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Welcome to the The
Lowdown from
DN Journal - your source for notable news
and information from all corners of the global
domain name
industry!
The Lowdown
is compiled by DN Journal
Editor & Publisher Ron Jackson. |
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After
Successful Debut in Dubai Last Fall, Domain Days
Answers Call for an Encore With Release of
November Dates |
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With
Nordic
Domain Days coming up next week in Stockholm,
NamesCon
Global set to go next month in Austin,
Texas and the London
Domain Summit following in August, the
2024 domain industry conference calendar is really
starting to heat up. That being the case,
it seems appropriate that the year's final major
event, will be held in the UAE's dynamic
desert metropolis, Dubai, on November
5th and 6th. That's when Domain
Days will return for an encore after a
very successful
launch last fall. Domains
Days Founder Munir Badr announced the 2024
dates when the show will return to the
popular venue where it launched last year, the Marriott
Resort Palm Jumeirah. Munir said ticket sales
and hotel reservations will be opening later this
month. The
ground-breaking 2023 event, with IT.com
Domains as the title sponsor,
attracted nearly 200 attendees and 40 speakers
from around the |
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world.
The Internet
Commerce Association's Legal Counsel, Zak
Muscovitch, was a featured speaker. Zak said,
"After only a few minutes at Domain Days it was
clear that Munir had exceeded all expectations
and put on a first class domain name conference, not
to be missed. Everything about Domain Days is top
notch including facilities, organization, speakers,
and attendees."
LegalBrandMarketing.com
CEO Braden Pollock, who also served as a
moderator at Domain Days, added, "What I
enjoyed the most about Domain Days was not only were
there lots of familiar faces, but I also met serious
players from other parts of the world that
don’t normally make it to US based domain
conferences. After the first event, it became a must-attend
conference."
These
scenes (above and below) from the 2023 edition of
Domain Days provide a peek at how Munir Badr
and his team utilized the spectacular Dubai
skyline and harbor to provide an unforgettable
backdrop for their debut event. They are committed
to making the 2024 conference even better and will
be giving us updates to share with you as they
develop in the weeks ahead.
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(Posted
May 6, 2024) To refer others to the post
above only (and not the full Lowdown
column) you can use this URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2024/dailyposts/0506.htm
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ROTD
Has Year's Biggest Live Domain Auction Ready to Go
June 6 at NamesCon Global |
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The
domain investing industry's biggest event, NamesCon
Global, returns to Austin, Texas
June 5-8, 2024 and, once again, the RightOfTheDot
(ROTD) live
auction of premium digital assets will
be a major highlight of show week. ROTD has assembled an
exceptional catalog
of Web2 domain names and Web3 digital assets for the event that
will get underway at 3PM (U.S. CDT) on Thursday,
June 6 at the downtown Omni Hotel. ROTD President, Director and domain
industry pioneer Monte Cahn will again team
up with world champion auctioneer Wayne
Wheat to run the fast-paced sale. Premium
domains scheduled to
go on the block include Dog.com, Fish.com,
Messages.com, Desktop.com, DataStorage.com,
Horses.com, Consulting.ai, Army.ai, Blue.org and
Christmas.net, among dozens of others. Many Web 3
names including Wallet.x, Beer.x, A.nft,
Bet.gaming and 8.polygon, supplied
by industry |
Above:
Scenes from the June 2023 RightOfTheDot
live domain auction at NamesCon Global in
Austin, Texas.
Monte Cahn is at bottom left, Wayne Wheat
at bottom right.
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leaders Unstoppable
Domains and Freename,
will also be offered as traditional and
blockchain-based digital ecosystems continue to
converge.
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Pre-bidding
is already open, allowing prospective
participants to register and explore the
full catalog of digital assets at bid.rotd.com.
While the live auction will present a unique
opportunity for business owners, end users
and investors to secure prime digital real
estate, prospecting will remain open during
a timed extended online auction that
will continue until June 18, 2024.
Monte
Cahn noted, "Our upcoming auction
at NamesCon 2024 represents not just a sale,
but a |
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landmark
event for the digital asset industry,
showcasing the immense value and potential
of Web2 and Web3 domains. With over $585
million in sales to date, RightOfTheDot
continues to lead and innovate within the
digital asset space. Our legacy of
record-setting domain name and digital asset
sales underscores its pivotal role in
elevating industry standards and the
perceived value of digital properties
worldwide." |
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(Posted
April 29, 2024) To refer others to the post
above only (and not the full Lowdown
column) you can use this URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2024/dailyposts/0429.htm
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Goodbye
SquadHelp, Hello Atom! Popular Naming &
Branding Platform Goes Nuclear With Move to
Atom.com |
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After
staking a claim as the world's largest company naming
and branding platform, Squadhelp
completed an explosive rebranding of themselves
this morning when they re-emerged from the
makeover blast with a new name - Atom -
and a new super-premium web address at Atom.com! Since
launching in 2011, Atom (formerly Squadhelp) has helped
over 50,000 clients, including Nestle, Pepsi, Dell,
Alibaba, Hilton, Phillips, and Kellogg's in
polishing their brands. Atom
also offers a full startup ecosystem for ambitious
new businesses, providing the brand building blocks
they need to thrive, starting with the perfect
domain. |
is
now
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Darpan
Munjal
Atom (Squadhelp) Founder & CEO |
CEO and founder Darpan Munjal launched the business as a bootstrapped passion project while
focusing primarily on other ventures. His vision was
the proposition that finding a business name shouldn’t be
hard. This simple idea led to the creation of a platform for crowdsourcing business names. That platform,
Squadhelp, was powered by a group of creatives which soon grew into a huge naming community.
Since then, Atom has been recognized as an Inc. 5000 startup for three consecutive years and one
of the Most Innovative Companies by Inc. Magazine while being consistently highly rated by clients
and creatives alike.
In March 2023, Atom secured $10 million
in strategic investment from Hilco Digital
Assets. This allowed the company to move into a new stage of ongoing growth, including expansion of the
team, accelerated development of new game-changing offerings, and significant increases in
overall marketing investments. |
As naming experts, the team at Atom knew it was also
time for their own rebrand. “We deeply believe in the importance of a world-class brand and the concrete impact it has on
business results," Darpan said, adding " Squadhelp was a great brand for what we used to focus on exclusively –
crowdsourcing business names with the help of a vast creative community. But, Atom helps us take
everything to the next level. Atom is an inspiring, memorable, and innovative name that people can
get excited about. As a naming startup, with this tier A+ name and domain, we are
betting on ourselves and aspiring to become a B2B household
brand."
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Hilco Digital Assets Managing Director
Andrew Miller highlighted the strategic importance of the
rebrand to Atom. “We invested in Squadhelp because of its many strategic and technology advantages as a naming
platform, but from the outset, we were aligned on acquiring a next-level, hear-it-once
remember-it-forever brand, one that conveyed the power and importance of having a world-class
domain name for both the company and its customers,”
Andrew said, adding “I have been involved in many
of the most prominent domain name brands for over 26 years, and
Atom.com is a game-changing brand name for this
platform."
Under
the Atom umbrella, the company plans to add further
tools and services across domain sales, naming, testing and customer insights, trademark
and IP protection, creative services, and more
- all while maintaining their current domain name
marketplaces and crowdsourced naming
contests. Atom will continue to draw on the
expertise of its internal team and global creative community backed by innovative
AI technology built to support the Atom experts. |
Andrew
Miller
Managing Director
Hilco Digital Assets |
Darpan
Munjal summed the rebrand up with this - “Just like atoms are the building blocks of the universe, Atom.com will provide the building blocks
of success for every great startup. It will be an ecosystem for early-stage startups
that offers founders everything they need to build and launch a new brand or grow an existing
one.”
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(Posted
April 17, 2024) To refer others to the post
above only (and not the full Lowdown
column) you can use this URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2024/dailyposts/0417.htm
*****
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Price
Paid for Chat.com Last Year Confirmed to Be $15.5
Million Making It One of Top 2 All-Time Publicly
Reported Domain Sales |
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Last
year at this time Hilco
Digital Assets Managing Director Andrew
Miller and fellow pioneering domain
broker Larry
Fischer were busy helping Hubspot
Co-Founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah put
together a multi-million acquisition of the
super-premium domain name Chat.com. Andrew
and Larry represented the seller but Andrew also
served as a facilitator in bringing both sides
together - a role he frequently plays due to the
extraordinary high level contact list he has
developed over the past two decades. Having
a hand in historic sales is nothing new for any
one of these three. In 2022 Dharmesh acquired
Connect.com for $10 million in
the year's highest publicly reported sale (and one
of the five highest ever). Andrew and Larry,
working individually, together or with
other partners have closed hundreds of millions of
dollars worth of sales in their illustrious
careers. |
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The
exact price paid in eight-figure domain sales rarely gets released to the public and up until a
few days ago, it seemed unlikely we wouldever
learn what Chat.com sold for in the spring of
2023. However, as Andrew noted on his LinkedIn
feed, Dharmesh, during an interview on
the Lenny
Rachitsky podcast, revealed he had
paid "$15 million+" for Chat.com.
Ever since, people have been speculating about
what that + represented (we were among them
as having the exact price would allow us to
chart the sale and give the public another great
example of just how valuable top tier domains can
be).
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This
week I've been in daily contact with Andrew
because we are working on a profile about
him that will be our next cover story (due
out by the end of the month). It gave me an
opportunity to talk with him about the
Chat.com sale and see if there was any way
he could confirm the exact price for me. He
always strictly adheres to any
non-disclosure agreement that is in place
but with Dharmesh opening the door, Andrew
was able to share that the price of the
domain was $15.5 million for
the name plus escrow and related costs. |
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Andrew
Miller
and Larry Fischer speaking at NamesCon
Global 2023 in Austin,Texas about some
of the biockbuster
deals they have done together including Chat.com
and Home.com. |
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With
that information we will be adding
Chat.com to the 2023
Top 100 Chart in our Domain
Sales Archive Wednesday
evening (April 17) when our next bi-weekly
domain sales report will be
out. In addition to being the #1
sale of that year, it will also be added to
our all-time
Top 20 list where it will stand at #2 behind only the $30 million sale of
Voice.com. Congratulations to everyone
involved in this landmark sale! |
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(Posted
April 16, 2024) To refer others to the post
above only (and not the full Lowdown
column) you can use this URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2024/dailyposts/0416.htm
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Radix
Records 28% Premium Domain Revenue Jump YOY Led By .Tech, .Online and .Store
TLDs |
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Radix
has released their latest semi-annual report on
the registry operator's premium domain sales
results across the 10 TLDs they administer.
Their H2-2023
Recap (.pdf file) details how Radix
generated $4.8 million in Premium Retail
Revenue, including $3.1 million that came
from premium domain renewals. That represents a 28%
year over year gain for this segment of their
business. .Tech
was Radix's top performer, generating $1.36
million in revenue with $984,380 of
that coming from renewals and $377,622 from
new premium registrations. Rounding out their top
five TLDs, in order, were .online, .store,
.space and .site. The top chart below
breaks out the renewal revenue produced by
each of their leading TLDs. The second chart shows
the new premium registration revenue from
each of those extensions. |
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NEW PREMIUM
REGISTRATIONS:
There is a
wealth of additional information in the free,
full
report here (.pdf file).
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(Posted
April 4, 2024) To refer others to the post
above only (and not the full Lowdown
column) you can use this URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2024/dailyposts/0404.htm
*****
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