Antony Van Couvering dismissed as CEO of Minds + Machines - Van Couvering out, Hall in as CEO.
Minds + Machines co-founder Antony Van Couvering has been ousted as CEO of the company by its board. He will be replaced by Toby Hall, who was named Chief Marketing Officer of the company just last month after working as a marketing consultant for the company.
Hall was worked for years with companies publicly traded on the London AIM exchange. Minds + Machines trades as MMX on the AIM.
In a press release issued today, the company wrote:
The Group is currently making ... read more ...
Tag Archives: Minds + Machines
Mon 22nd February 2016
Thu 4th February 2016
.Law Gets 5K Registrations in 1st 90 days: We Break Down The Numbers - According to a press release out today, Minds + Machines Group Limited (LSE:MMX), the owner of the new “.law” and .abogado (Lawyer in Spanish) top-level domains, “announced that .law has successfully completed its first 90 days since general availability having fulfilled more than 5,000 verified registrations, with over 700 premium names including numerous domains which have sold for $100,000 or more.”
However the press release is silent on the results of .abogado (spanish for lawyer) which ... read more ...
Tue 2nd February 2016
Minds + Machines Reports Q4 data - Billings surge in Q4.
New top level domain name company Minds + Machines has released some of its Q4 and full year 2015 results ahead of the publication of full results in April.
The company generated $4.18 million in billings for domain name registrations in Q4, with $1.52 million of this from premium domain names. These numbers are up significantly from Q3, which had total billings of $1.42 million.
Total billings for 2015 hit $7.92 million.
Billings are different from revenue because revenue ... read more ...
Tue 12th January 2016
Boston Globe sells .Boston domain name to Minds + Machines - Boston Globe sells .boston rights to new TLD company.
Minds + Machines has acquired the .Boston top level domain name from Boston Globe Media, the company announced today. The acquisition price was not disclosed.
The Boston Globe retains a 1% interest in the domain name, and it appears it will assist with promoting the domain name or using it. As a city domain name, Minds + Machines will also work with the city.
Among its media properties, Boston Globe Media owns the Boston.com domai name.
Minds ... read more ...
Mon 11th January 2016
Board shakeup during Minds + Machines - Major board changes and executive appointments at new TLD company.
New top level domain name company Minds + Machines announced major changes to its Board of Directors today.
Non-executive directors Keith Teare, Elliot Noss (CEO of Tucows) and David Weill are stepping down, as is executive director Caspar von Veltheim. Von Veltheim will now be Director of European Operations for the company.
The company also announced that Guy Elliott, an existing non-executive director, will take over the role of ... read more ...
Thu 17th December 2015
Minds + Machines has finished 1/3 of designed £15 share buyback - Company purchased another two million shares yesterday, bringing total to 59 million.
New top level domain name company Minds + Machines bought another two million of its own shares for cancellation yesterday, pushing its total buybacks to £5.1 million to date.
The company announced an up-to £15 million share buyback program in September, and has now spent about a third of the total within the first three months.
To date, the company has purchased approximately 59 million shares, reducing its total ... read more ...
Tue 27th October 2015
.Law Early Access Grosses Over $1 million - Minds + Machines releases Q3 update including early .Law results.
The .Law top level domain name is off to a solid start, generating $1.18 million of orders during the first week of the Early Access Program combined with .abogado (Spanish for attorney).
Similar to other registry’s Early Access phases, the phase was structured like a dutch auction in which prices started high and dropped over time. This was Minds + Machines’ first foray into Early Access.
To date, there have been over 3,135 applications ... read more ...
Mon 12th October 2015
Antony Van Couvering of Minds + Machines – DNW Podcast #54 - Minds + Machines’ CEO returns to the podcast to talk about new domain names.
New top level domain name company Minds + Machines CEO Antony Van Couvering is back on the podcast this week. He discusses what’s happening with new top level domain names and how his company is responding. He also explains how people can partner with Minds + Machines, either to help sell domain names to communities or to develop a premium domain name into a web destination.
Also: Scooping corporate plans, Frank Schilling ... read more ...
Sun 11th October 2015
Godaddy .Miami Domain Name Auctions Hit The 4 Figures - .Miami went live for General Availability (GA), where they could be registered on a first come, first served basis, on October 2nd.
.Miami did not have a landrush or an Early Access Program (EAP)
.Miami is being managed on behalf of the city of Miami by Minds + Machines which has premium registration and renewal domains as well as reserved domain names.
Godaddy has had a policy for all new gTLD launches, if more than 1 person pre-registers a domain name and they catch the domain, then the domain ... read more ...
Mon 28th September 2015
Minds + Machines starts share buybacks - Company bought its own shares on Friday.
On Friday, Minds + Machines made the first purchase under its share buyback program. The company plans to acquire up to £15 million worth of shares over the next 12 months.
The first purchase was just £21,875 for 250,000 ordinary shares.
Companies do share buybacks as a way to return capital to shareholders. Generally speaking, the company will cancel the shares it bought back, thus boosting earnings per share and other metrics for the remaining shares. ... read more ...
Thu 27th August 2015
Cha-ching: Minds + Machines picks adult another $3.5 million from losing auctions - New TLD company reaps millions from losing .art and .data auctions.
New top level domain name company Minds + Machines has padded its bank account with another $3.5 million as a result of losing two more top level domain auctions.
The company got the money from losing private auctions for .art and .data.
Minds + Machines still has an interest in 7 contested strings, so it might pick up even more cash from losing auctions in the future.
With about $50 million in its bank account, the company is considering ... read more ...
Fri 7th August 2015
Minds + Machines co-founder dumps another 30 million shares - Krueger now owns about 5% of the company.
Minds + Machines co-founder Frederick Krueger, who was pushed out of the company at the end of May, has sold another 30 million shares in the company.
He now owns about 41 million ordinary shares of the new top level domain name company, or about 5%.
When he left the company, he said he planned to keep the “vast majority” of his shares in the company. Since then he’s sold 87 million shares, or about 70% of his holdings of ordinary shares.
This means ... read more ...
Thu 6th August 2015
TLD Profile: .Beer - Anheuser-busch.beer
Bostonbeer.beer
Summerfest.beer (Sierra Nevada)
New Belgium (29 domains)
Lagunitas.beer
Bells.beer
Dogfish.beer
Firestone.beer
Alaskan.beer
Ballastpoint.beer
Stbc.beer (Southern Tier Brewing Company)
Ninkasi.beer
Bearrepublic.beer
Allagash.beer
With over 25% of top industry players in the domain space, there is certainly promise for .beer. However, the prevalence of redirects and unused domains creates a sense of uncertainty surrounding the permanency of these domains. Of the ... read more ...
Thu 30th July 2015
Minds + Machines: layoffs, devise for money and more - Big updates from one of the biggest new top level domain name companies.
Publicly traded Minds + Machines (London AIM: MMX) released a corporate update today, and it’s big.
The company has close to $50 million in cash in the bank, which gives it plenty of time to wait out the hoped-for surge in acceptance of new top level domain names. But it’s not going to sit back and watch its cash position dwindle each quarter. Instead, it’s taking action to become profitable soon and find a way to return ... read more ...
Tue 9th June 2015
Fred Krueger sells about 1/5th of his interest in Minds + Machines - Former chairman sells 24.5 million shares in three transactions.
Former Minds + Machines chairman Fred Krueger has sold about a fifth of his stake in the new top level domain name company since leaving at the end of last month.
Krueger has sold 24.5 million shares in three transactions, netting him close to £2 million, assuming he sold for just over 8 pence per share. [Update: Minds + Machines announced on 6/10 that Krueger sold another 4 million shares, on 6/11 that he sold 10,750,000 shares and ... read more ...
Tue 26th May 2015
Fred Krueger pushed out of Minds + Machines, association reports $5 million bookings - Co-founder leaves company and will focus on his website building platform.
Minds + Machines released 2014 results today, and also announced that the board has voted co-founder Fred Krueger out of the company and his role as executive Chairman. Keith Teare, a British tech entrepreneur, will take over as Chairman.
The move doesn’t come as a complete surprise to me. Krueger has seemed more excited about his website building software, Mozart, than the core process of top level domain names. In his ... read more ...
Mon 27th April 2015
New TLDs this week: .Video, .Fit and .Sale - Minds + Machines and Rightside introduce new domain names this week.
A few domain names hit general availability or Early Access this Wednesday.
Minds + Machines will launch .Fit with retail pricing of about $25 or so. .Fit is one of the company’s wholly owned domain names, and is the last domain name the group has scheduled to launch until Q3.
Rightside starts the Early Access phase for two domain names on Wednesday: .Video and .Sale. If you can wait one week until general availability you’ll ... read more ...
Wed 22nd April 2015
Breaking down Minds + Machines' domain name Portfolio - Registry releases detailed stats on domain name registrations.
Top level domain name registry Minds + Machines released an update on its progress today, including a detailed breakdown of how its top level domain names have fared so far.
The company has 165,364 registrations as of April 20. The majority of these registrations are for domain names in which Minds + Machines isn’t the outright owner. It either provides backend services or has a partnership.
Its wholly-owned domain registration tally ... read more ...
Mon 6th April 2015
New TLDs this week: .Flowers and .Wedding - Pick out your .flowers arrangement for the .wedding.
Two top level domain names launch this week, and it’s fitting that they launch near the same time.
Uniregistry launches .Flowers on Tuesday, April 7. You can pick these domains up at a number of registrars for about $20-$30.
Of course, flowers are a key component of any wedding, and Minds + Machines launches .wedding on Wednesday. .Wedding domains are priced about the same as .flowers at retail, with prices in the $20-$30 range.
There’s already ... read more ...
Fri 6th March 2015
Minds + Machines pockets $1.68 from 3 some-more auction losses - Company gets cash for losing auctions.
New top level domain name company Minds + Machines has added $1.68 million to its bank account after losing three more contention set auctions.
The money primarily comes from losing .beauty and .soccer, both of which were resolved through a private auction. L’Oreal won the three-way race for .beauty and Donuts won the four company auction for .soccer.
The company also received a $37,000 refund from ICANN for withdrawing its .app application. .App was resolved ... read more ...
Thu 26th February 2015
Interesting: Minds + Machines obvious app for regulating domain names as currency - Patent application describes a novel way to use domain names as a currency.
So far, we’ve seen some innovation in how new top level domain names are distributed and sold, but not much innovation in how they’re actually used.
Minds + Machines has an idea that certainly seems innovative: using domain names as a currency.
The company filed a patent application on the idea last year, and it was just published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark office this morning. (Read the full application embedded ... read more ...
Tue 24th February 2015
Minds + Machines reports numbers, including $36M from auctions - Big 2014 numbers from losing auctions, but domain registration revenue starting to grow.
Minds + Machines released some preliminary numbers for 2014 today.
It can be summarized as: it pulled in a lot of cash from losing auctions, and registrations of its domains picked toward the end of the year as it released more of them.
Here are some highlights:
Auctions – Grossed $36 million from losing 21 private auctions for new top level domain names last year; spent $25.9 million to acquire 6 contested ... read more ...
Fri 13th February 2015
Minds + Machines gets .DDS, pockets millions from .store and .blog - Company adds to its cash pile as .dds, .store and .blog are settled.
New top level domain name company Minds + Machines announced today that it has won the contention set for the .dds domain name, beating Google.
DDS is short for “Doctor of Dental Surgery” and is the designation that most U.S. dental schools give graduates. Dentists often display their titles as “Jan Smith, DDS”.
The domain name faces a bit of competition, including .dentist and .dental.
Minds + Machines also lost a seven ... read more ...
Tue 10th February 2015
Why we purebred .Casa and .Work domains - Inexpensive domain names are worth the risk.
I can count on both hands the number of new domain name extensions I’ve registered domains under, and this week I added two more: .casa and .work. Minds + Machines launched both domain names today.
So why .casa and .work? They were price inexpensively, which limited the risk you take registering new top level domain names.
I paid about $4 per landrush .casa domain name, and less than $2 per .work launch day registration. At these prices, my attitude ... read more ...
Mon 8th December 2014
New TLDs & Minds + Machines with Antony Van Couvering – DNW Podcast #10 -
A discussion about new top level domain names.
Antony Van Couvering, founder and CEO of new TLD company Minds + Machines, shares his thoughts on new top level domain names on this week’s podcast.
We discuss registry pricing of premium domains, niche TLDs, domain name registration channels and more. It’s an enlightening discussion with the founder of one of the largest new TLD companies.
Also: Two warnings for domain name owners, the Dark Side of Domain Parking, ... read more ...