NameMedia

Type:	Privately Held
Industry:	Internet Advertisement
Founded:	1999
Founder(s):	Brian Taff, Michael Mann
Ownership:	Highland Capital Partners, Summit Partners
Headquarters:	230 Third Ave Waltham, MA 02451
Country:	USA
Businesses:	Afternic, BuyDomains.com SmartNames, Visionary Networks, Photo.net
Employees:	151-200
Revenue:	$75 million (2007)
Email:	inquiries[at]namemedia.com
Website:	NameMedia.com
LinkedIn:	NameMedia
Twitter:	@NameMedia
Key People
Kelly Conlin, CEO Mark Haseltine, CTO Brian Lucy, CFO Nadya Morozova, European Business Development Manager

NameMedia is network of websites that initially dealt with the trade of domain names, but is now also offering domain monetization strategies to a large network of websites, receiving more than 70 million visitors per month. In 2007, it was recognized as the largest seller of domain names in the secondary market. The company may have as many as 2.2 million monetized domain names, including 0.75 million domains that are owned by NameMedia itself. It is partners with 35 premier marketing companies including eight of the world's top ten registrars, making it the broadest distribution network in the world for secondary domain names; its partnerships include Network Solutions, Key-Systems, Mesh Digital,DirectNIC, Ltd., and TierraNet.

NameMedia runs a domain listing service through Afternic.com, which sells domain names worldwide in a similar manner to real estate market listing services. NameMedia has around two million premium domain names for sale.

History

In 1999, Michael Mann and Brian Taff founded BuyDomains.com for the sale and purchase of premium domain names. At the beginning of 2005, BuyDomains was acquired by Highland Capital Partners and Summit Partners. The company changed its name to YesDirect for some time, but it was changed again, to NameMedia, in June, 2006.

In 2006, the business wing of YesDirect, Inc, acquired 32,000 domain names within the .com namespace. This enhanced its portfolio of more than 600,000 high performing domain names. The new domains were exclusively one and two word .com domains.

In 2007, it was reportedly rumored that NameMedia was going public and having an IPO in the near future.

Subsidiaries

Along with the domain name trade business, NameMedia has developed and runs community websites related to photography, stamping, crafting, astrology, sky-diving and rock climbing. The websites under the ownership of NameMedia are:

• Splitcoaststampers.com
• Afternic.com
• BuyDomains.com
• SmartNames.com
• Photo.net
• Photography.com
• RockClimbing.com
• DropZone.com
• BASEJumper.com
• Flyfish.com
• Tarot.com
• DailyHoroscope.com

Partners

NameMedia, when it was YesDirect, and GoDaddy signed a partnership deal, according to which GoDaddy can sell YesDirect’s domain names on its auction house. The deal was beneficial for both as it helped GoDaddy to provide its customers with great domain names, and YesDirect got the exposure required in order to reach its development goals.