The demise of DNForum was big news in 2016.
The fourth most-read story of 2016 was my post about the death of DNForum.
The domain name forum, which used to be a popular place for domain name investors to discuss and trade names, went dark without notice in February. It came back online months later, but it is down again as I write this.
The forum’s demise seems to be a result of its owner’s financial or other troubles. Adam Dicker ran into some issues in 2015 when a number of clients went public alleging that he either didn’t deliver what he promised or owed them money.
Dan Gessler founded DNForum in 2001. Domain name investor Greg Ricks purchased the forum from Gessler about a year later, and then Adam Dicker acquired it from Ricks.
While the site was once the preeminent domain forum, NamePros was quickly becoming the go-to place for domain conversations even before DNForum’s death.
John Colascione says
What a shame it all is. DNForum.com was a great place at one time. I’m surprised being with all the financial hardship involved the forum was not sold to someone else in the domain industry who could have continued its success in a much better light. I did notice it was down again recently. Been a ghost town for years now anyway. Unfortunate.
Andrew Allemann says
I’m also surprised that it wasn’t sold.
RJ says
Slap in the face to members that have paid for lifetime/platinum memberships.
BeKnown76 says
Haha, the paid members never got all they were promised, particularly “Exclusive members”. The BS that went down… Dicker is a scam artist.
Ron says
It was about pride, and him constantly being the comeback kid.
When it all went down unless you were in the industry you didn’t really know, what was going on. So I am sure he still had the ability to keep on marketing his services.
Now, nobody wants to be associated with anything he does.
I think DNF is done forever, just leaves a bad taste, namepros has taken over, and is a monster.
DNF was slowly dying past few years, and it was just ad revenue for him, based on whatever stats were provided to sponsors.
What a crash, and burn story, I wonder if anyone ever got their money back.
Nadeem Azam (Azam.net) says
Thanks for the heads-up.
Logged into our (lifetime) DNForum account again, but it’s still not working? Will the community ever be revived? It was a decent place for us to hang out for nearly a decade.
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