Partnerships Flourish in 2011

There were two big announcements this week involving domainers that have teamed up with up and coming companies in the domain space.

Yesterday, it was announced via press release that Frank Michlick co-founder of DomainNameNews.com has joined Left of the Dot Media Inc. as Chief Technology Officer.  Frank’s expertise in domain technology and passion for domaining in general has the LeftoftheDot.com team excited to have him on board as the CTO.  Left of the Dot Inc has developed a new platform and monetization service and leasing program that utilizes subdomains as described in their press release:

Left of the Dot has developed a platform to enable premium domain name holders to lease sub-domain inventory to small businesses, creating significant new, recurring, revenue streams for the domain holder. The monetization service leases these “Marketing Names” along with a fully-equipped, ecommerce-ready website to small businesses giving them a highly-brandable web presence. An early example of such an implementation is the generic domain name www.Villa.com that is presently under development by the company. At this website, villa owners and agents can lease premium sub-domains, such as Tuscany.Villa.com, Bali.Villa.com, or Luxury.Villa.com. For many of its domains under management, Left of the Dot builds out the entire website for the generic domain name, converting the once parked page into a real and sustainable web business.

Another story broke yesterday, that announced a strategic partnership between Linton Investments LLC and DomainAdvisors.com – a new service launched by ‘Domainer of the Year’ Gregg McNair, chairman of PPX International.  Linton Investments is headed by popular domain blogger, monetization and development expert, Morgan Linton.  Over the last year, Morgan has been teaching his followers many different domain development, branding and monetization techniques via his blog, on his online domain television show and as co-host of WebmasterRadio.fm’s Domain Masters radio show.  Morgan will also be a featured speaker at the upcoming Rocky Mountain Domain Conference.  According to the press release his girlfriend Daina Burnes will also be working on the Domain Advisors team.  From the press release:

PPX Group General Manager, former mega broker and mastermind behind DomainAdvisors, Tessa Holcomb said “The partnership with Linton Investments completes the range of services provided by DomainAdvisors with two of the nicest and smartest people in the industry. As a publisher author and acclaimed trainer Morgan personifies the term Domain Advisor”

Together Domain Advisors and Linton Investments will help Domainers with all aspects of their domain lifecycle.  Linton Investments helps bridge the gap in the services already offered by DomainAdvisors by adding branding and development to the list. This breaks the mold from the traditional brokerage house, often focused on selling as many names as possible with little thought for the portfolio as a whole.

In October of last year, DomainNameWire.com founder/editor Andrew Alleman reported that he decided to start working with Directi as a business development partner of their services including BigJumbo, Skenzo and Media.net.  This union seems to have set the tone for companies in the domain space to start looking to draw talent from independent and successful domainers.