Categories
News

Verizon to launch its Netflix competitor soon? Domain names may be sign

Netflix Instant movies

Back in December there was talk of Verizon planning its own Netflix competitor and even talk of the company making a very “serious bid” to acquire Netflix. 

While nothing is official yet on either front, Verizon did shell out a few bucks this week to buy up some online real estate related to its rumored Netflix competitor like VerizonInstantMovies.com and VerizonInstantMusic.com.

In total, the company registered four new domain names on January 12, through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor.

The registrations include:

http://whois.domaintools.com/verizoninstantmovies.com 
http://whois.domaintools.com/verizoninstantmusic.com 
http://whois.domaintools.com/verizoninstanttv.com 
http://whois.domaintools.com/verizoninstantvideo.com 

As of today, none of the domain names resolve to a web page.

Discussion: Business Insider

(Image of Netflix on the Wii via Netflix.com)

Categories
News

Netflix has been buying up Qwikster misspellings quietly via MarkMonitor

Qwikster

By now you’ve probably heard that Netflix renamed its DVD by mail service to Qwikster.

Of course, the name change has got domain blogs buzzing over the slightly difficult to spell name.

What you may not know is that Netflix has been quietly buying up misspellings of Qwikster through Brand Certified Inc. 

Brand Certified Inc. is a shell company used by the brand protection service MarkMonitor, as first spotted by Kevin Murphy of DomainIncite.

Since at least August, Netflix has been using MarkMonitor’s secret “Brand Certified Inc.” to apparently purchase up several common misspellings of Qwikster.

Here’s a look at just a handful of the names that have passed through Brand Certified Inc since August, which are pretty much guaranteed to be the properties of Netflix, as MarkMonitor is a “brand protection company” where the netflix.com web address itself is registered.

http://www.domaintools.com/qwiter.com 
http://www.domaintools.com/quickstar.net
http://www.domaintools.com/qwickster.com 
http://www.domaintools.com/kwikster.net 
http://www.domaintools.com/wikster.com
http://www.domaintools.com/qwikister.com  
http://www.domaintools.com/quick-star.net 
http://www.domaintools.com/quickstar.org

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter