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Facebook registers ‘newsroom’ domains, is a social news website on the way?

Facebook Newsroom Whois

Facebook Newsroom Whois

Facebook has had a busy week with domain names.

On January 18, the company registered a slew of domains with “FB Origin” in the name.  It followed up those purchases with “timeline movie maker” domains. 

Facebook hasn’t officially been confirmed as the buyer of the timeline domains since the registrant is hidden behind Whois privacy, but the names were registered through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor and the web addresses re-direct users to the Facebook Timeline page.

Now the social networking giant has bought up “Facebook Newsroom” names like facebook-newsroom.com.

Altogether, the company registered three domains: facebook-newsroom.com (Whois), facebook-newsroom.net (Whois), and facebook-newsroom.org (Whois).

It’s unknown what Facebook will do with its latest domains, but if it has anything to do with the word newsroom, maybe the plan is to launch a social news website where users submit content, similar to Reddit.

In case you’re wondering, facebooknewsroom.com (missing the hyphen) was registered by a resident of Kansas in 2011.

[Update 1 on January 23, 2012 at 3:53pm EST:  Turns out these domain registrations aren’t all that exciting.  I just received an e-mail from The OutCast Agency (one of Facebook’s PR teams) who say, “The domains you reference are part of an upgrade to Facebook’s press room, not part of a new product.”] 

Discussion: Mediagazer, Fast Company, Journalism.org, 10,000 Words, All Facebook, NBC Bay Area, Marketing Land, Index, @ckanal, Simply Zesty, mediabistro.com, @PRNewswire, @cschweitz, brandchannel.com, and The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum

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Facebook Timeline getting a movie maker app? Domains privately registered

Timeline Movie Maker

Facebook announced dozens of new apps for its Timeline feature this past week, and now it looks like another app to help users tell their story may be on the way.

This is merely speculation at this point, but it appears a top brand has privately registered the domains timelinemoviemaker.com (Whois), timelinemoviemaker.net, and timelinemoviemaker.org, through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor. 

Because the owner of the domains is hidden behind Whois privacy, it may not be known for some time what the plan is.  MarkMonitor counts among its clients Facebook, Microsoft, and other internet giants, so it could literally be any of dozens of companies.

Facebook has had its share of drama since announcing Timeline.  Back in September, Timelines.com filed a trademark-infringement suit against Facebook. Then last month, Facebook filed a counter lawsuit.  “Facebook dropped the legal equivalent of a bunker-buster on its rival with a new filing that asks a court to strip Timelines.com of its trademarks. The claim asks the court to declare that Facebook is not infringing and to cancel the marks because they are generic,” wrote Jeff Roberts for paidContent.

Timeline Movie Maker may be something, it may be nothing.  It may not even have anything to do with Facebook Timeline. 

But for now, we’ll just have to wait and see.

[Update 1 on Jan. 22, 2012: It does appear Facebook is behind the registration.  Today, the web address began redirecting today to http://www.facebook.com/about/timeline.]

Discussion: All Facebook

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Facebook registers domains for something called “FB Origin”

FBOrigin.com Whois record

FBOrigin.com Whois record

This week, the social networking giant Facebook registered several domains for something called “FB Origin” ranging from dot-com to dot-biz.

On the same day the company held a media event where it unveiled 60 new apps that you can add to your timeline, Facebook registered fborigin.com, fborigin.net, fborigin.org, fborigin.biz, fborigin.info and even fborigin.co.uk.

The domains were registered through the brand protection company MarkMonitor.

I scoured through the list of new apps, looking for something with the name “Origin”, and didn’t find anything.

Though it’s only speculation at this time, with all these new domain registrations, it appears Facebook has plans to launch a new product or service called “Origin” to go along with its other services like Timeline. 

At the time of this story, none of the domains resolve to a web page.

Discussion: Techmeme, @RobinWauters, ZDNet (blog), All Facebook, Inside Facebook, Marketing Land and Ubergizmo