Home Blog Page 1244

Lalaloopsy Dolls: Top 2010 Christmas Gifts But Not Good Domain Strategy

Elliot Silver
-
1

Lalaloopsy Dolls offered by MGA Entertainment are some of the hottest Christmas toys in 2010. Retailers are selling out of these Dolls left and right, and people are turning to the Internet to buy these dolls for Christmas gifts.

Although the company that sells the dolls registered the difficult to spell domain name,  Lalaloopsy.com, back in August of 2010, it didn’t register other domain names that are important to its brand. Both  LalaloopsyDoll.com and  LalaloopsyDolls.com are registered to people who don’t appear to be affiliated with the company.

Both these descriptive domain names have advertising on them with links to Christmas gifts. Additionally, typos of the brand domain name have also been registered and have PPC links on them.

Had the company spent less than $100 more, it could have bought a number of strategic domain names to protect the brand (and control visitors) online. Instead, private individuals appear to control these key Internet assets.

With childrens’ brands, it is even more critical that companies understand domain names and domain name strategy. Nefarious companies and individuals can easily take typos and other domain names and send visitors to any website they choose. They can also generate PPC revenue by putting ads on the domain names.

Perhaps a corporate domain registrar like Mark Monitor (where Lalaloopsy.com is registered) could add a tool that shows potential domain name typos at the time of purchase and warn registrants that others could buy similar sounding domain names. It would help generate revenue for them and would provide a service to registrants.

Oversee Looking to Hire Product Manager

Elliot Silver
-
2

A listing for a job opening at Oversee.net hit my inbox via Google Alerts this morning, and I wanted to pass the information along to anyone that might be looking for more of a corporate job in the domain space.

The company is looking to hire a Product Manager for its Monetization Domain Services division. The responsibilities this job entails includes the following: “defining product strategy, product requirements, product positioning, competitive intelligence, & defining and tracking product and business success metrics for the next generation of revenue drivers for the division. This position requires an individual that can work closely and collaboratively with a cross-functional team that includes product & engineering team, business, sales, marketing, analytics, legal and finance.”

Oversee.net is one of the most well-rounded domain companies, and the company operates in just about all verticals of the domain space. The person who is hired will work out of the company’s Los Angeles office.

You can see the Craigslist listing here, and that has information about the job requirements as well as applying for the job.

Sunday Updates

Elliot Silver
-
2

I am back home after a fun week in Las Vegas. I think we probably stayed a day longer than we should have. Didn’t do so well at the tables, but staged a comeback at the Playboy Club at the Palms. Aria is beautiful and has some great restaurants. I’d recommend staying there or Mandarin Oriental the next time you’re in Vegas.

On to some Sunday updates:

– Just before leaving for LV, I was able to buy DogGroomers.com, DogGroomers.net, DogGroomers.org, DogGroomer.net, and DogGroomer.org. I am fairly certain that I will develop DogGroomers.com, but I need to figure out what to do with the other names. Should I build smaller sites, sell the domain names to recoup some of my investment, or give some dog grooming companies a deal to develop these names with links back to my site.  TBD. Advice appreciated.

– The next few weeks are going to be interesting for DogWalker.com, since the first renewals will be starting. I think over 80% of the Paypal subscriptions are still active, but I don’t have experience with renewals yet, although traffic has been very strong. Fingers are crossed.

– Stephen Douglas, who has a good collection of 3D and other future trend domain names, has started a blog thread about 3D domain names. If you’re looking for some info about investing in these types of names or future trend names, you might learn something from his insight.

– Good post about domain sales from Sahar today. Nice to see him blogging regularly again about domain names.

Sex.com: What Do You Do With It?

Elliot Silver
-
14

As you’re no doubt aware by now, Sex.com was recently sold by Sedo for a record breaking all-cash deal of $13,000,000. The domain name has an interesting history and there have been various things on the site.

If you owned Sex.com, how would you develop the domain name? We all know the saying that “sex sells,” but the real question would be how to make money from Sex.com.

IMO, I don’t think people are actually looking to get laid via Sex.com, although they might be looking to get off so to say. To satiate these customers, sex videos would seem to be the answer. However, if visitors are looking for porn, there are many free sites that would directly compete with a porn offering, and monetizing the traffic could be difficult.

Of course it could be a site about sex – tips and toys, perhaps. However, it would seem that would be a difficult way to earn a return on the $13 million investment. There would probably be more targeted domain names that could be bought for much less.

Sex.com has received considerable press coverage, and perhaps that alone would be worth millions of dollars in brand equity. It’s a cornerstone property for sure, but making money seems to have been difficult.

So the $13,000,000 questions is what would you do with Sex.com if you owned it?

Guest Post: Why Domain Names with Hyphens Are (Possibly) Undervalued

Elliot Silver
-
54

This is a guest post written by a reader of my blog who would prefer to remain anonymous. What are your thoughts?

Most likely you have shyed away from investing in domain names with hyphens in, they have traditionally been seen as barely worth the reg fee. Im finding this may be grossly undervaluing what is essentially a slightly different class of domain asset. Of course many domains with – in are indeed worthless, just like their big brother non hyphen names.

Take the case of a product/service type ‘does what it says on the tin’ exact match domain name – eg UsefulWidgets .com

This domain name is almost certainly not available for casual sale, if at all. Useful-Widgets.com may well be for sale at reg fee, in lots of cases Im finding – it is.

Your’e probably saying yes, its available to hand reg because its *worthless*. Perhaps not, it all comes down to the competition. If the owner of nonhyphen usefulwidgets.com simply has the page parked, or worse – badly forwarded with url masking on amazon type affiliate links, then its game on!

Most often this domain IS NOT EVEN INDEXED IN GOOGLE! ‘beating’ it,  to top spot in G’s index will be a pushover, especially for the owner of hand reg  useful-widgets.com. If they do it right they will have first dibs on world online sales of useful widgets, at least the ones who googled ‘useful widgets’.

Of course its probably only a matter of time until the nonhypen domain is developed, but in the meantime  the way is clear. Theres no telling when this may happen 1, 2, 5, 10+ years – some domains have asking prices that dramatically lower their chances of imminent development. By that time, you may well have a thriving business on Useful-Widgets.com that the new nonhyphen owners have no choice but to fight or buy,  for probably a lot more than reg fee and your time/outlay in development.

When Selling Domain Names to End User, Use the Whois Email Address

Elliot Silver
-
5

I’ve written extensively about selling domain names to end users, and one thing I want to recommend is that you use the registrant email (or phone number) found in a Whois lookup as a means of getting in touch with the proper person.

Oftentimes, a business website only offers a contact form to contact them. If the company is larger or if it’s a company that would need a customer service contact (ie an ecommerce company where most people are writing to check on orders), your email may be lost in the process or reviewed by someone who doesn’t know how to handle your request.

Instead of taking a chance and sending the email via form that may not be read by a decision maker (or calling the wrong department), use a Whois service like Domaintools and find the email address on record. Chances are good that it’s a person in the executive offices or possibly the actual business owner.

I’ve also found the History tool to be helpful, since many companies change the Registrant email once they grow sufficiently enough that the owner/founder is more hands off. The History tool costs $15/month as part of the Silver membership, and if you are serious about buying domain names and need to check on a domain name’s history, it’s an essential tool.

1...1,2431,2441,245...1,558Page 1,244 of 1,558