Dotster
 | |
| Type: | Privately Held |
| Industry: | Internet, Domain name registration |
| Founded: | Vancouver, WA (1999) |
| Headquarters: | 8100 NE Parkway Drive Vancouver, WA 98682 United States |
| Country: | USA |
| Products: | Dotster Connect |
| Employees: | 51-200 |
| Website: | http://www.dotster.com |
| Key People | |
| Clint Page (CEO) Brian Unruh (CFO) | |
Dotster is a domain name provider also offering web hosting and design, email packages, online marketing and security solutions. Founded in 1999, this ICANN accredited registrar is headquartered in Vancouver, Washington, USA [1] and is held held by the Baker Capital, a private equity firm from New York, USA. [2]
As of November, 2010, Dotster has over 1,154,000 domain names under its management with a global market share of approximately 0.985%.[3]
History
George DeCarlo, an IT entrepreneur and graduate of University of Portland , founded Dotster in 1999. [4].
In January 2000, Dotster was launched as a project of CAS (Columbia Analytical Services), Holdings Inc, headquartered in Kelso, Wash. [5]. Dotster acted as subsidiary of CAS Holdings, Inc until late 2004 when Baker Capital purchased Dotster from CAS. [6]
In 2000, Clint Page, then the president of a private development organization CEDC, joined Dotster as the President and CEO and has been running the company since.[7]
In August 2001, Dotster announced the launch of NameWinner, a service to register expiring domain names from the VeriSign Global Registry.[8] According to Clint Page "Dotster was the first company to offer the auction service in the expired domain market and one of the first to promote expiring domains to the customers".[9]
In June 2006, a lawsuit was filed by high-end retailers Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman charging Dotster of unlawfully participation in a massive cybersquatting campaign. [10]
Email Brain
Email Brain, which provides email marketing services, was bought by Dotster in 2008. The company was originally founded in 2003 by Aurelio F Rodriguez. Email Brain allows customers to send and keep track of promotions and newsletters.[11]
Dotster Connect
Dotster launched Dotster Connect on January 22, 2009, and connects businesses and people to social networking. Dotster Connect comes in four packages: Silver, Gold, Platinum and Enterprise.[12] The main features of Dotster Connect are Forums and Polls, Events Management, Submittal Processing, User Profiles and Awards, Media Sharing, and Newsletters.
Happy Hour Promotion
On June 24, 2008 Dotster held a happy hour promotion from 9am to 4pm(PDT). Dotster distributed 400 free coupons that were redeemable for .com, .org, or .net domain name. They gave fifty free coupons every hour on a first come first served basis.
After the happy hour was over, there was an After Hours Sale in which the services and products of the website were offered at very low prices. [13]
eBiz in a Box
On June 10, 2008 Dotster held a "eBiz in a Box" sweepstakes to give away 8 packs of tools that could help make a website. Each week dotster gave one free tool kit to a person randomly selected from sweepstakes participants. [14]
Awards
On May 26th 2008, VeriSign presented Dotster with the Domain Pioneer award, which implements that dotster has played a vital role in the expansion of .com domains.[15] In both 2005 and 2006, Dotster was awarded the Users' Choice Award by Name Intelligence. In 2005, Dotster was also awarded the Privately Held Company of the Year by the Tech Awards, and in 2004 Dotster was a finalist for the Oregon Entrepreneurial Company of the Year award. [16]