In today’s installment of Domain Movers where I detect domain names that have been newly registered, acquired or simply moving for one reason or another, mainly all by large companies. As always, these are often very early detections and can lead into future brands, products, services, advertising campaigns and much more.
We heavily rely on the whois system to provide accurate data but we can not always tell everything simply based on whois records. Please keep that in mind.
A currently unknown MarkMonitor client using the generic DnStination Inc. whois data has registered several “BeYu” domain names like BeyuOnDemand.com, BeyuPlayer.com, BeyuReality.com, BeyuScreen.com, BeyuScreen.tv, BeyuTV.com Beyu.tv, and BeyuView.com. To note, on Beyu.tv for an example, the name servers are listed as ns1.nbcuni.com which is owned by NBC Universal Media LLC. Beyu.com is listed for sale at Sedo with a make offer.
First Marblehead Education Resources, Inc. is making a play with the term Raise and registered a bunch of domains with the term in it like, MeetRaise.com, RaiseLoan.com, RaiseConsolidation.com, RaiseEdu.com, RaiseConsolidationLoan.com and many many more. The one problem for them? Raise.com sold about March 10, 2014 to Raise Marketplace who sells gift cards, so that domain is very likely out of the question for them.
Qualcomm Inc. acquired the domain name Plaza.com in some fashion from Microsoft on April 30, 2010 and has yet to do anything with the domain name. It doesn’t resolve. The domain has transferred out of CSC to MarkMonitor.
CVS Pharmacy, Inc. has registered the domain name DrivenCVS.com adding to its domain name portfolio of over 900 domain names.
Nen.com which was owned by Sr Director Global IT Infrastructure and registered at MarkMonitor has went into generic whois data at MarkMonitor under the DnStinations.com Inc. data. The domain resolves to a “forbidden” page but the URL indicates the domain being listed for sale, as it contains “domain inquire” in it. I reached out to MarkMonitor and they did state the domain is being offered for sale with an offering price of $175,000.
Brunswick Bowling Products, LLC registered the domain name SyncPassport.com and BrunswickCloud.com.
McDonald’s Corporation registered the domain names YesMCD.com and NoMCD.com adding to its other 800+ domain names.
Aviva PLC has registered the domain name GoodThinking-Aviva.com / .net adding to its domain name portfolio of nearly 4,000 domain names. They do not own GoodThinking.com.
Microsoft Corporation has secured the domain name MicrosoftEdge.org, a domain that was recently registered on March 17, 2015 by a Sean Murphy of Blacknight Internet Solutions Limited. I did a UDRP search and did not see one filed, but there is potential that a C&D letter was sent and the domain was handed over. Microsoft registered the .net on March 17, 2015 and somebody from China registered the .com in January 2015.
Microsoft did file a UDRP on MicrosoftEdge.com and 6 other domains at the same time, winning on June 17, 2015.
Microsoft has also acquired the domain name ClassDashboard.com according to whois records from a John Baudhuin of Mad Dogg Athletics, Inc. The domain has been registered since October 9, 2007. Mad Dogg owns Spinning.com and offers indoor cycling goods.
Helium.com may have acquired by Helium Systems Inc. from R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company, on December 24, 2014 when the domain name transferred out of NSI to Tucows and went under privacy protection. The service offers solutions to connecting to the cloud.
Amazon Technologies has registered the domain names AmazonVoiceService.com and AmazonVoiceServices.com. They have also registered AmazonSchool.com, the domain was registered before.
Match.com, LLC registered the domain name DateHotMoms.com adding to its nearly 2,400 other domain names.
Google Inc. registered the domain name App-Measurement.com and this is interesting because Facebook Inc. / Atlas Solutions, LLC owns AppMeasurement.com.
HLT Domestic IP LLC (Hilton.com) has acquired the domain name StayInspired.com from a Mark Segal of the UK. The domain has been registered since March 20, 2005. I did find several forms of “Stay Inspired” used for several different Hilton hotels. One person commented that on the room key, they term “Stay Inspired” was on it. “Stay Relaxed. Stay Inspired. Stay Sonesta” was another “Never just stay. Stay inspired.”
Dropoff.com has been acquired by Dropoff Inc. who is a new startup B2B delivery service. The company had received $1.85MM in seed funding about June 10, 2014 and had launched with Dropoff.co at least at some point. The company has since raised another round at $7MM.
Whois history records are not exactly clear as to when they acquired Dropoff.com from Matchboxes.com LLC, but it appears to have taken place about May 26, 2014 when the domain came out of privacy and displays Christian Carollo who is a co-founder of the company. TechCrunch states they launched in November 2014 but the active domain displayed in Google is Dropoff.co, so that tells me they launched with the .co. The .co went into whois privacy from a Adam Modras on January 11, 2014.
1-800-Flowers.com, Inc. which had owned the domain name FreshHome.com and was registered at CSC Corporate Domains with a website on it, has transferred to GoDaddy.com and went under privacy protection. The domain name now redirects to Freshome.com which is a Design & Architecture Magazine.
Home Instead Senior Care registered the domain name BendTheAgingCurve.com adding to its domain name portfolio of about 400 domain names.
The Quaker Oats Company registered several new domain names with the similar theme. Those include: QuakerBowl.com, BringYourBowl.com, QuakerBestBowls.com, QuakerBringYourBestBowl.com, QuakerYourBestBowl.com and YourBestBowl.com.
Pfizer Inc. registered the domain name OnceWeeklyDosing.com adding to its 6,500+ other domain names.
Prius.com, a domain name that Toyota Motor Corporation had acquired on June 26, 2008 uses the domain name to easily direct interested customers to the Prius family of cars on its main website http://www.toyota.com/prius-family/
The Currency Cloud had acquired the domain name CurrencyCloud.com on or about March 28, 2014 from a Matthew Bergin of Colorado. The company just completed a series C round of $18 Million bringing total funding up to about $36 Million. TheCurrencyCloud.com domain name now redirects to CurrencyCloud.com.
“Snowflake” aka Snowflake Computing Inc. which has total funding currently of about $71 Million and currently has about 80 employees has just come out of beta. The service offers novel data warehousing and is run by former Microsoft server and tools executive Bob Muglia, with its service on Snowflake.net.
Snowflake.com is listed for sale on Sedo and has had 95 offers on the domain name but it is not known if this is an outdated listing or an active one. Snowflake.com does resolve but really isn’t much of a website. It is stated as “snowflake financing intangibles” and that the website is under development. The domain is registered at Google Domains.
Casper, which is a mattress start-up that is about 14 months old is putting up very impressive funding numbers and has just confirmed a new $55 Million round bringing funding to nearly $70 Million.
Casper acquired Casper.com from a Gary Casper of Houston Texas on or about September 17, 2014 when the domain name transferred from GoDaddy to eNom and put under privacy. By October 10, 2014 the domain name came out of privacy protection and showed Gabriel Flateman of Casper in New York, New York who is one of five co-founders and he is also the Chief Technology Officer.
The mattress ships in a box ( a pretty small one) and is delivered to your door with free shipping. A king cost $950 and a queen will run you $850 with a 100 day free trial and 10 year warranty.
There is a very similar company called Tuft & Needle (Fosbrooke, Inc.) TuftAndNeedle.com that offers a mattress in a box and is currently the highest rated mattress on Amazon. $600 for a queen and $750 for a king.
Casper is the clear winner when it comes to domains, so I leave the mattress winner up to you!
Towers Watson & Co. registered a bunch of “Benefit Marketplace” domain names like BenefitMarketplaceUS.com, BenefitMarketplaceUAE.com, BenefitMarketplaceHongKong.com and many many more.
Louise says
Nice find! Beyutv hosted on nbc servers.
Anyone in financial should be studying your column, @ JZ! It’s almost like privileged info, what you unearth.
Good for Microsoft going after its Edge domains! It’s pathetic people still think they can sell a TM to the owner!
Google and Facebook are in cahoots! I have been saying that for a couple of years, now. They’re not in competition; they are in cahoots. Your observation that Google bought, App-Measurement.com, above, is another proof . . .
Dropoff.com is another example that a better name gets funded, in this case, $7 million.
Snowflake is a database schema that is a catchphrase for software companies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowflake_schema
It’s no wonder the dot com has many bids.