News cooperative buys domain for launch of initiative.

I often times write about companies that announce a new product before securing rights to the corresponding domain name. So it’s always nice to see when a company does secure a domain in anticipation of a launch.

This one comes courtesy of Rob Sequin, who read an article about the Associated Press creating a system to detect unauthorized use of its content:

The AP already plans to roll out a system, called a news registry, that will track its content online and detect unlicensed uses in ways that could help boost revenue for the not-for-profit news cooperative, which was founded in 1846, and its member newspapers. The system will be tested in six weeks by nine newspapers along with a sports statistics provider run jointly by AP and News Corp.

It appears that Associated Press bought the domain name NewsRegistry.com from BuyDomains in August. (The sales price was not disclosed). The domain is still sitting on BuyDomain’s nameservers, but at least the AP had the foresight to buy the domain name.

eCoupons.com cashes in with category-defining domain names — in the U.S. and abroad.

Matthew Cheng’s launch into the eCoupons business got a big boost in 2001. He wanted to get the ideal domain name for an ecoupons site, and a once-in-a-dot.com-bubble opportunity came about.

eCoupons.com was an existing company that was shut down as the dot.com bubble crashed. The domain name expired and dropped, and was quickly snatched up by Michele Dinoia. (Dinoia owns a number of domains, some of which have landed him in hot water.)

Cheng contacted Dinoia to try to negotiate a purchase, but it was harder than he thought it would be.

“We were negotiating back and forth but he kept upping the price,” said Cheng. “Finally I was like ‘you know what, $10,000 is as far as I go’.” The two men settled on that price.

After graduating with his bachelors degree in computer information systems in 2005, Cheng started working full time on the site. He also realized he needed to expand his network to include country-specific coupon sites. He started buying eCoupons country code domains for countries from Sweden to Italy to Singapore.

Some negotiations for country code domains were easier than others. The first country code domain Cheng bought was eCoupons.co.uk, which he paid $15,000 for. He also bought eCoupons.com.au for $10,000.

Those weren’t easy, but a lot simpler than eCoupons.de.

Cheng negotiated back and forth for eCoupons.de. After nearly giving up, the owner of the domain reopened negotiations. The two parties still couldn’t come to terms on a price, so Cheng suggested a trade: Cheng would trade his domain name ens.com (which he had purchased for $19,000) in an even trade for eCoupons.de. The owner of the German ccTLD agreed.

All together, Cheng’s eCoupons sites pull in about 500,000 visitors a month and gross about a half million dollars a year. Cheng clearly “gets” the power of a category-killer domain name. But his country code strategy shows he also understands a thing or two about global e-commerce.

Mark Hunter created a winning domain strategy.

If you think domains are a niche industry, take a look at a true niche: ambigrams. Essentially, an ambigram is word art that can be read from two different view points. For example, the image below shows an ambigram for “Domains”. If you rotate it 180 degrees, it still says “Domains”. (Some ambigrams have completely different words when you view them from a different angle. See FlipScript for examples.)

When Mark Hunter wanted to start a business selling ambigrams online, he knew he had his work cut out for him. He created a three-prong online strategy using three different domain names.

First, he needed a company name for his technology that would automatically generate an ambigram. He settled on a readily available domain, Glyphusion.com.

“This is not primarily a public site, so the name was less important, but it did need to sound ’scientific’,” he explains.

But things got tricky from there. He needed a web site to sell his ambigrams and related products online, and also needed a way to get the word out that this form of art existed.

Hunter wanted to call the online store FlipScript, but FlipScript.com was taken. He managed to buy it for $2,000 and picked up 1-866-FLIPSCRIPT as well.

Then he looked for a domain for his site to educate about ambigrams. The obvious choice was Ambigrams.com, but he ran into a bit of a roadblock. The domain was owned by Frank Schilling, who wanted more for the domain than Hunter could pay.

So Hunter settled for the singular version of this niche category-defining domain, Ambigram.com. He picked it up along with 1-877-AMBIGRAM for just under $20,000. The site now hosts an online news site about Ambigrams.

Hunter invested quite a bit of his start up budget into domains. But the investment is paying off. People are starting to “flip” for his product.

Internet Engine finally gets the domain name it wants.

When SEO firm Internet Engine started in 2000, it had a tough time acquiring the corresponding domain name. It ended up settling on Internet-Engine.net. But the hyphen and .net always bothered founder Thom Disch.

“Certainly everyone prefers having a top level domain of .com instead of .net,” said Disch.

Getting someone to sell a better domain name to him wasn’t easy, though. “No one was letting go of any of these names, period,” he explained. “I couldn’t even get a response from them. It was so frustrating.”

Until this year, that is. Internet Engine acquired InternetEngine.com this past month.

“I’d check once a quarter, and check some of the offer sites out there to see if any variation of Internet Engine would come up,” said Disch. “Finally, when I was checking InternetEngine.com again, I saw a notice on it that it might be for sale.”

Disch went back and forth with the owner several times before dipping into his savings at a price of under $10,000, but twice as much as Disch set for his ceiling.

In addition to the obvious navigation issues with a hyphenated .net domain, Disch was concerned about a competitor getting the domain name. Although that would violate the company’s trademark, the company realized it would cost a lot of money to go after an infringer.

Overall, Disch was happy with the process of buying a domain name once he finally got a response from a seller. “I just wish it was easier to reach out to [domain owners], especially when you have a true interest in buying the domain,” he said.

Slimware creator understands the value of the right domain name.

When Lash Fary prepared to launch a new line of dinnerware designed for portion control, he knew he had to have the right domain name. He saw that Slimware.com was already registered and listed for sale at BuyDomains, but he didn’t think twice about choosing an available domain name for $10 instead of buying the ideal one.

“I really like the name Slimware, so when I decided to design the line of plates and filed for the trademark, it seemed silly not to own the matching domain name,” says Fary. “It’s always ideal, in my opinion, for your brand name to match your domain name whenever possible and financially feasible.”

Before acquiring Slimware.com for $2,888, Fary covered his bases by registering SlimwareDinnerware.com as a backup. Unlike many entrepreneurs that settle for less-than-ideal domain names, Fary understood that this wasn’t enough. “It’s much longer, which I think is annoying from a consumer and marketing perspective,” he explains.

Fary continues, “[Getting the right domain] was one of the first things on my checklist when coming up with the concept. So much of marketing a brand today is about the Internet. I consider myself incredibly fortunate that I was able to secure the domain name that matched my product for the price I did.”

But close to $3,000 versus $10 for a domain that hasn’t been registered yet? A drop in the bucket, explains Fary.

“I was spending close to $100,000 to build a brand: trademark, legal fees, manufacturing costs, graphic designs, international shipping, project managers, manufacturers reps, PR, brochures, etc. Plus I already had confirmed air time on Home Shopping Network plus press highlights secured on the Today Show and in InTouch Weekly. So the $2,888 was a no-brainer cost in the grand scheme of things.”

For that, we’re going to give Fary and his Slimware line a “We Get It” award.