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They say there is no substitute for
experience and the DigitalCandy team has that in
spades - a situation that gives them an edge not
only in expertise but in the invaluable
relationships they have made throughout the
global industry over the years. As I mentioned,
Stevan has been at it for 30 years now, tech whiz Mike
St. John has been carrying out critical CTO
duties for over 20 years and Kevin Kopas,
even as the "kid" in the group, is known
worldwide after spending 12 years with some
of the best companies in the business in Radix,
Public Interest Registry (.ORG), Short Dot (as
Co-Founder) and now, as Vice President - Domains for
Stevan's venerable law firm, Washington, D.C. based Greenberg
& Lieberman LLC. With a new round of
gTLDs about to open up, Kevin's expertise in
that area adds mightily to the company's arsenal.
Once you know the players behind this
"new" entry in the highly
competitive domain services arena, it is easy
to understand how they are able to provide
such a wide array of services under one roof.
Those include domain registration, sales and
escrow services (with an aftermarket platform
on the road map) and AI-powered
intelligence that Mike noted "doesn't just
search—it thinks so it can provide domain suggestions
based on your intent, instant valuations backed by market
data and portfolio insights. They've also built Enterprise Controls for teams that manage serious domain portfolios.
Those include role-based access, fine-grained permissions, bulk operations, and a full API for
automation. They also promise Transparent Pricing
on all services - no tricks, no upsells, no
inscrutable "processing fees." |
Image
from Bigstock |
While experience is obviously a huge
differentiator for DigitalCandy, Mike St, John
thinks the company's AI tools may be an even
bigger one. Mike told us "You can switch to the
AI mode and ask questions about your portfolio.
For instance, if you have a domain you like but
aren't sure how best to use it - just ask. It will
give you an opinion - like maybe you should develop
it and here are some great ideas for what you
could do with it (especially since AI makes
development a lot easier now). You can ask it for a six-month
ramp-up to profitability if you want. Until you
use it you really won't understand just how good
and how in-depth it gets." Stevan added, "We've built a full
ecosystem of tools that all talk to each
other, so the AI will work across the board on
all products. Very few people have recently
built a new architecture and new systems, for
a registrar, for a sales platform - and yeah,
there's going to be a sales platform as part of
this. You look at all the big players out there and
they built their software decades ago." 
Stevan
Lieberman has been a featured speaker at major
domain conferences for decades.
Here he is providing contract advice at the 2022 NamesCon
Global conference in Austin, Texas. "There's other types of digital assets
that are out there," Stevan continued,
"and over time we're going to add in those
additional types of digital assets, be it patents,
trademarks, etc. So it's designed for something
that's a bit more expansive than just the domain
industry - and that's the best thing about the
ecosystem is it all crosses over.
Digital Candy can instantly tell you if any of your
domains are likely trademark infringing, so can keep
a cleaner portfolio. Or it can do that on the
registration as well - think twice before
you hit this button kind of thing. That's
usually research you've got to do all on your own.
This is also a tool that can help you sell it
by finding potential buyers. We're also thinking of
adding a few broker pieces in there. Many
people don't know how to move a name. For them why
not get a broker involved who could get it sold for
you?" In conclusion, Stevan noted what an exciting
time it has become in our industry with rapid
fire advances coming at us almost every day. "AI
is allowing people to move their companies
forward and their new ideas forward a lot more
quickly than they ever could before," he
noted. "The number of patent searches we've
done has almost doubled just in the last two
years and it's really all due to AI. It's a whole
new world and it never sits still!"
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