Month: January 2011

Categories
News Trademarks Video Games

Fusible domain blog gets mentioned in TechCrunch; other major news sites and technology blogs

Rewardville Beta by Zynga

Early this morning, I broke a story about the Beta launch of Zynga’s Rewardville after I noticed that the web address Rewardville.com was resolving to an actual web site and not to a GoDaddy Parked page.  This followed a week of speculation of what Zynga might have planned for the domain name. 

Just over a week ago, another domain blogger Elliot Silver first pondered whether Zynga purchased the name, then I was able to confirm the social gaming company applied for a trademark in Europe shortly thereafter.

When I posted my story this morning, I tipped off several news sites and technology blogs.

Robin Wauters was the first to write me back after he posted the story on TechCrunch, giving Fusible.com and Elliot Silver credit for ultimately uncovering the trail to Zynga.  A big thanks to Robin Wauters, and other news sites who credited their stories. 

Not all technology blogs and news sites like to attribute their stories

Mashable ran their story hours later after I submitted my news tip on their website early this morning through their Contact Form and via Twitter.  And of course, no credit back to Fusible or even TechCrunch who was the first major news site to report it.  In fact, all Mashable did was post the same statement that Zynga’s PR group sent to me and other blogs hours after the story had broke – then Mashable tried to call the story their own by not crediting any other news source.

It’s this kind of blogging or news reporting that’s difficult to see, but occurs at a disappointing rate among some of the more mainstream bloggers and news sites — a point brought up by another domain blogger over at Domain Gang in a story titled: We already told you so!

While the post is short, the message is loud.  As DomainGang writes bluntly: “Twice in recent days so-called “mainstream blogs” reiterate content we already broke the news for – sometimes with a lapse of one or more weeks”.

I might not always see eye-to-eye with DomainGang who offer a different spin on domain blogging with a dash of humor, but on this matter I most definitely do.  It’s not unusual to see breaking stories in the domain industry appear on the popular domain news aggregator Domaining.com over and over and over – with absolutely no mention or credit to the original blogger who broke the story.

As DomainGang simply says: “This comes as no surprise because the focus these days seems to be the regurgitation of news ad nauseam.”

Sure, it’s great to hear opinions by other bloggers, but it’s also good to see credit given to the source.

Categories
News Video Games

Breaking: No longer speculation, Zynga launches Rewardville Beta

Zynga Rewardville

Zynga Rewardville

You read it here first.  After days of speculation as to what Zynga’s plans were for the domain name Rewardville.com and even a mention on AOL’s Games.com for confirming the rumor, Zynga minutes ago unveiled its Beta site for Rewardville.

Although no official announcements have been made, Zynga started displaying a web page this morning for its newest venture Rewardville.com, which will be rolled out over the next few weeks according to a message posted on the website.

zPoints and RewardVille FAQ

Information made available on the Zynga customer help site explains more how Rewardville will work.  According to the website, http://zynga.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3273, Rewardville will involve zCoins and zPoints.

What are zPoints?

Zynga writes: zPoints are points you earn for playing Zynga games. You can earn a maximum of 80 points per game per day, with a maximum of 300 points across the entire Zynga network each day. As you earn points you increase your zLevel and earn zCoins. Currently, you can earn zPoints for playing the following games: FarmVille, FrontierVille, Mafia Wars, Treasure Isle, Zynga Poker

What are zCoins?

“zCoins are awarded when your zLevel increases. zCoins are redeemed in RewardVille for in-game items.”

How do I sign up for zPoints?
 
“You automatically earn zPoints for playing all Zynga games. To redeem zCoins in RewardVille, you must register for a Zynga account.”

News on the launch of Rewardville

Although Zynga hasn’t announced the launch on its own blog or news section and nothing has appeared in the news, expect the big launch of Rewardville to be put out through Facebook to Zynga users in the coming weeks. 

I’ve informed several technology blogs and news sites about the launch of Rewardville Beta, and am hoping that any articles written will attribute the information in their stories to the correct source.

Updated 4:45PM EST:  Thanks to the following news sites for mentioning this story today: TechCrunch, Games.com News, Business Insider, Inside Social Games, and Gamezebo. 

Robin Wauters, was the first in fact, to write me in the wee hours of the morning after I posted my story to let me know the TechCrunch story was online with credit back to Fusible.com.

I also received a statement from Zynga this afternoon while I was away from the computer, hours after my story went online.

“As a company focused on innovation we’re constantly testing new products and features.  When experimenting with new products we take the feedback we receive and apply it to deliver the best possible user experience.  We look forward to hearing how our users like RewardVille.”  -Zynga”

Categories
News Trademarks WIPO

With SocialEngine.net earning $1,000,000 per year, company goes after .com at WIPO

social-engine

After meeting as high school students in 2002, Alex Benzer and Charlotte Genevier, co-founders of Webligo developed and launched Social Engine in 2007.  The product is described as a social-network-in-a-box, a white label social networking application that is growing and now earns nearly $1MM/year according to the Webligo home page.

With dorm room offices and virtually zero operating costs, Webligo’s savings grew quickly. In 2006, Alex and Charlotte began developing a new product – SocialEngine – seeded with their sales and the recent acquisitions of two earlier projects (BlogHoster and IMS Pro). SocialEngine, 100% bootstrapped without any outside investment, was launched in 2007 with great reception. With SocialEngine now earning nearly $1M/year, Alex and Char have built a team of seven developers and designers to grow SocialEngine and explore other opportunities.

The only problem is, Webligo’s founders launched the product using the .net (socialengine.net), instead of the .com.

Now Webligo wants the .com, so the company has filed a WIPO complaint over the domain name SocialEngine.com.

While it’s not known whether Webligo made a previous offer on the .com domain, the company recently filed for a trademark on “Social Engine” in Sept. 2010, three years after launching their product, and nearly 11 years after the domain name socialengine.com was first registered.

The current registrant according to GoDaddy Whois is listed as “Domains for Sale” out of Columbus, OH, with an email address of DomainsForSale -at- Gmail.com.

Here’s a little more information about Social Engine, in a video pitch posted on TechCrunch back in 2008.

 

Categories
News

News site runs contest to find available domain name for its social media site; receives hundreds of entries

phonedog

Several days ago, PhoneDog LLC, a mobile news and reviews resource that attracts more than 2.5 million unique visitors each month, put out a call to readers to help find a domain name for its forthcoming social media site that will cover Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, GetGlue, and other social networking sites.

The contest which ended on Saturday January 15th, 2011 at midnight, attracted nearly 200 entries on the public site, but with a private survey also made available to contestants the number of entries was likely much higher.  If a domain winner is selected, PhoneDog will award them $200 in cash.

The rules for the contest were simple.  Two of the most important rules were that the domain name is available and that it ends in .com. 

Here’s a look at the rules.

  • Make sure the domain name is available. (Check www.godaddy.com to know if it’s available.)
  • Domain name must end with “.com”
  • Please do not combine more than two words when choosing a name. e.g., TheSocialNetwork.com is three words, thus, would not qualify.
  • Be creative! Think outside the box! Think about names that are catchy, unique, and memorable.
  • Feel free to play with the spelling of words. e.g., Instead of scribble.com you could suggest skribble.com
  • Feel free to combine words together to form a unique name.
  • Please do not use any words associated with the word “Dog”

A number of words were eventually excluded from consideration, such as social, dog, and phone.

As of yesterday, dozens and dozens of suggestions were left on the web site ranging from syncinit.com to whassuppeeps.com, phonehydrant.com to techlightbulb.com, myfriendsarephones.com to spaceeater.com.

Though running an online contest is a great idea, it’s strange that PhoneDog didn’t keep all submissions private, given that suggested names might be snapped up by readers as was the case for names like mediadog.com.

Others used the comments to simply plug their own names they were trying to sell.

It should be interesting to see whether PhoneDog goes with an available domain name or an aftermarket name. 

Given the company’s success, it shouldn’t have any problem affording a name on the aftermarket.  However by the looks of the company’s other online properties, it’s writing good content, not owning a premium domain name that has determined its success. The company owns and operates other properties like TmoNews.com, DroidDog.com, and BberryDog.com.

Categories
News

GoDaddy’s .CO marketing blitz enjoys mainstream coverage by USAToday

Godaddy .CO marketing blitz

The USAToday article by Kristena Hansen starts off, “While the “.net,” “.org” and “.gov” Internet domains are growing in popularity among those launching new websites, none have come close to threatening the decades-long reign of “.com.   But the “.co” domain may be the hottest new Web address, one that could be the first real .com competitor, according to some inside the domain-name industry.”

While domain names don’t always get good press coverage, GoDaddy knows how to get press attention using it’s upcoming Superbowl commercial with the unveiling of the new GoDaddy girl to create some serious buzz. 

But that’s not the main subject of the article, .CO domain names are. 

And by the sound of it, the possibilities seem limitless.

Kristena Hansen points out just how positive .CO domain names are.

Unlike other .com alternatives, the .co domain, which gained about 600,000 registered names worldwide since its launch, should do well simply because it sounds so similar to .com, said Richard Merdinger, senior director of domain-registration service for Go Daddy.

“There’s an international recognition of using .co to represent a company,” he said. “We were exceptionally pleased with the volume of registrations we did do so far.”

The .co suffix offers a whole new realm of opportunities for those searching to establish their Web presence, Merdinger said.

Industry insiders see a similar trend.

While you could argue .CO is just another fad that won’t offer any new significant challenges to .COM – with big ticket sales of domain names like o.co and a major marketing blitzy by GoDaddy ready to get underway, 2011 could see whether .CO really has what it takes to be a .COM competitor.

What’s all the buzz about?

Already in 2010, Mike Mann of DomainMarket has sold a number of premium .co domain names such as Cruise.co for $25,000 and Auctions.co for $15,000, but 2011 looks like it will be even better for Mike Mann. 

As Mike Berkens of the blog The Domains pointed out in a recent story, Sedo will be holding a .CO premium domain name auction following the Superbowl.  The auction will include many of Mike Mann’s .CO properties, many of which are listed for as much as $350,000 on his DomainMarket web site.

In the coming weeks, the single letter domain name i.CO will be auctioned off, in what could be the biggest sale of all to date for a .CO domain.  In 2010, o.co sold to Overstock.com for a whopping $350,000.

As far as the USAToday story which first appeared in The Arizona Republic, no one has commented on the article as of yet.  Over at azcentral, the story only managed to get a few comments, the first being a negative comment from a reader who had this to say about .CO: “sorry, but .co will fail. while it may sound similar, it is that very reason it will fail. People are already automatically tuned to typing COM and will forget to drop the M.  As far as the pricing, that is just silly. People buying up names will do so regardless of that small of difference. Make is a hundred bucks and you might see only the most common names get parked.”

It’s still early, but it already seems like .CO is making a big splash in 2011.