Mamma.com owner selling Mama.com.
I was originally a bit surprised to see mama.com in Moniker’s Spring Auction ending this week.
Then I realized the domain on auction is actually a typo of the once popular search engine Mamma.com — not the search engine itself. Well, sort of a typo, as I later found out.
I reached out to the founder of Mama.com owner Empresario, Omar Solis. As it turns out, his company bought the Mamma.com search engine in a deal completed in 2011. I asked him for the backstory on the domain and he wrote a good explanation. Rather than chop it up, I’ve decided to publish it in full here….
The back-story:
Mamma.com was once a promising search engine from the “.com-bubble” era. It was founded in 1996 by a graduate student from Quebec Canada named Herman Tumurcuoglu. Eventually it got funded and taken public, ultimately merging with a desktop search company named Copernic in 2005. They also wanted to own the single ” m” version of their brand name and an Executive at the company acquired mama.com from a small us-based organization sometime around 2000-2001.
In 2009 we acquired the Mamma.com search and ad network assets from Copernic, which included the two domain names. Originally the deal was for $5 million, but we ended up paying $500,000 for all the assets. We took over the business in 2009, but did not take ownership until Sept 2011 when the sale was finalized with the assistance from a well-known American investor.
Although mamma.com didn’t make it to the big stage as a search engine, it still enjoyed a loyal user base from the US, Canada (especially French CA), France, and Asia. The Ad Network business was also profitable, generating several million dollars a year in revenue. Plus it came with the mama.com domain, which I knew had plenty of value in itself.
Present day:
Today we continue to operate the ad network and monetize the search engine traffic from mamma.com, which has proven to be a steady revenue business. In addition we operate a business incubator called Empresario.com, where we work with nimble entrepreneurs to create new value from our business platforms. Predominately working with online publishers, advertisers, and agencies that leverage our resources to advance their own business.
Our plan this year is to develop our incubator business further, so we decided to systematically dismantle and sell assets that did not directly support our current goals. After the mamma.com deal was finalized in Sept, we took a step back and evaluated the business from top to bottom. What we uncovered was a nice cache of Internet assets that no longer supported our objectives, but had tremendous value.
A good portion of these assets came in the form of premium domain names that we acquired over the years and have been sitting on parked pages. A while back we did well in domain parking but after 2009 our revenue channels became more diverse and parking was overlooked. In regards to selling domains, we have always entertained offers and have sold many domain names over the years, but have never made it a full-blown effort like we are doing now.
Coincidentally, at the end of 2011 we started receiving serious 6-figure offers for mama.com, mostly interest from China and Japan where our largest offers have originated. As we drilled further into the analysis, we figured out that all the type-in users that went to mama.com, were looking for “female/maternal” topics and not a search engine. Separating and selling mama.com from mamma.com started making sense.
Also the sale includes the Twitter handle @mama, which will give this deal a unique twist. I have have not heard of many domain sales that also included the related Twitter handle, which these days is an excellent value-add.
Currently we are focused on the mama.com sale, but we have also put up a sample of 36 premium domain names from our portfolio that are currently available for sale via our site. In the next few weeks will place the rest of our portfolio on Sedo & Snapnames, except for a few exclusives that will only be offered on our website.
Hopefully mama.com will sell via Moniker’s auction this week, but regardless we will continue to push the sale this year, as we are eager to focus on our core business.
You can reach Solis here.
John UK says
Hmm, but he cannot sell the Twitter handle ,well not without losing it for violation of Twitter rules.
Chris says
So wouldn’t it have made more sense to sell it on 4.cn instead of with Moniker if the future buyer is most likely going to be from an Asian country?
nux says
Noticed a little typo – the link to empresario.com needs to have http:// before it. It’s being treated as an internal link now.
Interesting article =)
Andrew Allemann says
@ Nux – thanks, fixed
Omar says
We are not directly selling the Twitter handle, just transferring it with the domain sale. We have contacted Twitter for a confirmation. Keep you posted.
John UK says
@Omar , I wasnt criticising you by the way, I was just pointing out something I found out the hard way !. Best way it to become consultant for the buyer and can do it that way as is not technically a sale then.
Bryan G says
Interesting story, but it started to sound like a lot of fluff/hype towards the end.
Seb says
Wow I can’t believe mamma is still around.
Domainer Extraordinaire says
Momma is spelled all sorts of ways.
Omar says
I really appreciate everyone’s feedback!
JohnUK: I didn’t take your comment negatively at all. You actually pushed me to double check myself with Twitter. I’m going to consult with them on this and get something in writing from them. Just to make sure down the line Twitter is not pulling the account from anyone.
Chris: We have talked to 4.cn, but we decided to try Moniker to see if we can brew up interest in other regions besides Asia. Since we already had a few solid offers from that region. Hopefully it was a smart move.
BrianG: Reading it now, I actually agree with you on the fluff. The article would have been fine without a few of my comments at the end. I slipped in other things we are doing, when I should have kept the focus on “mama”.
Seb: The ole’bag is still on the internet lol
Domainer Extaordinaire: From our research in linguistics we found that “mama” is recognized across more languages then any other spelling. Were as momma is predominantly an English term. There is some great info online on this topic, check it out.
John Berryhill says
Andrew,
I believe you would find a follow-up story on this domain name to be… interesting.
francis says
i like mama . com
Paul Reily says
I was reminiscing on the old search engines I used and decided to checkout mamma.com as it was my go to engine in the early 2000s. Seems it’s now a voucher search engine. Nice to see it still around but I see the drawing of mamma has gone and a new font is used instead. The internet moves on…