Facebook and Domains: Love and Hate Relationship
Last year Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook bought a new domain – fb.com. Company was quiet about the numbers, but the rumor was that it set facebook 8,5 million dollars back. Zuckerberg bought it from American Farm Bureau Federation. This has became one of the most expensive Internet domain names out there.
Mark likes keeping things to himself. When he bought this domain he made sure that not many details went out in public. Pretty much everything Mark does is some kind of a secret. Despite this, we know that for that last few years Facebook was quietly buying domains. In 2011. it came out that Facebook has taking on 21 domain names.
However, if you type in your address bar nefacebookapplication.com or friendsonfacebook.com , it won’t show you anything on those pages. Google or Bing will offer you pages that are the most likely connected with the domain name, but that’s about it.
“All of the domains are listed for sale on Domain Market, although none seem to show their current prices. If Facebook were to simply purchase all of them, it probably wouldn’t put any content on any of them and simply have them redirect to facebook.com” says Emil Protalinski, a freelance journalist.
In November last year, it was discovered that Facebook has registered yet a few more domain names. Facebooklivestaging.com, Facebooklivestaging.net and Facebooklivestaging.org. All three domains were registered through the Internet brand protection company Mark Monitor, and like in the previous cases if you were to visit those pages, it wouldn’t lead you anywhere. It wouldn’t even take you on a place marker.
Over With Zynga, Expecting New Products From Facebook?
Some say that Facebook is buying new domains because of the resent split up with the game maker Zynga. In case you haven’t heard, the collaboration between those two doesn’t exist anymore. On March 31st this year, Facebook will put an end to the status it used to had with Zynga. With the new status, Zynga will be governed by the same rules and policies as the rest of the game companies that develop for Facebook.
If you are playing Farmville or Mafia Wars, don’t be afraid, they are staying. However, Facebook might now develop it’s own apps hence the acquisition of the special domains?
We could definitely say Facebook has it’s own special love and hate relationship towards other domains. Buying new ones that lead nowhere, definitely raises some questions. Mark Zuckerberg somehow reminds me of a girl who buys shoes and never wears them. Just waiting for the right moment and a special occasion to show some new surprises that were collected along the way!
