Microsoft uses Clubbing.com to promote Bing search engine.
To help launch its newly re-branded search engine Bing, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has launched a casual games site at Clubbing.com. No, it’s not a game where you club seals. Nor is it a site where you travel with your friends from bar to bar to go dancing and throw down shots. It’s actually “Club Bing” with a space.
It kind of reminds me of some other domain names that have double meanings, such as TherapistFinder.com.
Microsoft acquired the domain name in March from Kevin Healy and Simon Heaslip of Clubbing.Com Limited in Ireland. Clubbing.com was run as a site for going clubbing in various cities. Last year it had a forum with topics such as “Music and DJ Forum”.
Patrick McDermott says
Wouldn’t BingClub .com have fit the bill and eliminate the extra meanings?
BingClub .com registered but does not resolve.
UDRPtalk says
Why choose CLUBBING.COM when they could have chosen a different name for a hand reg fee?
At the Previous Post says
If that’s your logic, then why pay xxx for any domain when you can register a domain for under $10 at Godaddy. If MS, a large million dollar company doesn’t see the value in a generic .com then no one will. Lucky for domainers, they do care.
Andrew Allemann says
“If that’s your logic, then why pay xxx for any domain when you can register a domain for under $10 at Godaddy”
I think his point was that Clubbing.com isn’t a great domain for what the site is; it has a much better use as something else. So they could have spent a lot less for a different domain.
jp says
I just don’t get it. Why are we supposed to care about bing? What magical thing is bing going to do for us? I still say search results look like a 1 click lander at a parking company.
Andrew Allemann says
I just found out that Microsoft used to have “Club Live” at club.live.com, so perhaps they wanted to keep the same sort of stucture.
Interestingly, MS hasn’t forwarded club.bing.com to clubbing.com.
Tan Tran says
I for one think they made the right move by getting clubbing.com vs. bingclub.com.
I can tell you from a psychological perspective, it is alot easier to get ‘clubbing’ than ‘bingclub’ into the minds of people. It comes down to how many times the name must be used in order for it to be ‘ingrained’ in the individual’s mind. With ‘clubbing’ the name already has meaning so changing the association from ‘clubbing’ to ‘club bing’ is easier to remember. Whereas, I bet 2 months from now, you probably would not even remember ‘bing club’.