These domain-names based “media” companies are popping up everywhere…last month former MySpace.com chairman Richard Rosenblatt formed a shell media company called Demand Media, and raised $120 million for it. And now the news that Kelly Conlin, previously CEO of Primedia and IDG respectively, has been appointed the CEO of a new/relaunched domain name firm called NameMedia, based in Waltham, MA.
NameMedia is the new name of BuyDomains.com, a company that was started in D.C. in 1999 and acquired last year by a pair of VC firms, Highland Capital Partners and Summit Partners. During the past year, operating in stealth mode under an interim name of YesDirect, the company moved to Waltham and acquired more domain portfolios and a technology platform for monetizing its sites through advertising. The company has increased its workforce to 75 from about a dozen. It says the company is already profitable, says it owns more Internet domain names than any other party and draws more than 25 million consumers monthly to its vast collection of websites.
In addition to the 650,000 Internet domain names it owns, NameMedia has struck partnerships with third parties giving it the right to monetize or sell about 350,000 other domain names, Conlin said.
Some more info in the company release.
Related: Demand Media Raises $120 Million For Domain-Names Based Media Company; Buys Two Companies