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Bump.com – VC Funded Startup on DigiMedia Domain Name

Elliot Silver
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DigimediaAnyone that’s been around the domain industry for any length of time has almost certainly come across DigiMedia-owned domain names. You’ve probably also heard about Scott Day, the company’s founder whose previous career before domain names was in the farming field (pun intended).

I read an article in Mashable about a new startup called Bump, operating on Bump.com (via Berkens’ Facebook feed). Bump is a unique social networking startup that wants people to be able to connect using license plates as the primary vehicle (pun intended). It’s a unique concept, and upon checking the Whois for Bump.com, I noticed that DigiMedia is the owner.

Although I don’t have any specifics about this deal/venture, there was an article about Bump’s funding, which mentioned DigiMedia. According to the article,

“Thrower’s brand new association so distant has lifted $1 million in seed funding, from Digimedia, Tal Kerret (chairman of Oberon Media), Christophe Vandaele (chairman of Vandaele Holdings), Charlie Baker (partner with DLA Piper), Bill Hein (former SVP during EMI) as well as Bob Ezrin (music producer). It additionally is in talks to lift the $6 million Series B turn as well as has done an merger in the imaging record space.”

I believe the DigiMedia team embraces partnership opportunities with best of breed companies and entrepreneurs on some of their domain names. You can have a look at FantasyFootball.com as another example of a great domain name in use by the company.

Its nice to see good things happening for this company. As anyone who has met Scott Day and Jay Chapman (DigiMedia President) can tell you, the company principals are great guys.

Sunday Update

Elliot Silver
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I’m out of town this weekend, and I hope you are enjoying some time off from work. Big week coming up.

A few people have posted comments asking for   rationale for some of my domain names’ asking prices. It’s a combination of gut instinct, comps, and even market saturation. Sometimes I want to sell a name quickly, and will price it accordingly. Other times, a rapid sale isn’t necessary, so I will price a name on the high side and slowly reduce the price, letting buyers figure out a fair price between my listed price and bottom price.   I don’t always sell names at the list price, but I sell a lot of domain names.

Just to give you an idea of my company’s domain sales for 2010, the average sales price for me has been $2,616.36. This includes everything from selling names as cheaply as “6 hand registered names for $100 total” to a number of large sales.

I have a great restaurant recommendation for you for the next time you’re in Paris. You’ll want to visit Le Hide near Champs Elysees. Not only will you have a great dinner, but you won’t break the bank either.

Thanks to Fairytale Brownies of Brownies.com & Brownie.com for the box of awesome brownies they sent me. I let them know that Brownie.com wasn’t resolving anywhere, and I hope the DNS fix will bring them additional business this holiday season.

If you like drinking good beer, I have a suggestion for a beer you might want to try. The other night, I had a bottle of Supplication from the Russian River Brewing Company. It was the most expensive beer I’ve had ($22 for a 12.7 oz), but it was great. You can probably get it in stores for $10/beer, and it’s worth a try.

Snapnames & Moniker: Changes Coming

Elliot Silver
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According to an email that was sent to Moniker and Snapnames clients on Saturday afternoon, some big changes will be coming based on feedback received from clients. The updates and upgrades will be made on Monday, September 27, 2010.

Some of the changes described in the email include:

  • You can now register and search for domain names more quickly while keeping up-to-date on upcoming opportunities for buying and selling domain names at auctions.This includes a more streamlined navigation as well as look and feel.
  • The company opened, and will continue to add to, a resource center to provide you information and tips. This includes articles, videos and interviews.
  • Account Management: Moniker Domain Management and SnapNames Auction activities can now be found in the “My Account” area of each site.
  • Their support portal now includes an expanded knowledge base where you can submit and track your questions across all of your Oversee.net accounts. The portal is available and monitored 365 days a year.

You can have a look at the SnapNames video of changes made in the account area of the sites, and/or you can view the Moniker video of changes made in the account area of the sites.

Domain/IP Lawyer Launches Website on TrademarkAttorneys.com

Elliot Silver
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New York City-based intellectual property lawyer Brett Lewis (better known by many as a domain lawyer), from the law firm of Lewis & Hand, has launched a new website on the generic domain name TrademarkAttorneys.com.

The website has started out as a blog, and it will eventually grow into a full-fledged trademark law website. The recently launched website is currently ranked No.2 on Bing and Yahoo, and it is on the second page of Google for the competitive keywords. It’s an advantage of owning a keyword domain name that would have been much more difficult had Lewis tried to rank highly using his law firm’s corporate domain name.

The domain name was purchased for an undisclosed sum a few months ago from well-known domain investor, Rob Grant. This was a name that had been previously up for auction, and I thought it would be a great buy for someone in that field.

When asked about his motivations for building the site, Lewis replied, “we’re excited to own the name and to be developing a blog.   The TrademarkAttorneys.com blog will have a heavy focus on domains, and hopefully can be a resource for the domaining community.”

Once Lewis’ site ranks in the top of Google for his key terms, he will save significant money on pay per click advertising. As with any domain investment, it’s a significant short term expense, but will certainly pay off over time.

Get Back in Touch With Previous Inquirers

Elliot Silver
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I recently saw a good reported sale of a domain name I had inquired about a couple of years ago. I made an offer via email and the domain owner told me it wasn’t for sale. I have no idea whether it wasn’t really for sale at the time or whether my offer hadn’t piqued his interest.

The sales price looks reasonable, and it wasn’t that many thousands of dollars from my offer. Had the previous owner given me that price when I first inquired, I am almost certain I would have bought it, since my opening offers are generally not the most I will pay for a given name, and it was certainly in the ballpark.

The moral of the story is that if you receive an offer that makes you want to sell the domain name, you might consider getting in touch with the people who previously inquired about the domain name. Even if you set a price higher than the high offer, you can possible make more money. Circumstances may have changed and it may bring back interest in that particular domain name for someone who had previously inquired.

At worst, you waste a day or two waiting for a reply. At best, you can generate some incremental revenue or create a private bidding war between two interested parties.

Zoosk or Zooks? Who Cares – The Company Owns Both

Elliot Silver
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Zooks

I was watching some late night television the other night when I saw a commercial for Zoosk.com… or was it Zooks.com? It’s actually Zoosk, and the company did two things I consider smart when it comes to domain names and its website.

The company recognized that some consumers confuse Zoosk and Zooks, and both domain names were purchased. It appears that they bought the Zooks.com domain name from a Harley Davidson dealership called Big Barn Harley-Davidson. Interestingly, it was registered to a company called Media Market in Idaho in between the Harley dealership and this dating website, and I previously wrote about Media Market appearing to make domain acquisitions on behalf of large companies.

The second smart move I noticed was that on the typo Zooks.com domain name, they actually have a small portal built to promote the Zoosk brand and to direct visitors to the correct website. In fact, the Zooks.com mini portal mentions, “Zooks is a common misspelling of Zoosk.”

According to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, “Zooks” gets nearly 15,000 exact match searches globally each month. By having a website on Zooks.com, the company is ranked #2 on Google for this search, just behind the correct Zoosk.com website. With the top results known to get the majority of traffic from searchers, owning this position as a result of building the mini portal instead of a 301 redirect was brilliant. The company now owns the top 3 results, and it also has sitelinks on the first.

Smart moves for Zoosk!

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