LetsBuyIt Blog

Millions of Addresses and Thousands of Sites, All Leading to One … NameMedia Internet business has raised $120 million in financing in the last year and owns 725,000 Web sites!!

According to Kelly P. Conlin, the chief executive of NameMedia, the company’s business is best seen as an online property developer. “What we’ve wanted to do, quietly, is amass the largest real estate position on the Internet, which we feel we have,” Mr. Conlin said.

Some of those properties, he said, are the equivalent of “oceanfront” sites, or high-value addresses like Photography.com or DailyHoroscope.com that NameMedia will populate with relevant editorial content. Those who type in any of NameMedia’s other 6,000 or so photography-related Internet addresses, like photographyproducts.com, will land on Photography.com.

The business is a far cry from the days of cybersquatting, where speculators bought up names of businesses to which they had no legitimate claim, but it does represent a vindication of sorts for many who bought hundreds or thousands of random Web address names on the hope that one day they would be worth something.

Analysts suggest that NameMedia and its competitors could represent the next wave of Internet initial public offerings, while also providing a peek at a significant change in what people see when they stumble onto obscure Web properties.

Nowadays I’m working on the LetsBuyIt’s database and I’m trying to be as accurate as possible concerning my predictions. The Churn is one of the big factors that I know I need to consider but it’s difficult to evaluate.

Churn rate is also sometimes called attrition rate. It is one of two primary factors that determine the steady-state level of customers a business will support.

In its broadest sense, churn rate is a measure of the number of individuals or items moving into or out of a collection over a specific period of time.

The term is used in many contexts, but is most widely applied in business with respect to a contractual customer base. For instance, it is an important factor for any business with a subscriber-based service model, including the new LetsBuyIt.
The phrase is based on the English idiom “to churn up”, meaning to agitate or produce violent motion.

Are you familiar with the churn in your business? What’s the average percentage of your database concerned by this?

Meebo lets users manage multiple instant-messaging services from one site. Meebo’s killer app is a widget that places an IM window on your blog or webpage.

Metacafe’s service ranks uploaded videos by popularity and feedback from a community of 17 million monthly visitors - and pays the creators for the success of their work. The authors get $100 after 20,000 viewings and $5 for every 1,000 subsequent views. Since September, Metacafe has paid a total of $250,000 to 200 contributors.

SoonR! Access your home or office PC from your mobile phone. SoonR allows you to use your phone to pull up and search data on your desktop - everything from Word docs to Photoshop files.

You know them? Would you invest in these businesses?
More to come in the coming days!