July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Demand Media bought Name.com today, pulling the company’s nearly 1.5 million domain names into its own registrar, eNom.

The companies did not reveal the terms of the acquisition, though it did state that with Name.com on board, Demand Media will now have 15 million registered domain names. Specifically, Demand Media was interested in the retail clientele Name.com built up. It hasn’t been able to reach retail customers through its domain registrar. This is a much simpler way of acquiring, so to speak, the customers it wants.

“The domain name industry is entering its greatest period of change and opportunity as it prepares for the launch of more than one thousand new top level domains (TLDs),” said Taryn Naidu, Demand Media’s executive vice president of registrar services, in a blog post, “With that change, we recognized the opportunity to expand our ability to educate, satisfy and service a greatly expanded and global audience.”

Naidu is referencing the decision by ICANN, the nonprofit organization that regulates and manages domains, to expand the available “domain extensions,” such as .com and .edu. People may soon be able to register domains such as .doctor or .media.

Demand Media is an Internet “content” company, which helps its clients put articles and videos on its social networks, websites, and it finds people to write original content for clients. It also has advertising products and its domain name arm. The company runs a number of websites of its own, such as eHow and Cracked, which many consider as content farms. The company has raised a sizable amount of funding — $375 million — since 2007.

Name card image via Shutterstock