
How We Got Sal (KhanAcademy.org) His Dot Com - AndrewWarner
http://www.domainnoob.com/blog/2010/10/how-we-got-sal-khanacademy-org-his-dot-com/
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gojomo
Demand Media squats on KhanAcademy's domain name, to make a measly $2K (after
asking for 6-figures!) -- another reason to root against the Demand Media IPO.

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ars
Or .... buy enough stock to force changes in the company :)

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pyre
I think that the problem people have with that is that a lot of the people
making those sleazy decisions right now, probably hold a bunch of stock (i.e.
they will make a ton of money off of the IPO if lots of people buy into it).
Changes to the company after that are immaterial to them.

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jacquesm
hey Andrew,

Super job, Demand Media _and_ enom are to be shunned like the plague.

Enom now owns bulkregister so that's another party to avoid, when they bought
BR out I moved all my domains elsewhere.

It would be great to see (lots of!) pressure put on enom and demand media to
refund the rest of the money as well!

Maybe an email to enom/DM that if within 30 days they have not paid Andrew
back that you will take all your business elsewhere ? (and follow through on
that).

Press people, _please_ take note of this and write about it!

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solutionyogi
I don't think Andrew got the domain back. It looks like it was John from
DomainNoob who retrieved the domain for Sal.

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steveklabnik
Yes, but Andrew put the two of them in touch, and he posted the story, so he's
reading.

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solutionyogi
Did you downvote my comment?

Did you bother reading the article? Andrew did not put them in touch. John, of
DomainNoob, was already a fan of Sal Khan. He somehow ended up watching Sal's
interview on Mixergy where it was brought up that .com domain was not
available. After watching that interview, John decided to look into the matter
and actually went through the whole ordeal to get the domain for khanacademy.
Sure, Andrew publicized the issue but all the leg work was done by John.

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steveklabnik
I didn't downvote your comment.

> Did you bother reading the article?

I did. From the article:

> I was able to contact Sal through Andrew Warner and Sal was happy to have me
> bid on his behalf.

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there
maybe the other bidders were also people just trying to get the .com to turn
it over to sal.

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melvinram
I like your optimistic outlook.

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matrix
Is there a site somewhere that lists which registrars are owned by enom and/or
Demand Media? I want to make sure I don't unwittingly use or recommend
anything owned by these companies.

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morphir
In my opinion, domain name (tld) are overrated in general. Because great
content will always find its way to the users no matter how weird and long the
domain name is.

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pmcginn
To play devil's advocate, especially in a situation like Khan's Academy,
$3,000 will end up being a very small sum compared to all the benefit new
users who may not have found it another way will derive from its existence.

I watched a close friend of mine log into her gmail the other day. To do so,
she clicked the Home button in an open browser window and then typed gmail
into Google. Obviously, this made my head explode.

But as someone who remembers trying to finagle Yahoo, Astalvista, and Excite
into giving me the address for something I knew existed (let alone something I
was trying to find for the first time), I'm indescribably happy that just
about everyone with internet access can find what they're looking for 99% of
the time on the first try.

Like you pointed out, things we used to take for granted as important in many
cases aren't anymore. And the internet is a better place because of it.

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nitrogen
_I watched a close friend of mine log into her gmail the other day. To do so,
she clicked the Home button in an open browser window and then typed gmail
into Google. Obviously, this made my head explode._

I've had a similar reaction in the past when people use Google to find sites
they frequently visit. However, I've become so disenchanted with the 'net by
domain squatters and typo spam/porn sites that I will type a company name into
Google now before I try CompanyName.com, just to avoid potential typos or
squatters (Dropbox would be the first example I would cite if asked).

~~~
mcrittenden
_Dropbox would be the first example I would cite if asked_

What do you mean? Was dropbox.com once owned by a squatter? Just curious.

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jcl
Yes: [http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/13/dropbox-acquires-the-
domain...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/13/dropbox-acquires-the-domain-
everyone-thought-it-had-dropbox-com/)

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ohashi
AcquireThisName is eNom as far as I can tell. It seems to be one of many
companies they own (eNom and Demand Media being th parent). Names that expire
that they retain often end up with AcquireThisName being the owner.

NameJet is an expired names company that also do pre-release. They are
partnered with quite a few registrars to get inventory to auction, not just
demand. Pre-release being auctioning off names that expired but didn't go
through the regular expiry process but are renewed by the registrar after some
period of being on-hold pending the original owner's decision to renew.

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bali
This is unfair and unjust, I don't really understand why there hasn't been a
better regulation put in place for so long.. (even if the initial distribution
of ownership rights doesn't affect economic efficiency)

