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Antony Van Couvering Named CEO of Top Level Domain Holdings

Elliot Silver
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Top Level Domain Holdings CEOI just read a news release announcing that Top Level Domain Holdings has named Antony Van Couvering its CEO. Van Couvering previously served as the company’s Chief Operating Officer, and he is also CEO of Minds + Machines, a company operated by TLDH.

Van Couvering is one of the most intelligent and well spoken individuals in the domain space. He is an expert in the workings of ICANN, and his appointment to CEO has to do with this expertise. He is also one of the most well-versed individuals when it comes to the new gTLD domain names that are expected to be rolled out in the not so distant future.

Top Level Domain Holdings is a public company, and its stock is traded on the London Stock Exchange, under the symbol TLDH. Congrats to Antony on this well-deserved promotion.

Dallas Cowboys Fumble Domain Name on Big Day for News as Coach Phillips is Fired

Elliot Silver
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A few days ago I wrote about the Cowboys.com domain name going up for sale on Sedo, brokered by Dave Evanson. This came three years after the Cowboys infamously bid and won the Cowboys.com domain name at auction, but they didn’t complete the deal after apparently confusing the price, thinking the winning bid was $275.00 rather than the actual $275,000.00.

Apparently the Dallas Cowboys suffered another domain name  embarrassment today. It looks like the Cowboys didn’t renew its DallasCowboys.com domain name on time, and as a result, the default Network Solutions landing page is currently showing (complete with pictures of young soccer players).

This afternoon, the Cowboys fired coach Wade Phillips after their horrendous 1-7 start to the season. I am sure a lot of people turned to DallasCowboys.com (and probably Cowboys.com, too) to learn more about the firing, directly from the team. Unfortunately for them, they were disappointed in the Cowboys once again.

The good news is that the Cowboys appear to have renewed the domain name through 2020, and the domain name should soon  propagate  back to its website. The bad news is that the Cowboys will still be bad whether the website works or doesn’t.

Choosing a Domain Name to Develop

Elliot Silver
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Most domain investors have contemplated development at one point or another. Some people move forward with development projects and others opt to simply be a domain investor instead of trying their luck at development.  Here are a few things to consider:

1) Cost of development and  maintenance. Programming, security updates, and design work can be expensive. Weigh these costs against the realistic  profitability  expectation to see if it’s worth it.

2) Time commitment. Many websites aren’t (or shouldn’t be) “set it and forget it.” Think about how much time it will take to update the site (content, upgrades, inventory…etc) and determine if you’ll be able to commit that amount of time.

3) Advertising, marketing, and SEO budget. Even if you have a great website on a category defining domain name, you will still need to spend money advertising your new site and doing SEO work to get traffic. Think about whether you’ll be able to afford to do this – either with your own time or funds.

4) Add value to the domain name. If you develop the domain name, is it likely going to make an impact in search rankings? Will a potential buyer just scrap your website upon domain acquisition? It’s likely that your development won’t hurt the domain name, but if it doesn’t really enhance its value by more than you’re paying to develop it, you might want to reconsider.

5) Interesting topic. If the development topic isn’t of interest to you and you have no interest in learning more about it or dedicating time to it, you might want to pass. It’s not fun to have to research a topic you have no interest in … like tropical birds in my case.

There are a lot of considerations to make before devoting your time and your money to building a website. Sometimes we see huge sales like Diapers.com / Soap.com and we think we can easily take a big domain name, build it out, and sell it for a great ROI. The truth is that most of us won’t be able to do it.

Think about these things before you throw your good money after “bad.”

Sunday Updates – New York City Marathon Edition

Elliot Silver
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It’s a big Sunday for me, but I feel lazy right now. My wife is running in the ING New York City Marathon this morning, and she’s been up since 4:30am. I will be running around finding a couple of good spots to watch the run, so I am sure I will be tired when it’s all done.

Here are a few updates for Sunday:

– Yesterday, Adam posted a comment in a post that appears to have turned into a  referendum  on .TV, “They might change their mind and use it when Google launches Google TV.” I hadn’t thought about Google using .TV, but that could change the awareness of .TV and bring more value. The big issue is that Google seems to be using Google.com/TV instead. In fact, Google.TV forwards to Google.com – not even their Google TV website. Whether Google brands .TV or .COM could have big implications for .TV investors (I am not one of them yet).

– The more I think about it, the more I know how valuable a generic domain name is to a business. You can see it with the sale of Quidsi (owner of Diapers.com and Soap.com) to Amazon. Even more important though is the founders’ entrepreneurial spirit, business  acumen, and ability to raise VC funding if necessary for growth.

– Speaking of Quidsi, it was reported on the Next Level Media, LLC website that Quidsi previously acquired YoYo.com for $500,000. I believe this domain name was owned by a well known domain investor’s company.

– Good article on TheDomains.com yesterday about separating different business units into individual companies for legal purposes. It’s a reason I have two completely separate companies with different focuses. It’s a good read if you are serious about domain names.

– I finally want to congratulate my brother Scott for passing the Bar in the State of New York and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I acquired a pretty easy to remember domain name for him to use when he’s ready… SHS.com.

Parent Company of Diapers.com & Soap.com to be Acquired by Amazon

Elliot Silver
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Fortune is reporting that Amazon is acquiring Quidsi, the parent company of Diapers.com and Soap.com, in a $540 million acquisition. This is a cash deal, and the founders of Quidsi have been reportedly signed to employment contracts by Amazon.

I think this is a very smart move by Amazon, and it follows the company’s acquisition of online retailer Zappos, which was announced about 15 months ago. The two companies have continued to run separately after that acquisition, and I would imagine Amazon will continue to leverage the Diapers.com and Soap.com brands as separate business entities.

It was just a few months ago (in July of 2010) that Quidsi launched Soap.com. At that time, it was reported that Diapers.com had revenue of over $300 million annually.

As I mentioned previously, Quidsi’s business model seems very similar to TABcom, LLC (known before as PetsUnited), the $100 million+ company that operates Dog.com, Horse.com, Garden.com, Fish.com, and many more e-commerce websites on generic domain names. I wonder if Amazon will give Alex Tabibi a call in the near future.

Cooking Channels Owns .TV Domain But Doesn’t Use It for Branding

Elliot Silver
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CookingChannelTV.comI recently noticed that my cable tv provider added a new channel to the already huge lineup. The Cooking Channel features a number of cooking shows featuring famous as well as up and coming chefs. I guess it’s probably because the Food Network focuses on more than just cooking.

While watching Kelsey’s Essentials, I heard her mention the url of the Cooking Channel’s website, and I was a bit surprised by what they chose: CookingChannelTV.com.  The Cooking Channel does own CookingChannel.TV (a name the company acquired sometime between May and July 2010), but they understand that most people know .com, so they are branding CookingChannelTV.com instead.

They do smartly forward the .TV domain name to their website, but it was somewhat surprising that they didn’t use .TV and do the reverse since that almost seems more intuitive.

Unfortunately for Scripps (the owner of the Cooking Channel), CookingChannel.com is owned by Reflex Publishing, a company that is known to not sell its great generic domain names.

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