Bido Moves to Silicon Valley, But Domain HQs Remain Elsewhere
Sunday, January 17th, 2010
L.A., Seattle, and Florida lead list of major U.S. domain company hubs.
My wife works for a company based in San Francisco, so I often tag along when she heads out there. A year ago I tried to set up meetings with Bay area domain name companies, but then I hit a roadblock: there really aren’t any. I met with the founder of NamePros, got stonewalled by Google (big surprise), and didn’t bother with VeriSign’s Mountain View office.
We’re talking about the center of the tech world, yet few domain companies are there. So it was great to find out today that Bido is moving out to the Bay Area, and I certainly understand why. (On the other hand, welcome to the world of expensive employees, high taxes, high cost of living, and high regulation!)
So where are the U.S. hotbeds for domain name companies? I generally think of Los Angeles, Seattle, and southern Florida.
Los Angeles: L.A. is home to perhaps the most big domain name companies, including Demand Media, Thought Convergence, Oversee.net, Yahoo’s domain parking group, and Domain Development Corp. Oh, and a little institution called Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is also in the area.
Seattle: In Seattle you’ll find pioneers such as eNom and DomainTools (both owned by L.A.-based companies now), as well as DevHub, Marchex, and a number of Rob Monster’s ventures. You’re also a short drive to SnapNames, Dotster, and across the border to some of the world’s biggest domainers in Vancouver.
South Florida: The big players here are Moniker, one of Parked.com’s offices, and Bido. But it’s also on the map because some big individual domainers call the area home.
As for my home town of Austin? It’s mostly developers and web shops. The domainers here don’t think of themselves as domainers, but instead web developers/entrepreneurs. That may change, soon. A notable domain company is taking a look at moving here.
Further Reading:
Tags: bido
Let me know when the domain company moves to Austin. Perhaps we can all have drinks at the Belmont.
What about DC?
Verisign’s Naming Services, Nustar, NetSol, PIR, AOL-(Don’t laugh-they happen to be a registrar as well), Mike Mann, etc…
What about Boston?
Sedo, Afternic, BuyDomains, NameMedia, InternetRealEstate.com and others.
Throwing a bit more in for DC.
Telepathy
BuyDomains (I’ve seen an address in Bethesda?)
Domains For Media
Some big lawyers
Lieberman / Corwin (ICA)
Thanks for the coverage Andrew. We’re very excited to pack up and move Bido out there.
You and your wife have an open invitation to come visit us when you’re in the area.
Regards,
Jarred
DC is a nice hub to work.
Yeah, Boston is close. Afternic/BuyDomains/NameMedia are all the same, I forgot about Internet Real Estate Group.
Also in the Balto/Washington area -
Eric Rice, Brian Taff, Steve Sturgeon, Matt Bentley, Lonny Borck and myself.
San Diego is the home of surf, sun, and beautiful women!!! Not so good today, as we lost to the jet’s yesterday:(
See you guys at DomainFest.
Thanks, Jim
[...] this past January the company announced it was packing up to move to Silicon Valley to get closer to the action. It also hired a number or [...]