4 ms·

There's an interesting back story on the Women.com domain. NBC owned women.com and women.net from the takeover of iVillage. A domain broker - Benjamin Padnos

by aresant 12y ago

There's an interesting back story on the Women.com domain. NBC owned women.com and women.net from the takeover of iVillage. A domain broker - Benjamin Padnos - won the domains at auction at SEDO for $1m in 2010, but the CEO of NBC - Jeff Zucker - blocked the domain name sale personally. Padnos wound up suing NBC and SEDO and settling, taking the domain names(1). Then he sold them to Susan in 2012 who purchased them with "some of the money she’d earned [at facebook]" (2)(3) I have a ton of respect for the commitment on that transaction. 2012 was actually a relatively GOOD time to buy TLD's, compared to today's even-more-insane-than-insane-market. And given that the WHOIS for Women.com is literally registered to her name / email I hope that she's still as fired up about landing that whale as she should be! (1) http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/04/nbc-done-lawsuit/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/04/nbc-done-lawsuit/ (2) http://dotweekly.com/company-domain-movers-riot-games-amex/ http://dotweekly.com/company-domain-movers-riot-games-amex/ (3) http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/18/women-com/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/18/women-com/

atomical 12y ago
>I have a ton of respect for the commitment on that transaction Why?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- twelve40 12y ago
  cause it was a lot of money for a gamble that turned out nicely, and also she probably does something more inspiring with that domain than a broker?
  - markdown 12y ago
    > broker Is that the whitewashed version of "squatter"?
    - wolf550e 12y ago
      I guess with domains, "squatter" is one who buy lots of them for cheap without knowing which (if any) will turn out to be useful, and "broker" is one who buys few expensive domains intending to resell them, like real estate.
      - markdown 12y ago
        I guess one can make that distinction. In my dictionary a squatter is one who meets this criteria: 1. Buys a domain with the sole intention of reselling it for profit. 2. Does nothing with it while sitting on it... ie. doesn't develop a website one it other than a shitty squatter landing page.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      Broker: Middle man during a transaction, ties seller to buyer. Squatter: Someone who knowingly infringes on another entity's legal rights hoping to sell the domain name to them at a premium lower than what it would cost to take the domain by force through legal action.

by aresant 12y ago

atomical 12y ago

>I have a ton of respect for the commitment on that transaction Why?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
twelve40 12y ago
cause it was a lot of money for a gamble that turned out nicely, and also she probably does something more inspiring with that domain than a broker?
- markdown 12y ago
  > broker Is that the whitewashed version of "squatter"?
  - wolf550e 12y ago
    I guess with domains, "squatter" is one who buy lots of them for cheap without knowing which (if any) will turn out to be useful, and "broker" is one who buys few expensive domains intending to resell them, like real estate.
    - markdown 12y ago
      I guess one can make that distinction. In my dictionary a squatter is one who meets this criteria: 1. Buys a domain with the sole intention of reselling it for profit. 2. Does nothing with it while sitting on it... ie. doesn't develop a website one it other than a shitty squatter landing page.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Broker: Middle man during a transaction, ties seller to buyer. Squatter: Someone who knowingly infringes on another entity's legal rights hoping to sell the domain name to them at a premium lower than what it would cost to take the domain by force through legal action.