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Salesforce’s Do.com moves into Private Beta, app almost ready for prime time

Do.com Beta

Salesforce’s latest product Do.com, a business productivity application whose slogan is “Do and it’s Done”, has come out of alpha and moved into private beta.  According to the Beta sign up page, which popped up online this week, Do.com is near release and invitations are being sent out as fast as possible.

No public information has been made available, and very little information can be gleaned from the website other than it’s some type of business productivity application.

A quick search on Google using “site:do.com” shows that a subdomain, assets.do.com, was set up on the site.  “Assets” in the Salesforce world refer to, “specific products your customers have purchased, including a serial number, date of purchase, or any other information related to an individual sale.  Depending on how your organization uses assets, they can represent a competitor product that your customer has or versions of your products.”

At the end of August I wrote about Do.com launching a “Coming Soon” site, after noticing the domain name transferred from the marksmen.com server where it was brokered to a different server.

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News

Salesforce to launch yet to be revealed Do.com, get things done with anyone

Do.com by Salesforce

Salesforce.com has been announcing a number of new products recently, but one product that it hasn’t publicly announced as of yet, is a productivity app called “do” which can be found on the website Do.com.

The slogan on the homepage reads: “The app to get things done with anyone”

The Coming Soon page went live today. 

I discovered the site earlier this evening, after noticing that the domain name transferred from the marksmen.com server to its current server awsdns-52.com on August 26, but for the past several days no website was online.

In July I stumbled upon socl.com a secret Microsoft project while monitoring Marksmen’s name servers.  Marksmen brokered the sale of socl.com and also co-brokered the sale of social.com for $2.6 million to a mystery client. 

The mystery buyer behind social.com has yet to be revealed, but you can officially add Salesforce.com to the bunch.  Social.com is the largest publicly reported domain sale so far in 2011.

Dreamforce, the cloud computing conference held by Salesforce.com is currently being held in San Francisco until September 2.

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News

Microsoft acquires socl.com from same broker as social.com

microsoft

Could Microsoft be planning to launch its own social networking service to compete with Facebook and the new Google Plus?

What’s definitely not speculation is that Microsoft has acquired the four-letter domain name socl.com.  Today, the Whois record revealed Microsoft Corporation as the new owner.

On July 2, I wrote about Marksmen the IP and brand protection company, who made headlines in June after co-brokering the sale of social.com for $2.6 million.  In the article I wrote about how Marksmen had acquired the domain name socl.com just days after the social.com deal was announced.

I speculated Marksmen may have acquired the domain on behalf of the new owner of social.com (who has yet to be revealed) to use as a URL shortening service.

I did reach out for comment at the time to Marksmen, who replied via email on July 6, “Thanks for the inquiry. We can’t comment on the matter.”

Socl.com moved from Marksmen, then to Corporation Service Company temporarily this week, before the registrant information finally switched over to Microsoft in the last 24 hours.

Social.com is still registered to an “ADV”, but no further information is provided. 

Because the identity of the buyer of social.com wasn’t disclosed, it’s just rumor about Microsoft owning the $2.6 million name.     

Here’s a look at the Whois record of SOCL.com:

Whois socl.com

Discussion: Search Engine Land

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News

Social.com for $2.6 million: What about the domain Social.org for only $950?

social

The word on the street is that the domain name social.com has sold for $2.6 million according to Ron Jackson of DNJournal

News of the sale created a flurry of interest online, with TechCrunch even publishing an article that included links to domain industry blogs that had covered the social.com auction (including this very blog).

While news of the sale isn’t everywhere you look, you’d think the owner of the dotorg (social.org) got the memo, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Titan Networks, the owners of the dotorg, charge anywhere between US$950 and $4950 for their domains and that includes social.org according to the website. 

All of our domains cost at least $950, so please don’t mail us requesting a quote if social.org is not worth even that much to you. Similarly, please don’t send any offers of less than $950,” reads a message on the website.

Over the years a number of dotorgs have been some of the biggest domain sales such as poker.org for $1 million, autoinsurance.org for $440,000, engineering.org for $198,000, and date.org for $150,349.

Though it’s possible you could’ve picked up social.org for a bargain at $950, it might be selling for more as a result of the social.com sale. 

Ron Jackson indicated the seller Scott Carter used Marksmen, the same service used by companies like Electronic Arts who acquired battlefield.com and Microsoft who purchased the domain office.com.

[UPDATE June 23, 2011 8:56 PM:  Social.org updated its home page today.  Don’t bother offering three or even four figures for the domain.  A message on the site now reads, “To address the dozens of people who have written to ask for our “price”, we’ll note the rule of thumb that org sites often sell for about 10% of the .com sale amount. So please don’t send offers below six figures.]

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News Video Games

Electronic Arts adds Battlefield.net to its arsenal of killer domains as it prepares to battle Modern Warfare 3

Battlefield 3 Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts (EA) already owns and operates Battlefield.com, a domain name it acquired in 2007 after using Marksmen, a service used by larger companies that describes itself as the go-to-firm for corporations who want to keep their identity and costs on the down low.

EA took official ownership of the domain Battlefield.com in late July of 2007 according to WHOIS records, and now the company has acquired the web address, Battlefield.net, as it looks to take on Activision’s Modern Warfare 3 with its launch of Battlefield 3 in October 2011, two weeks before Modern Warfare 3 hits stores.

The WHOIS records for Battlefield.net changed owners this week to EA.

Registrant: 
      Electronic Arts Inc.
      Domain Administrator
      209 Redwood Shores Parkway 
      Redwood City, CA 94065
      US

   Registrar Name….: CORPORATE DOMAINS, INC.
   Registrar Whois…: whois.corporatedomains.com
   Registrar Homepage: www.cscprotectsbrands.com 

   Domain Name: battlefield.net

      Created on…………..: Thu, Feb 11, 1999
      Expires on…………..: Wed, Feb 11, 2015
      Record last updated on..: Fri, Jun 17, 2011

It’s WAR

Could domain names play a part in the battle between Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 online?  While that’s unlikely, if it were the case, Electronic Arts would likely win.

EA not only owns Battlefield.com, it also owns Battlefield3.com.

Activision, on other hand, doesn’t own ModernWarfare.com or ModernWarfare3.com

Although, things might be changing when it comes to ModernWarfare3.com, as I pointed out earlier in the week.