When the whole Conan O'Brien cancelation fiasco was going on, I registered teamconan.com and teamleno.com because I saw that phrasing in a TMZ poll and they were still available. My friend and I threw together a Facebook Group and put the domain on a Tumblr account. Within 12 hours we had 10k+ members in the FB group and were getting significant search traffic to the site. We were getting emails from people offering up 50-100 bucks to run a display ad (static image, not adserved) and we didn't even prompt for it. I only ended selling 2 of them and we donated the money to the Haiti Earthquake thing. I definitely could have made a lot more had I been prepared to sell display ads. Simply putting a link on the site with a contact email for advertisers will get you plenty of offers if you really are seeing massive viral traffic. Also, ALWAYS make a facebook page for the site you create. You can really ramp up virality and pages with a lot of fans can earn money with sponsored statuses (which is frowned upon heavily by facebook).
Also, for anyone that is interested: A few months afterwards, Conan's lawyer contacted us and asked to to give them the domain. I had no problem with that and now it currently directs to his official "Team Coco" site. We still have the FB group, it has lost about 200k members since its peak but still has 200k members: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=242166564197
You're acting as if Conan is in explicit control of his lawyers. He's a major celebrity worth millions of dollars. If the lawyer didn't try to shut down sites with his name in them (that are about him), he/she isn't a very good lawyer.
Besides, the grandfather post said they asked for the domain - not the site (?). That could be very relevant.
>If the lawyer didn't try to shut down sites with his name in them (that are about him), he/she isn't a very good lawyer.
People don't generally own the rights to exclusive use of their name and news reporting clauses in copyright usually make such requests contrary to law IMO.
However, in the USA at least I expect it's the old "I've got money and lawyers and so you have to do what I say".
The lawyer contacted me and asked if they could have the domain (and hinted that they would be willing to pay or trade tickets/merchandise). I just gave it to him. There was never any inkling of strong arming or a forceful shut down on their end.
Conan sent us a signed thank you later about a week after the domain transfer went through.
Excellent thoughts -- I'll plan to include placeholders for simple ad placements that can be sold directly, and will definitely have contact info in the footer.
The Facebook page is also a great idea; I'll get it created and try to auto-post user creations to the page.
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I have experience with this.
When the whole Conan O'Brien cancelation fiasco was going on, I registered teamconan.com and teamleno.com because I saw that phrasing in a TMZ poll and they were still available. My friend and I threw together a Facebook Group and put the domain on a Tumblr account. Within 12 hours we had 10k+ members in the FB group and were getting significant search traffic to the site. We were getting emails from people offering up 50-100 bucks to run a display ad (static image, not adserved) and we didn't even prompt for it. I only ended selling 2 of them and we donated the money to the Haiti Earthquake thing. I definitely could have made a lot more had I been prepared to sell display ads. Simply putting a link on the site with a contact email for advertisers will get you plenty of offers if you really are seeing massive viral traffic. Also, ALWAYS make a facebook page for the site you create. You can really ramp up virality and pages with a lot of fans can earn money with sponsored statuses (which is frowned upon heavily by facebook).
Also, for anyone that is interested: A few months afterwards, Conan's lawyer contacted us and asked to to give them the domain. I had no problem with that and now it currently directs to his official "Team Coco" site. We still have the FB group, it has lost about 200k members since its peak but still has 200k members: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=242166564197
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You're acting as if Conan is in explicit control of his lawyers. He's a major celebrity worth millions of dollars. If the lawyer didn't try to shut down sites with his name in them (that are about him), he/she isn't a very good lawyer.
Besides, the grandfather post said they asked for the domain - not the site (?). That could be very relevant.
>If the lawyer didn't try to shut down sites with his name in them (that are about him), he/she isn't a very good lawyer.
People don't generally own the rights to exclusive use of their name and news reporting clauses in copyright usually make such requests contrary to law IMO.
However, in the USA at least I expect it's the old "I've got money and lawyers and so you have to do what I say".
The lawyer contacted me and asked if they could have the domain (and hinted that they would be willing to pay or trade tickets/merchandise). I just gave it to him. There was never any inkling of strong arming or a forceful shut down on their end.
Conan sent us a signed thank you later about a week after the domain transfer went through.
Excellent thoughts -- I'll plan to include placeholders for simple ad placements that can be sold directly, and will definitely have contact info in the footer.
The Facebook page is also a great idea; I'll get it created and try to auto-post user creations to the page.
Thanks!