Archive for the ‘Demand Media’ Category
That’s a whole lotta top level domains.
[Updated with comment from Demand Media and from investor call] Demand Media, parent company of eNom, announced today that it has invested $18 million into new top level domain names.
It’s not clear if this is for application fees only:
In April 2012, Demand Media invested $18 million in pursuit of its generic Top Level Domain (“gTLD”) initiative, which it believes represents a complementary strategic growth opportunity for its Registrar services.
Given that this refers only to the month of April, when Demand Media would have completed its applications, it’s possible that this is for application fees and related expenses only. That’s a whole lot of top level domains.
Kristen Moore, VP, Corporate Marketing & Communications at Demand Media, tells Domain Name Wire: “As the ICANN application process is not yet completed, we aren’t commenting on the specifics of any applications beyond the size of our investment and our enthusiasm for the opportunity at this time.”
On the investor conference call today, the company said it has committed $18 million in “support” of the program. It has signed two partners that will use its backend system. It also said it “may become a registry in our own right”, e.g. apply for domains itself. Its CFO said it “funded” $18 million in April, which still leads us back to application fees.
Interestingly, by the spirit of the rules, Demand Media shouldn’t be eligible to apply for new TLDs due to multiple UDRP losses. But there are plenty of technicalities to get around that.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
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Related posts:
- In Demand (Part 2): How the Domain Business Can Benefit from Demand Media
- Demand Media Gets Into the Other Side of UDRP
- Demand Media Renews Ad Deal With Google
Majority of 2011 U.S. IPOs are under water.
If you managed to buy Demand Media’s stock at the $17 offering price in January, you’ve taken a 55% hit. The stock closed today at $7.62.
More likely if you bought on the first day you paid north of $20 for the stock.
But is this fall because the company is weak or is it just a case of bad timing? (or good for those that got to sell there shares in January?)
Data tracker Dealogic says 63% of U.S. initial public offerings this year are underwater. Of course the entire market is below where it started this year, so that shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. And we were all taught in school that IPOs underperform the market in the long term.
Nonetheless, investors are now paying more attention to earnings of recently IPO’d companies. In the case of Demand Media, its earnings are negative.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
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Related posts:
- With Lock Up Period Ending, Demand Media Shares Hover at $11
- Demand Media Raises Another $100M
- A Demand Media IPO Could Disclose Guts of eNom Operation
Demand Media renews advertising deal with Google as loss widens.
Demand Media released earnings this afternoon for the second quarter.
Some of the GAAP financial highlights include:
-Revenue up 32% compared to Q2 2010
-Net loss increased to $2.4 million
-Traffic acquisition costs (the amount shared with partners) decreased from $3.1 million in Q2 2010 to $2.8 million this year
But also buried in the press release is an announcement that the company renewed its advertising deal with Google for three more years. Demand Media uses Adsense to monetize many of its sites, including eHow, but also uses Google to monetize its owned and operated domain name portfolio. It’s not clear in the press release if this deal is for both of those segments.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
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Related posts:
- Demand Media Inks Deal with Tyra Banks for Fashion Site
- Demand Media Files to Go Public – Demand By the Numbers
- Demand Media Will Never Get Love from the Mainstream Media
With one week to go, Demand Media shares hit fresh lows.
Next week ends a 180 day lock up period in which many Demand Media option holders can finally sell their shares in the company.
Unfortunately for them, shares are now trading at only $11. That’s well below its $17 opening price for its debut in January, when the share price promptly shot up to $23.50. The stock peaked at $27.38 before beginning its precipitous fall.
That doesn’t mean you need to feel bad for all Demand Media employees, however. VIP shareholders got to sell millions of shares during the IPO and a good number of employees have options priced in the single digits.
Still, it must be heart-wrenching for employees to watch the stock price fall during the lockup period. My guess is the current downward pressure on the stock has a lot to do with the expiration of the lock-up period.
We’ll see how many shares hit the market in coming weeks.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
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- Will You Buy Shares in Demand Media?
- Live Current Raises $370,000 Selling New Shares
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Company hit with third UDRP loss of the year despite offer to transfer domain name at no charge.
Demand Media has another UDRP loss, despite its best efforts to close the case without a decision.
The case was filed by Universal American Corp for the domain name todaysoption.com. If you follow UDRP cases closely, this might look familiar. The complainant won a UDRP for the exact same domain name in 2009. But it managed to let the domain name expire after gaining control of it. Since the domain was registered at eNom, the Demand Media registrar added it to its own collection.
Demand Media says it offered to transfer the domain name to Universal American Corp three times after receiving the UDRP, but never heard back. The panel decided to issue a decision on the case and found against Demand Media.
The company frequently offers to transfer domain names when hit with a UDRP. Last year it offered to transfer succesories.com to Successories.com, LLC and transfer bhpbillito.com and bhpbillliton.com to BHP Billiton Innovation Pty Ltd. In both cases the complainants didn’t accept the offer and Demand Media lost the cases.
This is the company’s third UDRP loss for the year. It lost six cases last year.
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Related posts:
- Demand Media Gets Into the Other Side of UDRP
- Demand Media Files to Go Public – Demand By the Numbers
- Demand Media Will Never Get Love from the Mainstream Media
Company files complaint to get eHow domain name.
Demand Media (NYSE: DMD) has been on the receiving end of plenty of UDRP cases for domain names. In fact, it may be barred from applying for new top level domain names because of its many losses (technically).
But the company also finds itself on the other side of the table and just filed a case for eHowTravel.com.
The web site appears to be a splog of travel information.
Apparently Demand Media has registered many other top level domains of eHowTravel, including .net, .org, .biz, .info, and .us. With the exception of .us, all of these domains are registered using whois privacy at eNom. My guess is Demand Media (which owns eNom) is the registrant. Demand Media is listed as the registrant of the .us domain since .us domains can’t use privacy services.
Demand Media is a perfect 4-0 so far as a complainant in UDRP cases. But as a respondent its record isn’t so great.
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Related posts:
- Demand Media Buys Demand.com
- Demand Media Raises Another $100M
- Demand Media Adds Two Board Members
Companies still fall victim to anti-cybersquatting rule for new TLD applicants.
The latest (but certainly not final) version of the new top level domain name guidebook still includes a provision that, at least by the spirit of the clause, would prevent Go Daddy and Demand Media (NYSE: DMD) from applying for new top level domain names.
Section 1.2.1 of the May 20 release (large pdf) includes a laundry list of reasons why an applicant would be barred from registering a top level domain name, including if they have been “involved in of a pattern of adverse, final decisions indicating that the applicant or individual named in the application was engaged in cybersquatting.”
The guidebook defines this as three adverse decisions (including UDRP) including one in the past four years.
Both Go Daddy and Demand Media (which owns eNom) would be barred under this provision as they have multiple UDRP losses. Demand Media is clearly concerned about this provision.
That said, I still think there are loopholes that would allow these entities to apply.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
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Related posts:
- Demand Media Demands Three-Strikes Rethink
- eNom and Go Daddy Still Disqualified from Applying for New Top Level Domains
- Demand Media Will Never Get Love from the Mainstream Media
Demand Media results shed light on revenue sharing, eNom results.
Earlier this week Demand Media reported fourth quarter results. The company eked out a small profit in the quarter, but expects to return to losses going forward.
You can read the complete details here, but here are some interesting numbers:
Revenue Sharing: In Q4 its network of customer web sites (which would include parked pages) generated 3.866 million billion page views with an RPM of $3.11. But the company reported that its RPM excluding traffic acquisition costs (ex-TAC) was $2.25.
The company says “Revenue ex-TAC is defined by the Company as GAAP revenue less traffic acquisition costs (TAC). TAC comprises the portion of Content & Media GAAP revenue shared with the Company’s network customers.”
So according to this definition, of the $3.11 generated per thousand page views, only $.86 was shared with publishers. This seems very low, but I’ve contacted Demand Media for an explanation and will update accordingly.
Changes in RPM: The gross RPM on customer web sites was down 22% compared to Q4 2009. The RPM on Demand Media’s owned and operated network was up 36%. Of course, a lot of Demand’s owned and operated revenue comes from actual web sites such as eHow.
eNom Growing: Registrar revenue for 2010 was $100M, up 10% compared to 2009. Including all of Demand Media’s registrars (eNom is the biggest), it had 11 million domains under management a the end of 2010. That’s up from 9.1 million at the end of 2009.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
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Related posts:
- Demand Media Files to Go Public – Demand By the Numbers
- In Demand (Part 2): How the Domain Business Can Benefit from Demand Media
- Demand Media Launches Blog Distribution Network
Company sets flotation price range.
A large domain name company is getting ready to go public. Will you get in on the action?
Demand Media, which owns eNom, has set an expected price per share of $14-$16. It plans to sell 4.5 million shares while existing shareholders hope to offload 3 million shares.
The company also released preliminary, unaudited numbers for Q4 2010. In the last quarter of the year it grossed between $71.5 million and $73.5 million, a 31% increase over the same quarter in 2009. Demand Media credits the growth primarily to increased content revenue due to both more pageviews and a higher RPM. Increased domain name registrations also helped, but to a lesser extent.
So, do you plan to buy shares in Demand Media’s IPO?
© DomainNameWire.com 2010.
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Related posts:
- Demand Media Files to Go Public – Demand By the Numbers
- In Demand (Part 2): How the Domain Business Can Benefit from Demand Media
- Demand Media Will Never Get Love from the Mainstream Media
By Kevin Murphy
Demand Media has asked ICANN to reconsider an anti-cybersquatting provision in the new top-level domain Applicant Guidebook that may ban the company from running a TLD.
ICANN will do background checks on the companies applying for TLDs and their officers. If they are found to have lost three UDRP decisions in the last four years, their applications will be rejected.
Demand Media, which owns eNom, calls this “draconian”, saying that three UDRP losses can hardly be considered a “pattern” of cybersquatting when a company owns thousands of domains.
As DNW reported last month, a Demand Media subsidiary has six UDRP losses to its name just this year, although the ICANN guidebook may contain enough loopholes to let the company bid anyway.
Demand said the three-strikes rule is “an extremely broad standard that we believe will unintentionally disqualify otherwise qualified applicants”.
It went on to say that such a rule was never envisioned by the UDRP, and that some respondents may have chosen to fight complaints more fiercely had they known the full consequences.
Using UDRP decisions as an additional ex post facto punishment to disqualify an otherwise qualified applicant is an inappropriate and draconian penalty. The result is a retroactive change in the legal consequences of all UDRP decisions.
Demand Media’s position is backed up by the Internet Commerce Association, which represents big-volume domain investors.
But the rules are supported by ICANN’s intellectual property stakeholders, which have been fighting for stronger IP protections in the new TLD program for years and seem to be getting their way.
© DomainNameWire.com 2010.
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Related posts:
- In Demand (Part 2): How the Domain Business Can Benefit from Demand Media
- Demand Media Buys Demand.com
- Demand Media to ICANN: Hurry Up
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