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Left
of The Dot Media Inc.
(LOTD)
created a lot of buzz when the new
domain monetization company introduced
itself during a Test Track
session at the T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
conference in |
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Vancouver,
Canada in June
2010. As we noted in our
review of last year's show, "Left
Of The Dot's business model revolves
around monetizing sub-domains of
generic keyword domains. For example,
one of their clients is Beef.com.
Left Of The Dot finds companies in the
beef business (many of whom currently
have poor websites or no websites at
all) who will pay to use the Beef.com
brand by having Left Of The Dot build a
website for them on a subdomain such as Angus.Beef.com
or Alberta.Beef.com." |
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The
company's co-founders, Chris Jensen and John
Lyotier, told the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. audience
that names following that convention do very
well in the search engines, almost immediately
increasing visibility for their customers. 
Chris
Jensen (left) and John Lyotier of LeftOfTheDot.com
tell a
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Vancouver audience about
their new company in June 2010. The
LOTD platform caught the attention of the new
owner of Importers.com,
an investor who originally intended to ditch an
existing website and park the domain after
buying it last year. Instead the owner decided
to let LOTD see if they could do something more
profitable with it. According
to a note I got from Chris Jensen this week,
LOTD's efforts have produced a home run
with Importers.com. After investing nearly a
year in re-tooling the site, LOTD has re-launched
Importers.com as an online B2B marketplace for businesses looking to trade with G20 partners.
Jensen said,
"In cooperation with the new owners,
Left of the Dot built has created an
attractive, well-organized and safe new trading environment and the international business community is responding by signing up at the rate of
over 800 per week for the import export marketplace."
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By
rebuilding the site rather than junking
it, LOTD also retained businesses that
had signed up at the original site so
they now have a community that has over 400,000
members, making Importers.com a a realistic, North
America-centric alternative to online B2B behemoths
Alibaba.com and TradeKey.com.
Jensen noted, "those sites are valued
at $10 billion and $2 billion
respectively. The existing sites value
their customers at between $50
and $120 each, which gives
Importers.com an implied value of at
least $17.5 million – not bad
for a business that essentially came for
free."
Jensen
added, "International trade is now hugely dependent on
web-based services and Importers.com was one of the first sites that allowed Small Medium Businesses (SMBs) to find international partners... After considerable consultation with SMBs the new Importers.com allows businesses to get online via Marketing |
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Names
(for example, HardWood.Importers.com), get found via search engines (hundreds of this domain’s existing Marketing Names rank in the Top 3 results on
Google, Yahoo and Bing), find customers via
trade leads and establish credibility via rigorous Trust Certification." |
LOTD
co-founder John Lyotier said, "A memorable generic name like
Importers.com is equivalent to quality real estate, the
Park Places and Boardwalks of the domain
industry. Importers.com represented the virtual equivalent of renovating an entire city
center and giving businesses all the tools they need to grow and prosper – it’s good for each business and good for the community. The key for us is enabling importers and exporters to lease their very own sub-domains (Marketing Names) off the Importers.com brand so that they can become a valuable part of the
community." Jensen
concluded, "We think that similar
potential exists for many other premium domain
names and the purpose of the Left of the Dot
model is to unlock this potential and provide
alternatives to ad based revenue."
Barely a year since they broke from the gate, it
looks like LOTD is off to a great start.
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