After last weeks, revelation in the domainnamewire.com that Godaddy is warehousing domains, and our discussion of how this action is jeopardizing the whole domain industry, now we see where some of the ill gotten profits are going.
GoDaddy shot two completely different SuperBowl ads this week near Los Angeles. Both concepts feature auto racing superstar and GoDaddy Girl Danica Patrick.
“We have two options and they’re both absolutely…GoDaddy-esque,” said Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons, on-set in Los Angeles yesterday. “They are fun, edgy and slightly inappropriate; surely network censors will have a sense of humor, people could use a good laugh these days.”
Prior to its first SuperBowl commercial, Go Daddy’s market share was 16 percent. It jumped to 25 percent immediately following the year its commercial for the SuperBowl was rejected by the network as being to racy. The next year’s Superbowl ad boosted market share up to 32 percent and the company’s market share right now is an overwhelming 45 percent, putting Go Daddy at a level more than three times the size of its closest competitor.
Last year, more than a million visitors clicked on GoDaddy.com, before the game ended.
“We can’t afford not to do it,” Parsons is quoted as saying.
Now for the party.
While most American companies are cancelling their annual holiday parties and scaling back cash incentives for their employees this year, Go Daddy is throwing its biggest party ever! In fact, Go Daddy is spending $2MM at the holiday party.
The party is going to be held at Chase Field in downtown Phoenix, the company is flying in all of its out-of-state employees and their guests, chauffeuring them from the airport and putting them up in a brand new hotel. In all, nearly 4,000 people are expected.
“Someone asked me, why spend all the money on such a spectacular, expensive party … I say, why not? We’ve had our best year ever as a company and this achievement is because of our employees,” explained Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons. “I learned a long time ago, if you treat your people right, the rest takes care of itself.”
More than 2,000 employees and their guests will be treated to food, drinks and gifts. Everyone, even employee guests, will be given a gift. Parsons is expected to roll into the stadium on a motorcycle and dole out random cash prizes as he did last year. As for entertainment, two legendary rock bands are booked to perform, along with an internationally acclaimed comedian, plus there will be a pyrotechnics and a laser show.
Sounds nice.
The only problem is a lot of the money paying for all of this is coming from the monetization of trademarked domains and the sale of such domains for their anticipated trademark PPC income.
That’s nothing to celebrate.
They have had there best year ever but at the cost of us domainers from the sounds of things in the market.
Im with GD and I dont have any issues with them but it does worry me IF I forget to renew a domain I could lose it to them.
If I lost it to someone else say Mike – No issue that my stupid fault but to lose to your registar that is a kick in the teeth!
I believe that most of GD business is made up from small portfolio holders and the average joe buying a domain name for his company or kids and that seems to make them cash as they walk into email account hosting, servers, webdesign etc and that good thats how they should make there money instead of warehousing our domains and we can only assume selling on in the future for cash and taking parking revenue in the mean time from our traffic.
But what can we do?
Regards,
Robbie
Robbie
GD customers are very small domain holders averaging just over 1 per customer.
For me its the trademark problem that concerns me.
The fact that they take names after they put them up for the general public is no big deal.
Much different that Tucows which never offers the names to the general public but just grabs what they want off the top.
Tucows dont give the option which is disgraceful instead they keep them all to themself!
GD does give you the opportunity through there aftermarket program but if you are bidding againest there in house company there always going to win surely?
Regards,
Robbie
Who says crime don’t pay ?
Did you get an invite ? 🙂
I wonder if any of there customers got an invite?
4000 attending the party? Cant all be staff surely?
Regards,
Robbie
*
Ha, Ha, Ha!
Exploitation of women and hinky business practices.
Yeah, I’m laughing–
NOT!
*
“The only problem is a lot of the money paying for all of this is coming from the monetization of trademarked domains and the sale of such domains for their anticipated trademark PPC income.”
Mike,
I think that’s a bit harsh.
I also think that we should be happy that GoDaddy is buying Superbowl ads and celebrating.
Tell me one other registrar that is doing that.
It’s good for our business.
If you want to crucify GoDaddy who are we going to to turn to for Superbowl time promotion of our industry, Network Solutions? Register.com? Tucows?
We have to be careful not to eat our own or ICANN will do it for us.
Be careful what you wish for as they say. You want ICANN involved in our affairs or don’t we.
So, long as GoDaddy isn’t doing anything illegal, I say we should focus on the positive aspects of our industry. If we don’t do that then you can expect ICANN and CADNA to do it for us.
For example, I heard the Castello bros on Frager’s webinar last night. ALL POSITIVE.
Let’s look for the bright side of things people.
We are VERY fortunate to be in this business in these tough times.
Bob Parsons really is the Rick Schwartz of the domain registrar world — seems everyone has an opinion about him.
I like Bob even though I don’t agree with some of his company’s practices.
“A lot of businesses giving out pink slips for the holidays, but we’ll talk to one CEO who’s hiring by the hundreds!” The company may be hiring a limited number of highly technical employees but they are only hiring for attrition on the call center side. In the past, Go Daddy had mass amounts of new employee training sessions. Right now they have none scheduled. Sales and revenue are down.
When Mr. Parsons brings up the 2008 SuperBowl ad, he will state that Go Daddy received the highest number of website traffic on the day it aired. Traffic did not equate to increased sales. I know this because I viewed the reports.
Go Daddy is also on the hot seat for domain warehousing. You may want to read the article in Washington Post. The main issue is here is Go Daddy’s inability to fess up to its antics. They say they don’t purchase domains, yet they do. They are against online pharmas and lobby against it, yet they own pharma domains.
Moreover, Go Daddy’s holiday party is in poor taste given the current economic conditions. As the Arizona Republic featured yesterday, local companies are cutting back and/or donating to the community. Go Daddy should be adopting Google’s way of thinking.
Anything Go Daddy does is for publicity. The holiday party is not about the employees but about how much air and print time Go Daddy can garner from the press. $2mm for the party is cheap if they receive more than that in press exposure.
What a response by the Go Daddy Employee of the Year – LOL – Many Company’s are doing that kind of (Monkey) Business
No one outside the domain world knows anything about the warehousing. None of the people I will be partying with will have any idea what godaddy does besides buying a website.
This is all nice and cute but I think you are blowing things way out of proportions. Given Godaddy’s market share and their 28 million domains registered, I doubt the so-called TM monetization which you suggest accounts for much. We are not even talking pennies on the dollar…
If you want to highlight the bad apples, why don’t you mention the companies which are hurting the domainers much more and are actually within the “industry”. How about DomainsSponsor/Overseethat have a history of monetizing TMs. And pretty much every parking company which is shortchanging domainers with absolutely no transparency .
A funny coincidence, I just got this from DomainSponsor :
DomainSponsor Party at the Playboy Mansion
Thurs Jan 29, 8:00 pm – 1:00 am
This year’s official DOMAINfest party combines good fun and good will, with DomainSponsor hosting an autism awareness and fundraising event at the Mansion, benefiting Autism Speaks˙.
DOMAINfest guests will have an opportunity to mingle with Hollywood celebrities and professional athletes, plus participate in a silent auction of donated sports memorabilia.
—
You can’t really qualify the choice of venues to be great taste. Lets not ask where the money is coming from 😉
Well, if godaddy is smart they could turn this bad situation into something really good… and emerge as the “good guys” all they have to do is admit that there is abuse, take responsibility and control of their business… it’s all pretty much out there already and no more hiding or playing stupid — so just employ filters and get it over with… doh!
Mike
http://www.wannadevelop.com/
UPDATE
You can read a report of the party at:
http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2008/12/15/20081215sr-godaddy1216.html
wow…im scared the other answerd…jajaja ……very nice ….