Recent Posts
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- Epik gets acquired again! The plot thickens…
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- Epik to reveal its owners soon
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Fiddy drops da C-bomb at .club launch party
Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson accidentally supported “.com” while he was endorsing da new .club gTLD at a launch party at a New York nightclub last night.
As previously reported, Fiddy is da first significant celebrity endorser of a new gTLD. He’s being paid to use 50inda.club, a web site developed by .CLUB Domains, as his new social media hub.
“In Da Club” was of course his breakthrough hit, in 2003.
He showed up at da Tao nightclub in New York — which had been rebranded “.CLUB” for one night only — last night for about 90 minutes in order to meet fans and pose for selfies, etc.
I was there. As disclosure, .CLUB had paid for my airfare from London, a night in a hotel, and copious amounts of alcohol.
I didn’t attempt to get into da roped-off VIP area where Fiddy was being held, but I gather that da bouncers guarding it were somewhat selective in who he got to meet.
He also publicly spoke, alongside .CLUB’s CEO Colin Campbell and CMO Jeff Sass, for about 30 seconds, in order to provide his official endorsement of da new gTLD.
Da problem was that during his brief address he referred to his support for “.com”, which is a little bit like a celebrity being paid to endorse Pepsi referring to how much he loves Coke.
Probably just a Freudian slip. We’ve all done it.
Unfortunately, I can’t give you da full quote just yet. It was quite noisy in there, and I’d consumed quite a bit of Cristal with diamond flakes floating in it. But a lot of people who videoed da address on their phones tell me it will be on YouTube shortly.
Fortunately for .CLUB, I don’t think what he said matters that much.
What matters is how frequently his people link to his new .club domain on his social media channels, how much mainstream media coverage his endorsement generates, and how many people register .club domains as a result.
Getting Fiddy as an anchor tenant will not have come cheap — my guess, and it is just a guess, is that da deal is costing .CLUB high six figures at least — so da company will have to sell a lot of domains to make it pay off.
UPDATE May 26: Here’s .CLUB’s video of da event. Fiddy says he’s very excited to launch his “50 in da .com club”. He later gets it right, referring to “.club” more than once.
Wait. He didn’t perform “In Da Club”?
He didn’t perform anything. That would have cost more. There were some screens showing his videos on a loop. I understand he has an album coming out soon.
So what I think you’re endorsing here is getting pissed.
Great Frageresque heading Kevin – made me click thru to this article!
Didn’t the same exact thing happen to the mayor of Las Vegas when she mistakenly referred to .Vegas as Vegas.com at the last Domainfest conference? Does anyone have a video of that?
Seriously, do gtld proponents get the serious ramifications of this?
Kevin,
Feel free to add the video to show the whole story.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T5RI2JKOmI
Colin
Thanks Colin.
I never criticize anyone for human error, such as typographical errors made verbally, or slip of the tongue pronunciations, because we all do it, and thus inerrant.
However, that is not what occurred in this case. It has been predicted by ardent domain scholars, such as Rick Schwartz, that most US people are programmed, brain-washed even, at least hot-wired, for Dot Com, to a point where the extension is almost synonymous with the internet. Consequently, they say it’s a tall order to do what some are attempting to do.
Having said that, I will continue to abstain from piling on about this error. I try to be understanding, and reasonable.
Correction, meant to say, thus we’re not inerrant. (as you can see).
If .com is the only place to be, why do you care so much when you can’t register a keyword on a new gTLD because the registry reserved or premium-priced it ?
Because, as Dr. Martin Luther King says, an injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere.
We try to operate on principles, not outcome.
Principles like the assured right of domainers to profit from arbitrage ? I think MLK was more about public interest than that…
We finally agree on something! Check on MLK.
But remember, arbitrageur and domainer are comprehensive enough to include you and I, Donuts, and all the Registries. We are now all domainers, and arbitrageurs. Either one of us pointing a finger, must now be wary of the old proverbial four pointing back.
GTLD = Good to Lose Dinero
…and we are now seeing why. Is it realistic to think that the same slipup will never be made by your visitors and emailors?
The whole gtld concept is dumb and we are, once again, being reminded as to why that is.
Wow, bad slip up coming at a very sensative time. Note to self: avoid all gtlds due to accidental .com bleeding effect