Hello, Go Daddy-o
Today, on that great American institution known as Superbowl Sunday, I posted a short comment on Go Daddy CEO Bob Parsons's blog in response to his claim of how well Go Daddy's ads have been working,
Commercials with bouncy-breasted babes may have drawn lots of new male customers and filled the company's coffers, but they demonstrate to many other people that GoDaddy intends its image and business model to appeal to lowest-common-denominator prurient tastes. Sex may sell, but I'm not buying. GoDaddy lost my business, and I've suggested many others look elsewhere. Good luck as the apparent leading light of tech porn-vertising.
Maybe GoDaddy can merge with Hooters to be the one-stop shop for female exploitation.
Parsons's reply was an unsurprising,
There's no exploitation here of females or of anyone else for that matter.
Appreciate your post,
Bob
I will give Bob his due: at least he reads his criticisms, of which there are quite a few. On the topic of sex on TV, I consider myself to be pretty easy going by most standards. Among my favorite shows is Nip/Tuck, which manages to offend even the most jaded sensibilities. And I thought the hubbub caused by the arch-conservative Parents Television Council over the "Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction"-- 2004's halftime show which put the fear of God into CBS in the form of hefty FCC fines-- was pure Puritan poppycock.
But advertising is another beastie: it's not mere entertainment, but an attempt to sell something. And appeals to below-the-belt interests when pitching totally unrelated products are as common and clichéd as well, apple pie. And that's what makes Go Daddy's ads so cheesy: there is no actual differentiation or explanation of Go Daddy's services; the "content" of the ads is just a pretext for jiggling breasts. Use of bouncy babes to sell friggin' domain names? No, Bob, that's not merely exploitive, that's saying to your customers a whole lot 'bout your company. It may work for cheap beer-- but amazing as it may be to believe, the Internet is a bit more than just alcoholic frat boys.
Wikipedia, of course, has an interesting, albeit poorly cited article on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godaddy#Marketing
My recommended registrar is 1and1.com -- they don't need to resort to dancing girls to sell domains at great prices. You can order with the domain look-up form below:
We trust 1&1 for our domains - Get yours for $5.99 today!
Domain Transfer Round 2: GoDaddy’s uppercut
Those of you who follow my every scintillating online exploit may recall that I recently had a bout with so-called "World's No. 1 ICANN-accredited domain name registrar" GoDaddy.com.
Seems like Go Daddy is particularly keen about holding onto its slim "dominance" of low-cost domain registration space. On his "personal" blog, company founder and CEO Bob Parsons goes all out, front and center, to rail against what he perceives is the inequity of ICANN granting Verisign/Internic a license to print money (while poor 'ol Bob can only mint a couple hundred mil.) So it's little surprise that with another company offering Dot-Com registration at prices that make even GD's seem inflated, some "roadblocks" seem to get put up when trying to move domains.
Latest case in point: my requests to transfer my remaining domains away from Go Daddy are getting denied with claims that they have "express written objection" to such transfers. Huh? From whom? 'Cause I seem to recall giving express written (well, electronic) consent to 1and1.com to get my domains... twice already!
Domain registrars beg not to transfer
So I own a bunch of domain names. We're talking about random domains purchased at the tail-end of the dot-com bubble, when everyone thought that getting a Dot-Com was like buying a piece of virtual real estate. Thus was the origin of "UP-LOAD.com" which was picked up six or so years ago with the silly idea that it sounded like a name someone might want someday. (Turns out, that someone was me.) Likewise, I bought a dozen more over the years, with an occasional one getting attention, and offers for remunerations. (That's a fancy way of saying that someone once actually paid me the BIG BUCKS to acquire a domain name.)