberg that said publicly traded Answers.com (ANSW on Nasdaq) has agreed to be acquired by Summit Partners  (a private equity firm) for about $127 million. For those who are unaware, Answers.com is a search engine of sorts that people can type in questions in search of answers.

Of course this isn’t a “domain” deal since the acquisition is for a revenue generating company that was built on the generic domain name. However, from my perspective, it’s fantastic to see a deal like this involving a descriptive domain name. When you think of the Answers.com domain name, your immediate thought would be that it’s going to be a site that provides answers, which it does.

There are many domain investors that own domain names that are just as intuitive (if not more so) than Answers.com. IMO, we are going to some big deals involving domain investor-held domain names in the next few years that will rival this deal. Perhaps domain investors won’t be building these businesses on their own, but I can see some taking equity stakes with other companies that use their domain names.

DomainFest Recaps

Elliot Silver
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I just returned from another excellent DomainFest conference, and I have a few things I want to share with those of you who couldn’t attend and maybe some of you who were there but maybe didn’t notice some of these things.

I was pretty busy during the conference, and I didn’t get much of an opportunity to write any recap posts.  Over the next few days, I am going to post a few things that I learned or noticed while in LA, and hopefully it will be able to benefit you in some way.

DomainFest was very well attended (in the ballpark of 700 attendees), and it was the first conference I attended where I went to more than just a couple of the panels.

The next few weeks are going to be particularly busy for me and I am sure for others.

Frank Schilling Denied Entry at DomainFest

Elliot Silver
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Jeff Kupietsky and Frank Schilling

File this under funny things that you don’t see every day.

As you can see in the photo above, Frank didn’t have his badge and wasn’t allowed entry into the afternoon panel at DomainFest. Oversee.net CEO Jeff Kupietsky tried unsuccessfully to vouch for Frank despite showing the security guard his business card and proclaiming, “I’m paying for this event!”

After a few minutes of negotiating with the security guard, a staff member passed by and vouched for Frank.

Classic.

Lunch with Bruce Clay

Elliot Silver
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In addition to domain conferences, I’ve also been to a number of Internet business conferences like SES and Ad:Tech. One speaker I’ve heard at these various conferences is Bruce Clay, a preeminent search engine optimization consultant.

Mr. Clay is a highly regarded speaker on SEO, and his panels and keynotes are usually some of the most well-attended. I’ve learned a good amount of actionable SEO tactics from hearing him speak, and I’ve always come away with something new.

This afternoon at DomainFest, I saw that Mr. Clay was eating lunch and there was only one person sitting at his 8-top table. I sat down with fellow domain investor Bob Olea, and we had a great conversation with Mr. Clay. I was able to ask questions, and I received answers that will surely help with my websites.

One of the best things about DomainFest is that you can meet experts in various fields, including search engine optimization.  I think the advice he gave me was worth the cost of admission.

Make Sure Your Email Address is Accurate

Elliot Silver
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Almost every morning, I receive a Registrant Alert email from DomainTools informing me of newly archived domain names (in their database) that are registered to my domain name and those names that were transferred out or expired. I don’t remember when I signed up for the alerts, but they’re helpful to my business.

A couple of months ago, I started seeing random domain names that were registered to my email address but definitely were not owned by me. At first, I thought it was an accident and an anomaly, but over the past couple of months, I’ve received a whole bunch of notices for domain names I don’t own but are registered to my email address.

After seeing a few of these come through, I did some research and noticed there is very generic registrant information (ie no business or personal name). Additionally, I confirmed that the domain names are registered to my email address, so technically I could request the password and likely the EPP authorization code for the domain names to transfer or change the DNS (not legal).

To make things worse, these aren’t just domain names… Almost every one is a developed website, and they all appear to be physical businesses. Ordinarily, I would reach out to the website owner via the contact form on the site, but the sites are all in Russian. My guess is that they were all developed by the same company (or hosted by the same company) and the host or developer changed his registrant information to mine in error.

This is just a reminder to 1) always keep your Whois information accurate and 2) always manage your own domain names.

Obviously I am not going to do anything nefarious with these domain names, but the owners likely won’t receive their expiration notices.

2011 Prediction Comes True: Monte Cahn and Mike Berkens Start New Venture

Elliot Silver
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At the end of 2010, I posted three predictions for 2011, and it looks like one of those predictions has already come true just a month into the new year. In that blog post, I wrote:

“Monte Cahn will be back in the domain space in some way, although it probably won’t be for a large or well known company.”

According to a press release I received today, Mike Berkens and Monte Cahn have started a new venture called Right of the Dot. The company will “help registries determine launch strategies and auction plans for their new TLDs, but the uniquely experienced consulting firm can also perform high-end corporate domain needs assessment and establish a business domain strategy to compete in the future.”

It’s good to see two of the smartest guys in the domain space start this new venture, and I wish them all the best.

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