Guess who owns vista.com and schwagwhore.com? Hint – they are owned by separate entities.

One may think vista.com is owned by Microsoft in conjunction with their much-maligned operating system Windows Vista. However that is not the case – it is owned by online printer VistaPrint who purchased the domain name from Innuity, Inc. for $1.25 million. As of this writing the main domain name for VistaPrint is vistaprint.com, and vista.com redirects to it. This was a wise move by VistaPrint, as they can still leverage the Vista portion of their brand if they evolve from printed products.

I had looked up schwagwhore.com on a whim, shortly after getting my first shipment from StartupSchwag.com. Schwag is a term commonly applied to the items you will get at a trade show emblazoned with the logos – and Web sites – of the company handing them out. As I tend to collect a lot of schwag at conferences, I have been called a “schwag whore” before. Much to my surprise the name is registered to Turner Broadcasting. According to Domain Tools schwagwhore.com was registered earlier this year. It currently does not resolve to anything. Not sure why they have this one; perhaps a story they covered included the term in it?

Just a couple of stories from the wonderful world of domaining!

Comments

In the language of my people, schwag is often referred to as “tchotchkes,” the literial translation of which elludes me as my Spanish is no so very good.

My dear old Zeyde Perez tried to explain them as “like tortillas: one is pretty close to the same as the others, regardless of how badly your Bobeshi burns them. The next day, you sh**  them out and forget all about them.”  I’m cleaning up his speech as best I can, believe me.  Eight or eleven Pabsts and that old mekhashef would makhn yam-gazlen zikh geroytlt.

Comment by Donaldson
on 12/30/07 at 03:42 PM
 

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