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Zynga gets smarter with trademarks and domain registrations, more secretive

Hanging with Friends

It finally looks like Zynga is getting a little bit smarter in terms of domain name registrations and trademark applications. 

Normally, a closely guarded secret by gaming companies, many of Zynga’s yet-to-be released and recently released titles are anything but secret.  But that’s now changing, as the social gaming giant has been on a buying spree of late and is planning for an IPO, it’s getting savvier with its domain name registrations and trademark filings. 

Trademark and yet-to-be released game titles

It’s European trademark filing for Rewardville pinpointed the company as the buyer of the matching domain, before the game was even launched to the public.  Other trademarks have backfired, like that of “ville” which broke here. 

For its latest launch of Empires & Allies, a combat strategy game, Zynga was patient.  The company didn’t file for trademarks in the United States until the same day it unveiled the game on June 1, 2011.  Its European trademark was filed June 2.

Before the Empires & Allies trademark filings though, the company filed other trademarks for unknown titles that news sites and blogs have yet to pick up — like the trademark applications for Mojitomo or Patentville

Adjusting the timing on trademark applications is one thing, but the company finally caught up on domain registrations too.

Zynga’s domain name hints

When I wrote in early May that Zynga registered the domain name hangmanwithfriends.com and I predicted a Hangman game on the iOS (which it launched a month later), the registrant information was hidden behind GoDaddy’s Private Registration service (Domains by Proxy).  However, the registrant information wasn’t so private after all — as tweeted by Domain Name news in a Twitter message, GoDaddy’s service needs some work. 

After using GoDaddy’s account retrieval system in combination with the domain, a Zynga e-mail address (Email Address:****@zynga.com) was publicly displayed.

It was the same story for farmvilleexpress.com

While GoDaddy might not address the issue with its Privacy service, Zynga has.  The company is sticking with GoDaddy to host many of its names, but its now using an email address with a “yahoo” extension.  If you check hangmanwithfriends.com or farmvilleexpress.com today, you’ll see this (Email Address:****@yahoo.com).

If you thought it was hard before to break a Zynga story, things just got a little harder as its more closely guarding its trademarks and domain registrations.

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The Perks of Writing a Blog about Domain Names

 blogging

You can read blogs about the domain industry, however, if you spend the time to write a blog about the domain industry, there are quite a few perks that often get overlooked.  Of course, getting long term sponsors like National A-1 and Domain Tools is a big plus, but the list of perks goes much further than just sponsorships.

Running a blog gives you a chance to promote your own products and services to a relevant, targeted audience.  With your own website, you have the power to market all you want.  While the idea is not to make every post a product pitch, readers who are on your site might find your writing interesting enough to browse around. 

When you can’t find an advertiser to fill a spot, you can create your own ads for your own products and services.  Beyond this, you can fill up spots with third-party ads like Google adsense or search out relevant affiliate offers that are tailored to your audience – such as discounts on domain registrations.

You can connect with readers, domainers, developers, and other people within the domain and marketing industry quickly who are willing to share advice and opinions.  I’ve had a chance to chat with Stephen Douglas, Bill Kara, Andrew Rosener, Shane Cultra, and a number of people in the domain industry.  Despite being anonymous, lots of people find the content acceptable.  Sure, it’s hard to build up trust when you’re anonymous, but people build up trust through their writing also, not just throug their name.

I started this blog in September 2009 and thanks to Francois Carillo (Cybertonic), I was able to quickly reach an audience by getting listed on his widely read Domaining.com website.  As a result of the listing, traffic to Fusible soared from 0 visitors in September to over 20,000 unique visitors per month.  The site has been mentioned in The Guardian, Calvin Ayre, and on a number of well-respected domain industry blogs.

To blog or not to blog?
 
If you’ve got a domain blog and you’re looking to reach an audience, I’d highly recommend getting set up on Domaining.com.  The set up fee is well worth it.

If you enjoy writing about domain names, you owe it to yourself to get a blog up and running.  It’s basically on the job training that gives you a chance to learn about the industry by writing about it.

Some might argue that blogging is a waste of time, but if you really enjoy it, you can reap a lot of benefits, even if it’s not all money.