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Key-Systems CEO discusses Moniker and SnapNames acquisition

Andrew Allemann — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:30:43 +0000

No dramatic changes on tap but more ccTLDs and other improvements on the way.

KeyDrive’s acquisition of Moniker and SnapNames last week has shaken up the domain name investor ecosystem.

I just talked to Key-Systems CEO Alexander Siffrin to better understand what this means for customers. (KeyDrive includes Key-Systems Group and NameDrive Group, as well as the recently acquired companies.)

If you’re worried about dramatic changes to how you do business with Moniker and SnapNames, it sounds like you should relax: Siffrin says you shouldn’t expect any major overhaul of the businesses any time soon.

“Our strategic point is to increase service levels and service offerings,” said Siffrin.

For example, the company plans to dramatically increase the number of ccTLDs on Moniker as well as SnapNames.

You can also expect enhanced hosting options and other value-added services. SnapNames will also be integrated into the company’s registrars (and potentially others in the future), which will give more exposure to domains for sale through the platform.

Pricing isn’t expected to change any time soon and customers will continue to use the Moniker and SnapNames interfaces they’re familiar with.

If you haven’t heard of Key-Systems, it’s probably because most of the company’s customers come through resellers.

“Historically, Key-Systems started with a retail site but built a very stable API in the back of the retail site and decided to offer that to resellers,” said Siffrin. “The impact it had to our business was more than we expected, so right now most of our clients come from the reseller area.”

Although KeyDrive is mostly in Germany and Luxembourg, it has existing offices in Austin, Texas and Leesburg, Virginia. With the acquisition it now has a presence in Portland and Ft. Lauderdale. The company is looking to hire several customer support and account management personnel in its Florida office.

KeyDrive began talking to Oversee.net about acquiring the two businesses about a year ago and closed on the deal the Monday before DOMAINfest. The sales price was not disclosed.

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6 questions about DOMAINfest answered

Andrew Allemann — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:11:07 +0000

A look back at last week’s DOMAINfest conference.

Before heading to DOMAINfest I posed six questions that would be answered by the end of the week. Here are the answers.

1. How will Oversee.net’s new leadership present itself?

Just before the conference began, Oversee.net announced that co-presidents Debra Domeyer and Scott Morrow had been promoted to co-CEOs.

I haven’t seen many “co-CEO” type situations end favorably, but they seem to be handling it well so far.

Most people I talked to at the conference were positive about the new leadership. Domeyer will be more visible to domainers since she handles the domain monetization side of the business. Morrow covers the vertical markets properties.

The new leadership gives Oversee a “fresh start” after a rough few years.

2. Will Oversee.net address Moniker?

Yep. KeyDrive, which owns NameDrive and Key-Systems, announced that it acquired both Moniker and SnapNames. That leaves a lot of of questions up in the air, but I think this is a good thing. Oversee had been trying to get rid of these properties for at least a year. It’s good to have them in the hands of a company that wants to invest in them. More on that in a future article.

3. Will the new parties make up for the (lack of) Playboy Mansion?

I think both parties were good. But I’ll let others chime in here.

4. How many people will be there?

About 600 people were expected to attend. More on that in a future article.

5. Can DOMAINfest successfully include topics outside the typical domainer realm?

Confession time – I didn’t really go to any of the sessions. But they were well attended, with 200-400 people in many of the sessions. I’d say it was another step toward bridging the domainer and internet marketing communities. These are two communities that historically haven’t understood much about each other.

6. What big company announcements will be made?

Sedo announced a big deal with GoDaddy, but KeyDrive probably grabbed the most attention with its acquisition.

…

Now, a bigger question: where do Oversee.net and DOMAINfest go from here? They have emerged a smaller, leaner company after the sale of Moniker and SnapNames. Now they have a vertical markets division and DomainSponsor. They’re a smaller part of the domainer lifecycle and have only about 100 employees, down from 200 just a few years ago.

Is DomainSponsor alone enough to justify holding a large conference each year? Will it team up with KeyDrive for future domain auctions at its conferences?

Will the conference eventually morph to a point where it no longer makes sense to put “domain” in the title?

Coming soon: Domain/Affiliate/LeadGen/SEOfest, presented by Oversee.net.

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KeyDrive acquires Moniker and SnapNames

Andrew Allemann — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:15:29 +0000

Oversee.net sells off domain marketplace, expiring domain, and registrar companies.

[Update: read this follow up story to understand what this means for customers.]

KeyDrive, which owns domain name registrar Key-Systems as well as NameDrive, has acquired SnapNames and Moniker from Oversee.net.

Combined, KeyDrive says it is now the sixth largest ICANN accredited registrar.

Rumors about the acquisition have been swirling around DOMAINfest this week. KeyDrive has now updated its web site to confirm the acquisition.

Both SnapNames and Moniker were challenging acquisitions for Oversee.net. SnapNames lost its most important domain registrar, Network Solutions, shortly after the acquisition in 2007. It then dealt with the so-called “halvarez” scandal where a SnapNames employee was found shill bidding in auctions.

Moniker was also a challenge, primarily because it was purchased at the peak in early 2008. Oversee.net paid about $24 million for the domain registrar. Although the sale price hasn’t been disclosed, you can bet it took a sizable loss on the sale.

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No jury trial over incentive plan in Monte Cahn v. Oversee.net

Andrew Allemann — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:01:31 +0000

Judge says waver to jury trial in employment agreement is valid.

The case of Monte Cahn v. Oversee.net, et al is scheduled to go to trial next month.

Each side has listed witnesses they might want to bring to the stand, ranging from Jeff Kupietzky
to Mike Berkens to NameDrive USA.

But they won’t be arguing in front of a jury, at least for claims related to breach of contract of a management incentive plan.

The judge in the case has ruled that a jury waver provision in Cahn’s employment agreement is valid and therefore the case will be argued in front of the court rather than a jury.

A motion for summary judgment by Oversee.net to toss the breach of contract claim over the incentive plan is still pending.

In other documents recently filed by Oversee.net, the company continues to claim that none of the goals outlined in the inventive plan were met. It also states that Oversee’s overall performance during the three-year period that covered the plan ranged from one-half to one-quarter of the expectations that prevailed when the plan was contemplated.

Cahn disagrees with Oversee’s assessment, arguing he is owed money under the plan.

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Google Kills URL Forwarding as Yahoo Caps Some Non-.Com Domains

Andrew Allemann — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 15:15:09 +0000

Domain parking ad providers make changes.

There have been two announcements from the big domain parking ad providers over the past 24 hours that may affect your domain parking company.

According to an email from NameDrive, Google is banning URL forwarding as of October 1. The parking company says clients need to switch to DNS parking, although it says it’s also working on other solutions. [Update: DomainSponsor just sent a notice to its customers as well.]

Partners have known about Google’s plan to ban URL forwarding for a long time.

It will be interesting to see what effect Google’s move will have on domain parking split-testing platforms such as Above.

TrafficZ sent an email to customers yesterday informing them that Yahoo is “capping” revenue on .biz, .co,
.info, .tv, and .us domain names. If the cap is hit, Yahoo will no longer show ads on the domains for three days. However, parking companies will likely display ads from different ad feeds during this period. From my experience, some of these secondary feeds perform quite well on certain TLDs.

Both of these moves address challenges with domain parking; namely fraud. URL forward is frequently abused and limits Google’s insight into the traffic it is monetizing. Domains such as .biz shouldn’t get much type-in traffic, which may be the reason for the cap.

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Major Domain Parking Shift? NameDrive Adding Site Links and Site Reviews.

Andrew Allemann — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:12:23 +0000

Google to start syndicating more ad data to parking companies.

In one what could prove to be a major move for Google Adsense for Domains partners, NameDrive will begin showing site links and site reviews with some of its parked page links.

These options have already been offered to Google Adwords advertisers on Google.com for a while.

Here’s an example of an ad including additional “site links”:

And an example that includes a site review:

You’ve probably seen product ads on Google.com that also include pictures. Could those be far behind? Will Google Adsense for Content on regular web sites also start syndicating ads like this in the future?

It would certainly make sense. Google has been testing this ad style for a while and wouldn’t start syndicating it if it didn’t work.

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Sedo and Parked Still Top Domain Parking Companies, But Revenue Down

Andrew Allemann — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:45:14 +0000

Survey reveals favorite parking companies but continued downward trend in parking revenue.

A non-scientific survey of over 1,500 domain name industry participants shows that Sedo and Parked.com are still the top domain name parking companies.

Sedo received 30% of the votes as top parking company in Domain Name Wire’s sixth annual domain survey.

Parked came in a distant second place with 14% of the vote.

Last year Sedo took 23% of the vote and Parked brought home 18%.

The top five vote-getters in this year’s survey were:

1. Sedo 30%
2. Parked 14%
3. NameDrive 12%
4. Google Adsense for Domains 11%
5. SmartName 9%

Yet revenue from parked domains continues to decline, report the survey-takers.

46% reported earning less than $10 RPM (revenue per thousand) from their parked domains, up from 40% last year. 68% reported earning less than $20 RPM, compared to 60% last year.

Domain parkers are split on what will happen to parking revenue in 2011. 42% think it will be flat compared to 2010, while an even 29% think it will go up and 29% think it will go down.

You can see more survey results at DomainNameWire.com/survey.

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