It appears Amazon’s suite of web services could be growing.
According to some recent domain buys, Amazon Web Services (AWS) may be offering functionality or services to developers for microsites, beyond hosting.
The company hasn’t made any official announcement as of yet, but Amazon’s legal department registered the domains AWSmicrosite.com and AWSmicrosites.com on November 29, as shown in the picture above.
Microsites are usually no more than a few pages and used to promote an event.
In 2006, Warner Bros. Games released Justice League Heroes, a video game based on the DC Comics’ Justice League of America.
Fast forward five years later to November 30, 2011, and a slew of ‘Justice League Heroes’ domains have been newly registered like justiceleagueheroes.org and joinheroes.org.
Though hidden behind WHOIS privacy, the names were registered through MarkMonitor, a company that helps more than half of Fortune 100 protect their brands online. So, it’s safe to say Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. is behind the secret registrations.
The list of names include:
dc-wecanbeheroes.org
dc-wecanbeheros.org
dcwecanbeheroes.org
dcwecanbeheros.org
joinheroes.org
joinheros.org
joinjusticeleague.org
joinjusticeleagueheroes.org
joinjusticeleagueheros.org
jointheheroes.org
jointheheros.org
jointhejusticeleague.org
joinwecanbeheroes.org
joinwecanbeheros.org
justiceleagueheroes.org
justiceleagueheros.org
Is Warner Bros. planning a remake of the video game or some other service or product? Or are the domain purchases part of the company’s overall intellectual property strategy to prevent other people from using the names?
At the time of this story going online, Warner Bros. has not announced anything official.
Is Google planning to release a kid-friendly or student-friendly laptop that runs the Google Chrome OS operating system?
This is just speculation, understand.
But this week, Google acquired a handful of Spark Laptop domain names like SparkLaptop.com and SparkLaptops.com through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor. According to WHOIS history, before November 29, the domains were privately registered. Now the WHOIS records show Google as the registrant.
Google also acquired SparkBuy.com and SparkBuyMail.com.
Google began selling its Chromebook personal computer commercially this past summer, which were produced by Samsung and Acer.
Last year, Best Buy partnered with Toshiba to develop a line of laptops made for kids called First Spark.
It is possible that Google is planning to develop a similar laptop? Or does Google have entirely different plans for the names?
Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
(Photo of Acer Chromebook via Steven Walling)
A sequel appears to be in the works for the best cost-to-gross ratio movie of the year “Insidious”.
Horror movie fans may have something to look forward to in 2012 after Sony Pictures hinted that “Insidious 2” is in production, after the company registered a handful of domains like Insidious2movie.com, Insidious2.net, and Insidious2-movie.net.
All three domain names were registered on November 28, 2011, through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor.
“Insidious” cost $1.5 million to produce and worldwide grossed $97,009,150.
Last May, rumors of a sequel began swirling around the internet, but nothing definite was ever announced.
At the time of this posting, Sony Pictures has not said anything official, nor do any of the domains resolve to a web page.
[Update 1 on February 2, 2012: Insidious 2 has been announced and is scheduled to be released in 2013, reports Variety.]
Discussion: Bleeding Cool News, Dark Horizons, /Film, Dread Central, ShockTillYouDrop.com, Bloody Disgusting, WorstPreviews.com, Splattercontainer.com and Blairwitch.de
The last time the Chicago Tribune web site underwent a major makeover was in 2008, the same year the Tribune Company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The Tribune Company still hasn’t emerged from bankruptcy protection after three years, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped it from planning changes to its flagship publication.
It appears the Tribune Company might be investing in a redesign of its Chicago Tribune web site by going more local in towns, villages, and cities within Illinois.
On November 28, Tribune Company registered over 300 Tribune domains.
The list includes names like AuroraTribune.com, BigRockTribune.com, and 332 more domains, none of which resolve to a web site at the time of this story going online.
You can see the full list of domains here, as it’s too big to publish in this post.
Discussion: Poynter.org, @poynter and Gapers Block
(Image of the Chicago Tribune Building via Flickr)