Tag: techcrunch

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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

TechCrunch writes about domains, but how much do they know? Here’s one they should own, but isn’t even registered

The Crunchies awards

If you regularly visit TechCrunch, like I do, you’ll see breaking stories about startups and technology companies and even the occasional domain name.  However, the fact is as savvy as Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch is when it comes to the internet, the technology blog doesn’t know everything about domain names, at least, that’s the case with one particular domain name having to do with one of the biggest events TechCrunch organizes and hosts every year: The Crunchies Awards.

If you’re not familiar with them, The Crunchies is an annual competition and award ceremony to recognize and celebrate the most compelling startups, internet and technology innovations of the year.

And at the time of this story, thecrunchies.com domain name is not registered, despite receiving several hundred type ins each year according to a report provided by Compete.

thecrunchies

Back in 2008, when the name was registered, it was a website that celebrated the most tasty cereals of the year.  Celebrating the most tasty cereals looks to be a good idea, but the fact the owner let the domain name expire indicates it never took off.

Now I’m not saying TechCrunch needs to have the domain name thecrunchies.com, or that the name is even worth spending $10 to register, but you would think that with all of TechCrunch’s technology experience, the company would spend a few bucks to register the name and at least re-direct it to their annual competition.  Or who knows, maybe even set up a website that has information about past years’ events that makes it easy for people to dig up information all in one place.

The Crunchies 2010 are in full swing.  And in case you didn’t know, there’s even an in person awards ceremony.

The Crunchies will be held on January 21, 2011 at a new venue, the landmark Palace of Fine Arts Complex. The awards ceremony will be begin at 7:30 pm at the Palace of Fine Arts Theater with the After Party to follow at the Exploratorium until 11:30 pm. Tickets will be released in batches starting December 15. Keep an eye on TechCrunch as they sell out quickly.

I certainly won’t be registering the domain, but you can bet it will only be a matter of time before someone else purchases the name and sets up some type of online competition, maybe once again for tastiest cereals.

UPDATE:  Within seconds (not minutes) of my story running, a reader registered the domain name (Whois).

Categories
Movies News

Sean Parker’s biggest contribution to domain names: Drop the “The”

Sean Parker

TechCrunch has posted an article about the parody video on YouTube titled Drop The The (The Social Network Song) that was produced by Benji Samit and Dan Hernandez of Single Serving Films. 

Dressed up like Justin Timberlake and surrounded by bling, the fake Sean Parker raps about dropping the word “The” from Facebook and other companies like “The Gap”.

If you haven’t watched the movie “The Social Network”, in one scene, Sean Parker who co-founded Napster and was played by Justin Timberlake in the film, advises Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin during their first dinner meeting to drop the word “the” in the company’s name and web address: TheFacebook.com.   

It’s been reported that Facebook then bought the domain name Facebook.com in August 2005 for a reported $200,000.

It looks like the video may go viral with the help of TechCrunch, but at the time of this story it has just over 1,000 views on YouTube.

Categories
Uncategorized

Buyers passed on the domain at TRAFFIC NYC 2009, now Salesforce.com unveils Database.com

database

TechCrunch is reporting that Salesforce.com, the cloud computing company that runs the world’s #1 sales application, has launched Database.com, its enterprise cloud database.   Last year, if you recall, the domain name database.com went up for sale at the TRAFFIC 2009 New York Domain Conference – with a reserve range of $800,000-900,000 USD. 

Buyers passed on the name, with some commenting that: “Database [Database.com] is not worth $250,000 let alone $800,000!”.

Not everyone saw the potential of the name, but Salesforce CEO and founder Marc Benioff did.

Marc Benioff says: “We see cloud databases as a massive market opportunity that will power the shift to real-time enterprise applications that are natively cloud, mobile and social.”

Built to power cloud-based applications, Database.com will offer an infrastructure for enterprise apps to deliver updates and information in real-time. Developers can write their applications in Java, C#, Ruby, PHP or more and can run their apps anywhere – on Force.com, VMforce, Amazon EC2, Google AppEngine, Microsoft Azure or Heroku.

Apps can also run natively on any device, like an iPad, an iPhone, Android or Blackberry. Salesforce says that these apps can all call the Database.com APIs whether it be for a small application or for an app that supports hundreds of thousands of users.

Salesforce.com heavily invests in domain names for branding purposes.  In 2007, the company acquired Force.com.  As Andrew Allemann pointed out: “The branding change was necessary because the company has expanded beyond simply sales management.”  eWeek ran a story that discussed the domain acquisition. 

Apparently Salesforce was in negotiations for the Force.com domain with a California man who had used the dot-com designation for his company, which was named for his surname, according to media reports. Its not clear how much Salesforce paid for the right to Force.com, but the ownership of Force.com has enabled Salesforce, finally, to settle on a brand with continuity.

“We needed a name change. The message wasnt clear enough,” Benioff said during a question-and-answer session with press and analysts following his keynote address. “The key thing was getting the brand out there, a new brand. [We had] sales, service, marketing [and then] heres the platform and the UI. On the platform side, we needed a revision of naming. I did it under duress of the employees. Today I think we really got that.”

Read more about the debut of Database.com.