Culture

Our Cyber Monday is going to last for five days. From Dec. 1 through Dec. 5 you save on domain names, websites, email, and hosting by using the promo code CYBERGOOD. But this isn’t just another week of Cyber Mondays. It’s not just a sale on domains and websites. This, my friends, is a First World Solution. It’s something we hope overtakes first world problems or, as the Twitter hashtag goes, #FirstWorldProblems. You know, those nuisances caused by too many kernels in your popcorn, or the upsetting tribulations of not getting enough likes on Facebook. First world problems are the trials of those who live in a world where adversity comes in a ketchup bottle that won’t release its tomatoey goodness.

When you’re approached by a fantastic group of women who want you to share in their love of craft beer, you make the most of the opportunity. What we didn’t realize is how much fun Colorado’s Barley’s Angels would be. After some beverages we hatched (brewed?) a plan to infiltrate the Great American Beer Festival at the Denver Convention Center. To say that the GABF is big is an understatement. This year it hosted over 49,000 people and offered nearly 4000 beers. How would we break through the teeming masses and get the word out about Colorado’s premiere group of femme ferments and our brand new .BEER domain name?

We’d listen. That’s right, a trick not completely unknown but is on the verge of extinction.

Our first question was pretty basic.

It was...

We’re having a hackathon on Thursday and Friday, which is going to be a spectacular display of geek meets wizardry. That’s right, we’re making some magical stuff! The only real rules for the hackathon are:

1. Can’t work on work.
2. Must create something New TLD related.

So, what is a hackathon?

If you’re not sure what a hackathon is, it’s essentially a codefest. This means that it’s an event where we rapidly develop and prototype ideas that are unrelated to our everyday work duties and drive our business forward. In this case, we’ll be making products or features that promote New TLD adoption and usage. Once the prototypes of the ideas are built, they’ll be voted on internally, and then a few products or Name.com features will be given the resources to keep living on.

Thank you Denver. Thank you everyone everywhere. We survived an amazing week thanks to you and your participation/encouragement/free beverages during Denver Startup Week. Here’s a quick wrap-up of the events that took place. First, we asked our in-house mechanical guru Jon Liu to build a t-shirt cannon.

We gave away a few hundred tacos on Tuesday, and we’ll be straight with you: it was awesome. We followed the tacoganza by hosting Denver’s first Insight Night with people sharing great ideas to make the world a better place. It was packed. Oh, and there were free drinks.

But if you’re not in Denver it’s hard to care, mirite?

Hearing about free tacos and drinks in Denver while you’re in Scranton or Cairo is about as pointless as another Justin Bieber movie.

BUT WE’VE FOUND A WAY TO GET YOU BOOZE AND TACOS NO MATTER WHERE YOU LIVE! In the spirit of Denver Startup Week, we bring you an innovation as anticipated as the iPhone 6 or the moon landing. Here’s how it’s done:

1. Go to www.name.rocks and enter your email.

2. You’ll receive a confirmation message. Click that and BAM!

3...

Would you like a free cold beverage? Yes?

You’ve come to the right place because here’s our quandary at name.com: How do we let people know about us while not further chipping away at the psyche of an already ad-weary public? The studies vary, but it is estimated that the average person is bombarded with at least 1,000 commercial images per day. Most we don’t even pay attention to. That’s the key right there: most ads, labels, logos, sales, popups, banners, videos, GIFs, collages, murals, tableaus we’re completely ignoring. So how … how do we get in front of someone and make them care? We think we’ve landed upon just the answer.

It’s MOTSCRAK.

As many of you may know, we were acquired by Demand Media back in January 2013. This was exciting for us (and you!) because it meant we received access to a plethora of new resources to grow and make the awesome Name.com experience even more, well, awesome! On Friday, after several months of hard work, our time at Demand Media ended and we officially spun off to join a newly formed company called Rightside.

This is seriously cool news because it means that you can now find us listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the symbol NAME. You can read more about us being publicly traded all over the internet, like in this article in The Seattle Times.

But don’t worry, just because we’re listed on the NASDAQ doesn’t mean we’re going to become some super corporate and boring company...

We’re having a contest that will leave you with both a huge smile on your face and looking stylish, if you’re lucky enough to be randomly selected winner. Entering this magnificently glorious contest is ridiculously easy, seriously. There are a bunch of options in the little widget below for you to earn up to as many as 10 contest entries.

Behind all the wires, interfaces and veritable supernova of tech terms that make the domain world go ’round, there are humans. Soft, fleshy, often bearded beasts of hopes and dreams and ill-advised food cravings. We try and try to translate that humanity with our social media, this blog, and our countless videos, but nothing–we mean NOTHING–says I’m a person with a big, beating heart like the recent revelation let loose by the very genuine Bill Doshier.

Who’s he? Well, he’s one of the many entrepreneurs and investors who have rolled the dice on the new domain names and, judging by recent sales, he could be a winner. But not THE winner. You see, Bill saw something online that got him very excited...

We just got a big shipment of Name.com t-shirts and we’re itching to give them away!

We feel that giving away t-shirts as a way to get feedback on our new Website Builder is a match made in giveaway heaven. This means that to get the most entries into this contest, you simply need to register for the name.com Website Builder, give it a spin, and tell us what you thought of the signup process. However, you can also enter this giveaway by:

• Liking us on Facebook,
• following us on Twitter or
• Tweeting out a message.

As you can see, there are a handful of ways to win one of these silky-smooth, freshly-printed t-shirts.

Entering is easy; simply fire up our little giveaway engine below. All it will ask you to do is press a few buttons.