eNom's acquisition of Bulk Register changes domain name registration marketplace

[mandy]

BulkRegister, the original low-price commodifier of the domain name industry, announced that its business and assets are being acquired by eNom of Bellevue, Wash. In an e-mail sent to customers on July 26, BulkRegister said that its user interface would be integrated into eNom's main platform and that eNom would be doubling its office space in Bellevue to accommodate increases in development and customer support operations.

BulkRegister was the last major U.S.-based pure-play registrar in the market. Its acquisition by eNom marks the end of an era in the history of domain names and the Internet as a whole.

The combined entity will have 6.8 million domain names under management, making it the second-largest registrar of domain names in the world. eNom's acquisition of BulkRegister provides it with an additional 1.5 million domain names and 35,000 customers, most of whom are commercial entities with large domain portfolios. eNom's growth is occurring in the context of rapid change in the domain name industry and competitive pressures fueled by changes in product mixes and service offerings of competing registrars...

full article: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/52124.html

Part 2 of the article:

Four advantages for eNom from acquiring BulkRegister are:

  1. Placeholder page ad revenue.

      Placeholder pages represent underutilized real estate that can be employed to host ads and generate traffic for eNom. The addition of user-generated content through blog and wiki technologies can draw additional users at little or no cost to eNom. Ads can be tailored to the type of content appearing on the page.
  2. Access to portfolios.

      Many of BulkRegister's 35,000 customers own collections of domain names that are attractive to online real estate investors. Access to BulkRegister's in-house data will enable eNom to proactively approach owners of underutilized domain names with offers to sell. Direct access to portfolio owners will give eNom a competitive advantage over other portfolio buyers such as Internet REIT and Seattle-based Marchex...

full article: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/EIGW...rt-2.xhtml