Domain Incubation Blog

Thought Convergence Acquires Name Intelligence

Acquisition Is a Major Milestone in Thought Convergence's Strategy of Developing a Self-Sustaining, Symbiotic Domain Ecosystem That Services the Global Domain Community

LOS ANGELES & SEATTLE-- May 06, 2008 --Thought Convergence, the industry-leading provider of domain management, monetization and development tools and technologies for premium domain owners and aggregators of high-quality domain portfolios, announced today that it has completed its acquisition of Name Intelligence, the company behind the highly-acclaimed DomainTools service and the Domain Roundtable conference. The acquisition expands Thought Convergence's already extensive suite of industry-leading domain tools, services and technologies, and paves the path for management's vision of a unified Domain Ecosystem.

"We are proud to welcome Jay, Ray and the entire Name Intelligence team into the Thought Convergence family," said Kevin Vo, Thought Convergence Founder and Chief Executive Officer. "The addition of Name Intelligence further strengthens our industry-leading technology platform and lays the groundwork for the continuing expansion of our comprehensive suite of tools and services for domain professionals." Further commenting on the acquisition, Thought Convergence Director and Chief Operating Officer, Ammar Kubba, added that "Name Intelligence shares our passion and drive to create technology-driven solutions and innovation within the domain industry. By combining our award-winning monetization and development platform, deep industry relationships and extensive resources with Name Intelligence's unparalleled research, analysis and data aggregation tools, we are putting into place a robust and scalable framework for the creation of a symbiotic Domain Ecosystem."

In commenting on the close of the transaction, Jay Westerdal, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Name Intelligence, said, "We are incredibly excited to join forces with Thought Convergence and to leverage our core competencies and proprietary technology in order to create the next generation of DomainTools, our auction and marketplace platform, intellectual property protection services and semantic suggestion technology." Name Intelligence operations will remain in Seattle, Washington, and will continue to be led by Jay Westerdal and Ray Bero. In addition to their responsibilities at Name Intelligence, both Westerdal and Bero will collaborate with senior management at Thought Convergence to develop and execute on the Company's long-term strategy.

About Thought Convergence

Founded in 2001, Thought ConvergenceT is an industry-leading service provider of domain information, management, monetization and development tools and technologies for the domain name industry. Widely regarded as a pioneer in the domain industry, Thought Convergence provides its award-winning services and technologies under several brands, including TrafficZT, DomainToolsT and Idea.NetT. By leveraging its comprehensive suite of fully-integrated domain services, tools and technologies, Thought Convergence is pioneering the industry's first symbiotic Domain EcosystemT and is working to promote the continued evolution, success and sustainability of the domain industry. Thought Convergence is a privately-held company, growing profitably since inception, and headquartered in Los Angeles, California, with offices in Seattle, Washington. For more information, please visit http://www.ThoughtConvergence.com.

Contacts

Thought Convergence
Ammar Kubba, 310-909-7900
PR@ThoughtConvergence.com

# posted by (hris : 8:29 PM  0 Comments Links to this post

Digital River to Exhibit at Web 2.0 Marketing Fair in Japan

Web 2.0 Marketing Fair

MINNEAPOLIS-- May 13, 2008 --Digital River, Inc. (NASDAQ: DRIV), a leading provider of global e-commerce solutions, announced that the company will exhibit at the Web 2.0 Marketing Fair. The event is being held May 14 - 16, 2008, at Tokyo Big Sight in Tokyo, Japan.

At the event, Digital River will host a booth, featuring its global e-commerce and e-marketing technology, tools and services. The booth is located at East 4-29.

The Web 2.0 Marketing Fair is the largest web-related tradeshow in Japan. The event will showcase state-of-the-art products and solutions from more than 1,600 exhibitors. The event expects to draw more than 125,000 industry professionals. More information about The Web 2.0 Marketing Fair can be found at http://www.web20-expo.jp/en/.

About Digital River, Inc.

Digital River, Inc., a leading provider of global e-commerce solutions, builds and manages online businesses for software publishers, consumer technology manufacturers, distributors, online retailers and affiliates. Its multi-channel e-commerce solution, which supports both direct and indirect sales, is designed to help companies of all sizes maximize online revenues as well as reduce the costs and risks of running an e-commerce operation. The company's comprehensive platform offers site development and hosting, order management, fraud prevention, export controls, tax management, physical and digital product fulfillment, multi-lingual customer service, advanced reporting and strategic marketing services.

Founded in 1994, Digital River is headquartered in Minneapolis with offices in major U.S. cities as well as Cologne, Germany; London, England; Shannon, Ireland; Luxembourg, Luxembourg; Stockholm, Sweden; Taipei, Taiwan; Tokyo, Japan; and Shanghai, China. For more details about Digital River, visit the corporate Web site at www.digitalriver.com or call 952-253-1234.

Digital River is a registered trademark of Digital River, Inc. All other company and product names are trademarks, registrations or copyrights of their respective owners.

Contacts

Digital River, Inc.
Media Contact:
Heather Morris, 952-253-8828
Public Relations Specialist
publicrelations@digitalriver.com
or
Investor Relations Contact:
Ed Merritt, 952-540-3362
Group Vice President, Investor Relations
investorrelations@digitalriver.com

# posted by (hris : 7:49 PM  0 Comments Links to this post

I just bought a new domain name today. I won it at an auction actually, where I have been getting most of the domains that I buy used / second hand now. I'm proud of this one, although some might question if I should be, it's Minnesota.nu. I don't know what county the .nu ccTLD belongs to and I'm going to have to look that up at some point, but it's easy to make the connection to the word "new".

My plan is to set up this domain as a blog for news about Minnesota. I'm thinking about opening it up so that anyone that has news about Minnesota can publish it on the blog for free and via email. I'm going to have to work out some of the details, but I don't think it will be too hard.

While I'm talking about domains I have mention that I also picked up Bankruptcy.jp a couple of weeks ago, again at an auction. This one was a bit expensive, but I thought it might be worth getting. We'll see how that turns out. The registration on .jp domains is like a number of the ccTLD and that can be expensive. In this case, it's $100 a year.

(hris

# posted by (hris : 9:20 PM  0 Comments Links to this post

Internet users can now register domain names using almost any language or text imaginable. Included are not only Chinese characters, but also Spanish, French, German, Russian and Japanese - to name but a few. The Internet has evolved and become a lot more universal.

New York, NY  -  April 2, 2008 -- People are now registering domain names as never before using almost all language and texts imaginable. In addition to Chinese, there's also Spanish, French, German, Russian and Japanese - and the list goes on.

Unrivalled in their flexibility, International Domain Names are here to stay. Begin registering your own Multi-Lingual Domain absolutely free as dotWORLDS (www.dotworlds.net) Beta Tests systems.

dotWORLDS offers unlimited possibilities for all those wanting personalization and easy-to-remember options. Dream up a domain, invent your own extension and you too can create your very own TLD - plus you'll even be offered the option to host your new website on dotWORLDS servers free of charge. A new dimension has been added to the Internet that anyone can use virtually without restriction.

dotWORLDS investment in its global structure provides members and visitors on all five continents with secure, managed systems. dotWORLDS is also working on other new advances and Internet users worldwide can expect further announcements soon on the launch of a totally free Multi-Video Conference Centre.

dotWORLDS Ltd is a UK company based in London that specializes in providing fully personalized internet domains, email addresses, hosting, site builders, and ISP services all free through their global infrastructure. Please see website www.dotworlds.net/ for full details.

CONTACT:

Press Office dotWORLDS

Press Contact: PRESS OFFICE
Company Name: dotWORLDS
Phone: 0044 (0)870 749 4178
Website: www.dotworlds.net

# posted by (hris : 10:33 PM  0 Comments Links to this post

When you have a lot of anything there are things that you discover that you couldn't have easily known about. Take cats for example. You get a cat. You decide that cats are a good thing to have, so you get a second cat to keep the first one company while you are at work. The next thing you know, the cats have not just been sleeping all day, but playing little games with your rare insect collection including that rare $4,000 butterfly that your uncle sent from South America. First it was shredded, then half eaten. That would be bad enough, but then the eaten part was returned, in different parts of the house, along with soggy kitty kibble.

But I digress, since what I wanted to share is that unless you read the owner's manual for your cat(s) you will soon find your feline investment will yield unexpected returns. Yes, more cats. If one of your cats has 6 kittens (a conservative number) you now have a nice 300% return on your initial domestic feline investment. In business, this would be a great thing, much like buying a domain name for $5 and selling it for $20. But there are hidden costs and risks with the cat model. The newest additions to your payroll (cat food / cat litter) become hyper mobile once they get their little eyes open. They climb furniture and even window curtains. Ignore them and they climb your legs, shredding skin on their ascent. You'll find yourself wearing long underwear year round for protection from the needle-like claws. Most of your belongings that are not metal or glass begin to depreciate quickly. Then the gang needs things like cat toys, drugs (catnip), and yearly exams and shots. Think you can cut back on some things? You'll realize the folly of that thought the first morning you wake up and see 8 pairs of eyes staring at you from different locations around your bedroom. The silent message is an unmistakable threat.

As you can see, if you are not prepared for your undertaking, it can quickly turn into something less desirable than you first expected.

So too with domain names.

The first couple of hundred are easy. You start with specific domains in mind for your business or a project. Then you buy some domains for some sites that you think would be cool or that may be valuable when the rest of the world catches on to something you think will be big. Or you find some domains on sale. You aren't sure about all of them, but heck, they have 6 months of registration left on them and you can just let them drop when renewal time comes around, if you can't sell them before then. Then you have some extra money so you buy a few more. .cn domains and .in domains are cheap, so despite them being the black sheep (ie. anything that is not .com) of the domaining industry, you put some money into them. Then you buy some domains that are hyphen-infested because you know that while you may not be able to sell them, they will do ok while parked. Then the .info sale comes along and before you know it, you have a portfolio larger than many famous domainers. Sure, they have single domains that make more in one day of parking than your entire portfolio makes all year, but you still have more than them.

So you are cruising along with your great collection of domains and then you realize you have not sold any, you have not optimized your parking pages, and most of your domains aren't earning anything. Yet a year has passed and that cute little $0.99 has now grown up and needs an annual $7.99 rabies shot. In fact, 122 of them need it during the next 30 days. You think, "Oh, I guess I should sell some...", but it's going to take time you don't have, so you just renew them. Then you get a C & D for 6 of your domains that you JUST renewed. 2 of the 6 are ok, kind of infringing, but the other four wouldn't be a problem if the trademarked keywords were removed. But you don't want to fight it, so you just give in and turn them all over to the TM holder...

So when you come this far and understand more about the cost of ownership for domains, you would think just about anyone would realize what's going on and stop what is obviously not healthy behavior, right? Well, then how would you deal with the situation of having reached 1,000 domains and then you just happen upon a deal where you can buy an additional 750 domains for the unreal (but verified) price of $100, AND they have 250+ days of registration left!??! You'd be tempted, right? Well of course you would be. The question is would you be willing to overlook the fact that they are all .cn domains? I mean after all, my initials are CN...!

(hris

# posted by (hris : 11:09 AM  0 Comments Links to this post