Company: Domainer, Inc.
Job Title: Business Development Associate
Location: Toronto, ON

Domainer.com, a newly funded company building innovative solutions for the domain name industry, is seeking a Business Development Associate to add to its team. You will work as a key member of a small team, assisting in production of revenue generating web sites, and working directly with the President of the company and assisting in the following activities:

* Acquiring domain names and web sites
* Running paid search advertising campaigns
* Advertising sales
* Finding new and appropriate partners for existing Domainer customers
* Finding content contributors for existing Domainer customers

Required Skills/Experience

* Knowledge and experience with Domain Name registration process and marketplaces such as Sedo.com, Pool.com and Buydomains.com
* Knowledge and experience domain name parking systems (Domain Sponsor, Hitfarm, Sedo, etc…)
* Knowledge of domain name research tools and methodologies (Whois, Reverse DNS, etc…)
* Experience with direct sales, sales management tools and sales process
* Knowledge of blogs, blogging and blog technology
* Experience with paid search systems (Adwords, Yahoo, MSN)
* Experience with revenue generating programs available on the web (eg – Google Adsense, affiliate programs)
* Excellent written and oral communication skills
* Excellent organization and time management
* Good knowledge of desktop productivity tools (Excel, Access, Outlook, etc…)

Preferred Skills/Experience

* Experience working in a startup environment
* Knowledge of Search Engine Optimization techniques and best practices
* Knowledge of a web scripting language

This is a full time position located in our offices in downtown Toronto. We offer a competitive salary and stock option participation. Please submit resumes and covering letters to resumes@domainer.com.

Business Wire reports that Innuity, Inc., a Software-as-a-Service company that designs, acquires and integrates applications to deliver solutions for small businesses, has sold its Vista.com domain name and rights to its ”VISTA” trademark to VistaPrint Limited (NASDAQ: VPRT) for $1.25 million.

Prior to this purchase, Innuity and VistaPrint, the leading online supplier of high-quality graphic design services and customized printed products to small businesses and consumers, had been engaged in a business partnership involving advertising traffic from Innuity’s vista.com Web site. Innuity had discontinued using its vista.com Web site as a primary corporate business site following the company’s name change to Innuity in late 2005 (previously operated as Vista).

“The sale of the vista.com domain name and VISTA trademark represents a win-win for both Innuity and VistaPrint,” said John Wall, Innuity chairman and CEO. “Innuity gains a revenue return for assets no longer relevant to our day-to-day business and VistaPrint now owns properties with long-term upside potential to its business.”

I think VistaPrint got Vista.com at a good price, because the domain will help the company support its brand, maybe rebrand under the shorter “Vista” name, and drive additional traffic to its business website. Also, the domain should receive tons of type-ins from people looking for Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system now that it is on the market. I wonder whether Microsoft tried to purchase this domain name; $1.25M wouldn’t have been that much money for them.

Very good post on Jay’s blog today: Transparency in the Domain Industry

For as long as I have been in this industry, I have been trying to promote transparency and market efficiencies. That is one of the reasons I started blogging. A lot of domainers choose to remain in shadows and I do not fault them for that. I take the exact opposite stance. If you have nothing to hide, then transparency is a good thing. The general public scorns domainers because they have built empires where nothing used to exist. Most earlier domainers saw the vision that domains would become valuable and they registered them like there was no tomorrow. The more generic the better. Domainers had no problem laying money on the line to secure domains from other early registrants. For domains to reach the same prices that we see on real property we need to see transparency, market efficiency, and clear laws.

2007 has been an important year for the domain industry; several top domainers started blogging this year and that’s probably the reason why there are more discussions about current issues in the domain business now. Transparency is one of these important issues. If you want to read more about it, I suggest you go to Michael’s blog, as he’s written a lot about transparency in domain parking. Transparency is not only important to those in the industry, but also in consideration of those looking in from the outside. It’s the people on the outside, like Wall Street investors and Madison Avenue marketers, who got a wrong perception of the domain industry, because there has been lots of badmouthing in the past. Making domaining a more transparent industry, making it more attractive to new investors and business from the “outside” is one of the challenges domainers are currently facing.