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GoDaddy CEO Warren Adelman has stepped down after less than eight months on the job. Adelman replaced the beleaguered elephant-killing former CEO, Bob Parsons, and will be succeeded by Scott Wagner of KKR Capstone, a major GoDaddy investor.

“I am proud to have been part of a team that has built a terrific business. I’ve spent close to a decade with Go Daddy, and it has been an amazing and rewarding time in my life. As much as I have enjoyed my roles as CEO and formerly as President and Chief Operating Officer, I have reached a juncture in my life when I would like to spend more time with my family,” Adelman said in a release.

GoDaddy has lost its luster with the geekier set for supporting SOPA and bringing a certain brosephian swagger to the act of domain name registration. That hasn’t hurt revenues, however. The company reported $1.1 billion in sales and just hit the 10 million user mark.

Wagner will act as interim CEO while a permanent head is found.

Thomson Reuters announced today that it has made a deal to acquire a brand protection company called MarkMonitor for an undisclosed sum.

The MarkMonitor website says the company offers a suite of products and services that include brand protection (i.e., protecting trademarks and commerce), anti-piracy, anti-fraud, and domain management. The Wikimedia Foundation recently moved all of its sites from GoDaddy to MarkMonitor (as noted by The Next Web). The company says it serves more than half of brands on the Fortune 100.

MarkMonitor has more than 400 employees in five countries, and the team (including CEO Irfan Salim) will be joining Thomson Reuters. In the press release, Thomson Reuters’ president of IP & Science Chris Kibarian describes the acquisition as “the beginning of a transformational shift within the Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters.”

Investors in MarkMonitor include Cargill Ventures, Focus Ventures, Foundation Capital, and Institutional Venture Partners.

I’ve found this story reads best when listening to Hulk Hogan’s intro music. I’ve embedded a video below for your reading pleasure.

On Wednesday, I reported that GoDaddy acquired cloud-based financial management application company Outright, with all 24 employees joining GoDaddy. Now, web and mobile app developer LessEverthing tells me they turned down an offer from GoDaddy in 2009.

LessEverything’s first product, LessAccounting, is small business accounting software—and an outright Outright competitor. [Pause for laughter] The company claims it has had over 30,000 sign-ups and processes billions of dollars per week.

The founders, Steve Bristol and Allan Branch, tell me GoDaddy was in the market for an online accounting application for small businesses in 2009 and LessAccounting was very high on their list. Bristol tells me financial terms were not discussed, as LessAccounting rejected the offer after a number of phone calls.

Obviously, this raises the questions: how far down the list was Outright if GoDaddy started shopping for an accounting app in 2009? And why did it take GoDaddy three years to acquire one?

Yesterday, Branch, owner of the world’s greatest facial hair, posted about GoDaddy’s Outright acquisition on his company’s blog.

“GoDaddy didn’t share our ethic of trying to make things easy for people, their support sucks, and they have low moral fiber,” he writes. “That’s not something we want to be associated with.”

Branch said he wrote the post because it “seemed like a fun post to put out there.” Here’s the really fun part:

“We don’t have anything against the folks at Outright, and we wish them the best. It’s just we are a firm believer in “you are who you associate with.” For those of you who feel the same or have a moral object to using Outright now that they are part of the GoDaddy family, use the coupon code “NoDaddy” for four months free of LessAccounting.com.”

Translation: You seem like a really nice company, Outright. But we think your new partner sucks and we’re going to do our best to take all of your customers. How’s it taste?!?The post goes on to advise users to stop using GoDaddy and switch to a different web host.

Play us out, Hulk.

Brooklyn-based entrepreneur, Mason Levey, has never had much of an affinity for punctuation and grammar, a shortcoming that has held him back in his academic and professional life.

With a shoestring budget and a desire to help others conquer those pesky semicolons and punctuation marks, Levey created a service called Comma. The startup, launching today, is the product of $12.99 in capital investment — the cost of a domain name purchased on GoDaddy.

Levey, the company’s only full-time employee, contracted a team of 50 virtual editors who are on standby to fix minor errors in all your personal correspondence, including emails, tweets, and blog posts.

How does it work? Just send a request to edit@getcomma.com, and your content will be polished and returned to you. For subscribers, it costs $59 per month for 30 edits, or you select a pay-as-you-go model. One edit will set you back $2-$5, depending on the length of the content.

“In today’s digital and social-media world, text-based content is king. People in the younger generations, such as myself, need to be able to write perfectly,” Levey told me, when asked about the need for the service.

The idea has merit, although Levey faces strong competition from established services like Grammarly, Odesk, and Elance. The four-hour typical turnaround time may also be a stumbling block to the site’s success, given that it claims to specialize in short form, fast-paced social media content, like Tweets.

More interesting is that entrepreneurs like Mason Levey are starting companies for less than the cost of a movie ticket. Anyone can bring an idea to fruition without the support of the full army of usual suspects: angel investors, advisors, engineers, and cofounders. We can try and fail, and try again — without losing funds or reputation in the process.

Levey said he later used a suite of tools that negated the need for an engineering and sales team: SquareSpace to build and design the site, Paypal to accept payments and subscriptions, Work Market to post and pay for editing tasks, and Desk.com to manage customer requests.

Comma brings bootstrapping to new heights and is an inspiring lesson for all you non-technical entrepreneurs.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

Filed under: VentureBeat

Part of the long-running (and far from over) SOPA/PIPA battle was the drawing of lines in the sand by internet companies. While most recognized the danger of that irresponsible and short-sighted bill and took action against it, some companies supported it strongly and even testified to that effect in Congress.

GoDaddy was one of those companies, and while it later tried to undo the damage its position had done (the new CEO seems a little more in touch), the Internet isn’t so good at forgetting or forgiving. Among the many, many sites that pledged to leave GoDaddy’s DNS service was Wikipedia, and after three months of work, they’ve finally done so.

Their new DNS provider will be MarkMonitor, with whom they were working already for other reasons. MarkMonitor specializes in brand protection and prevention of fraud and piracy; their services include monitoring of peer-to-peer networks and redirection of users away from potentially fraudulent sites. It’s likely that the Wikimedia foundation was using the company’s services to monitor and prevent fake Wikipedia sites, illegal uses of Wikimedia assets or tools, and so on. They also do DNS for “well over half the Fortune 100.”

So, not perhaps the sunshine-and-flowers solution people might have wanted for Wikipedia as an antidote to GoDaddy, but it mustn’t be forgotten that the Wikimedia Foundation runs one of the most popular and widely-accessed sites on the internet, and therefore necessarily one of the most vulnerable. Heavy duty partners are necessary to deliver and maintain the integrity of their content.

Wikipedia’s migration, and that of hundreds of other sites, should act as a warning to Internet companies that fail to heed the opinions of their customers. Cyber-activism may not do much to depose African warlords, but it can certainly have a real effect on virtual tyrants.

On Wednesday, Jan. 18, you will have to live without Wikipedia. That’s right, the English version of the popular online encyclopedia is going dark for a day. But more importantly, today marks the day in which a number of technology companies from the United States will fight over a pair of internet-regulation bills.

Wikipedia, Reddit and other prominent websites and online ventures are up in arms about two bills that are relatively similar: Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP (intellectual property) Act. Both bills are meant to tackle the issue of websites from abroad that offer pirated content.

Other major players, including Microsoft, oppose SOPA but won’t shut down services.

Forbes’ Paul Tassi commends websites like Reddit for blacking out, but he argues major corporations should follow suit.

“Rather, even though Reddit is a massive site, the industry needs a nuclear option to truly decimate SOPA once and for all,” he writes. “Titans like Google and Facebook need to have a similar blackout, which would reach an audience far, far wider than Reddit’s.”

Mashable’s Chris Heald says SOPA is dangerous. “If ever a bill was spaghetti, this is it,” he wrote. “If a programmer on my team wrote code as convoluted as this bill, I would fire him on the spot.”

GoDaddy originally backed SOPA, but the company later issued an apology.

“GoDaddy opposes SOPA because the legislation has not fulfilled its basic requirement to build a consensus among stake-holders in the technology and Internet communities,” Warren Adelman, GoDaddy’s CEO, said in a statement.

Organizations like the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) have also announced their support for SOPA. Below is an excerpt of the statement the company released:

“As an industry of innovators and creators, we understand the importance of both technological innovation and content protection, and do not believe the two are mutually exclusive. Rogue websites — those singularly devoted to profiting from their blatant illegal piracy — restrict demand for legitimate video game products and services, thereby costing jobs.”

What remains to be seen is if we can all survive a day without Wikipedia’s world of information at our fingertips.

Last week, we rounded up some of the most impressive landing pages out there and broke down why they rock from both a user’s perspective and a marketer’s perspective. But before visitors even get to your landing page, they’re usually beckoned by a call-to-action. And it better be pretty awesome to get them to click.

We’ve discussed the elements of an effective call-to-action before, so now it’s time to find real life examples of awesome calls-to-action (CTA) that can inspire your own designs. Take a look at what some popular B2B, B2C, and ecommerce brands are doing to entice their visitors to click through to landing pages, shopping carts, or just to interact in a more meaningful way with their site.

GoDaddy

GoDaddy is a web and email hosting company that also sells domain names and other related services.

Why it’s effective: The best calls-to-action are easy to find and have a focused objective. The objective of this particular page is to get a user to purchase a domain name they’ve selected, and this GoDaddy CTA uses one of the most fundamental best practices to achieving visibility: using a button color that starkly contrasts the rest of the site’s design scheme. Upon visiting this page, the bright green draws the visitor’s eye right to that registration button.

But GoDaddy goes beyond the basics and implements one other trick to hammer home the point of the page to its visitors. The ‘Continue to Registration’ button follows visitors all the way down the page, acting as a constant reminder that your next step is to click that button and register the domain name you’ve selected. This is wise because, if you’ve ever purchased a domain from GoDaddy, the upsell opportunities present on this page exist later on in the checkout process.

Because of the design of this call-to-action, visitors to this page experience no confusion: they are here to register their domain name, and they can do so by clicking that green button.

Jetsetter

Jetsetter made an appearance on our list of the best landing pages, but hey, when you’re good, you’re good. They continue to be an invitation-only travel community offering access to exclusive travel deals.

Why it’s effective: Many calls-to-action suffer poor conversion rates because, despite following design best practices, the writing doesn’t clearly display the value of clicking through to the next page. This ‘Plan a trip like this’ CTA rocks because it so simply displays that oft-sought after value. After someone reads the very brief and artfully written description of enjoying wine and olive oil on the Italian coast, this CTA capitalizes on the positive feelings surrounding taking such a trip, and gives the visitor the opportunity to do just that — plan that trip.

Another wonderful but easily overlooked detail in this CTA is the language on the button; the inclusion of the word ‘like’ implies that the trip doesn’t need to be exactly the same as the one described above, but can be customized to fit the visitor’s needs. This spirit of customization continues by offering a button that lets visitors see the bio of the person who planned that particular trip. And if you’re worried the bio would distract visitors from following through with the marketer’s intended action, no worries; the bio page provides another travel-planning CTA!

Intuit

Intuit is a software company that provides financial software and services for businesses and consumers.

Why it’s effective: It looks like orange is a popular CTA button color, eh? Well, Intuit’s intuitions (har har) are good, because that button stands out from the rest of its site’s design and calls the attention of the viewer to the free trial. The effectiveness of this tactic is compounded, as the language on the button aligns with the language in the headline.

The headline is also action oriented, making it clear what you can do on the page. The three bullet points then clearly explain the value of the free trial so visitors want to click, and there’s one image aligned with each point of value — another call-to-action best practice.

One creative trick Intuit is also employing is the use of extra white space around the call-to-action. This tactic, along with the fact that it’s the biggest CTA on the page, helps draw attention to the free trial and simultaneously attract and instruct visitors on what they should do next.

Yapta

Continuing the travel theme, Yapta helps people track changes in flight and hotel prices and get refunds on airline tickets.

Why it’s effective: When it’s not clear what actions can be performed on a page and there’s no perceived connection between the CTA copy and CTA buttons, site visitors quickly go rogue trying to find what they’re looking for. These calls-to-action solve for that common contextualization problem. Notice how the copy, images, and buttons all work together to guide the visitor:

• The parenthetical phrases provide a chronology – Am I in the pre-purchase or post-purchase stage?
• The images give a theme – Am I here for flights, hotels, or a refund?
• The copy explains – What can I do on this site to track flights, hotels, and refunds?
• The buttons instruct – Click through to find what you’re looking for.

Every call-to-action aligns with the proper stage in the sales process, and makes it very clear what actions can and should be performed on this page. Yapta gets bonus points for keeping these calls-to-action above the fold and using the contrasting colors orange and grey to draw attention to the right places.

Zynga

Zynga is a developer of browser-based games intended for social networking sites.

Why it’s effective: In the game of most prominently positioned call-to-action, Zynga wins by a landslide. And it also get an honorable mention for successfully shirking some call-to-action best practices, namely that this is not the traditionally de-cluttered CTA for which many marketers strive in order to decrease bounce rate. But, they know their audience, and I’d venture a guess that this type of imagery is not distracting to gamers. 

Either way, Zynga makes up for any distraction by making it crystal clear what action they want visitors to perform. Here’s how:

• The ‘Join The Fun’ button is the last thing to load on the page, so your eye naturally settles on that area of the page.
• The white backlight behind ‘Times Square’ is the brightest part of the page, drawing your attention to the CTA button.
• The Times Square text effect brings the text towards the visitor, again, right by the CTA button.
• If you’re worried the ‘I Love Play’ button in the top right would be a distraction, don’t worry; it’s not clickable!

Like Intuit, Zynga is also making use of lots of white space around this image (not pictured) to emphasize this ‘Join The Fun’ CTA. And finally, notice how small the social media follow buttons are underneath this banner. While Zynga’s call-to-action isn’t what we traditionally encounter, it does effectively display an important CTA best practice: have a defined purpose for your visitor, build your page around that purpose, and make it easy for your visitor to execute that purpose.

What call-to-action best practices do you find are most integral for awesome conversion rates?

Image credit: torley

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Het Amerikaanse Huis van Afgevaardigden hoort op 18 januari enkele veiligheids- en techexperts over de omstreden antipiraterijwet SOPA.

Uitgenodigd zijn onder meer medeoprichter Alexis Ohanian van sociale nieuwssite Reddit, Rackspace-directeur Lanham Napier, Union Square Ventures-partner Brad Burnham en beveiligingsexpert Daniel Kaminsky.

SOPA geeft de Amerikaanse regering en auteursrechthouders het recht om via DNS-blokkades complete domeinen af te sluiten als zij vermoeden dat er auteursrechtelijk beschermd materiaal wordt aangeboden.

Sinds er een lijst is gepubliceerd van bedrijven die de SOPA-wet steunen, lijkt de kritiek steeds verder aan te zwellen. Domeinregistratiebedrijf GoDaddy verloor naar schatting een half miljoen dollar doordat klanten hun registraties bij andere aanbieders onderbrachten. De onderneming is nu verklaard tegenstander van de wet.

Voorzitter Darrell Issa van het House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wil inventariseren wat precies de voor- en nadelen zijn. Vandaar niet alleen tegenstanders zijn uitgenodigd.

Het Amerikaanse domeinregistratiebedrijf GoDaddy is vorige week 70.000 klanten kwijtgeraakt vanwege zijn steun aan de omstreden antipiratenwetgeving SOPA. En hoewel de onderneming die steun inmiddels alweer heeft ingetrokken, lijkt de exodus niet meer te stoppen. Ook Wikipedia trekt zijn registratie in.

Online activisten hebben 29 december uitgeroepen als Dump GoDaddy Day. Op die dag moet iedereen zijn domein bij het Amerikaanse GoDaddy weghalen omdat het bedrijf de omstreden piratenwet SOPA steunde.

SOPA geeft justitie en exploitanten van auteursrechten op Amerikaans grondgebied het recht om via zogenoemde DNS-blokkades complete domeinen af te sluiten als het vermoeden bestaat dat zonder toestemming auteursrechtelijk beschermd materiaal wordt verspreid. Ook betaaldiensten kunnen worden geblokkeerd als zij dergelijke verspreiders faciliteren. Een rechter hoeft daar niet meer aan te pas te komen.

GoDaddy blijkt een van de opstellers van SOPA. Ook de Nederlandse uitgevers Kluwer en Elsevier komen voor op een lijst van bedrijven en organisaties die de wet steunen. GoDaddy zou theoretisch domeinnamen kunnen intrekken als rechtenhouders daarom vragen.

GoDaddy is een van de grootste registrars voor domeinnamen ter wereld met 50 miljoen registraties. Op die 50 miljoen stellen 70.000 weggevallen registraties niet veel voor. Toch beloopt de schade al enkele tonnen.

Volgens rivaal NameCheap heeft BigDaddy inmiddels technische belemmeringen opgeworpen om te voorkomen dat nog meer klanten weglopen. Andere domeinregistratiebedrijven probeerden klanten de afgelopen dagen met aantrekkelijke deals bij GoDaddy weg te lokken.

Vrijdag heeft GoDaddy onder grote publicitaire druk zijn steun aan SOPA alsnog ingetrokken, maar dat heeft weinig indruk gemaakt. Ook Wikipedia heeft besloten zijn registratie weg te halen.

You know who got a lump of coal in their PR stocking this year? Domain registrar GoDaddy. Its most recent stumble? The company’s presence on a SOPA supporter list sparked an impromptu user exodus last week, with already tens of thousands of domains being transferred in the fall out.

Sensing a communications disaster (GoDaddy has gotten really good at this) the new CEO Warren Adelman then reversed the company’s official position on SOPA, well kind of.

Despite the ambiguous reversal, the ramifications of the continuing PR disaster are huge, and “Dump GoDaddy Day” is still slated for the 29th”  Perhaps that’s why GoDaddy reps are calling customers in order to make sure they understand the company’s new, reversed position?

If thing’s weren’t bad enough for GoDaddy, competitor NameCheap accused it of blocking domain transfers this morning, “As many customers have recently complained of transfer issues, we suspect that this competitor is thwarting efforts to transfer domains away from them. Specifically, GoDaddy appears to be returning incomplete WHOIS information to Namecheap, delaying the transfer process. This practice is against ICANN rules. “

Namecheap said that its solution to the incomplete WhoIs returns was to manually process the requests, which it was doing.

Accusations like these should not be taken lightly, and GoDaddy responded to Namecheap in a statement emailed to TechCrunch, saying that the WhoIs transfer delay time is normal procedure.

Namecheap posted their accusations in a blog, but to the best our of knowledge, has yet to contact Go Daddy directly, which would be common practice for situations like this. Normally, the fellow registrar would make a request for us to remove the normal rate limiting block which is a standard practice used by Go Daddy, and many other registrars, to rate limit Whois queries to combat WhoIs abuse.

Because some registrars (and other data gathering, analyzing and reporting entities) have legitimate need for heavy port 43 access, we routinely grant requests for expanded access per an SOP we’ve had in place for many years. Should we make contact with Namecheap, and learn they need similar access, we would treat that request similarly.

As a side note, we have seen some nefarious activity this weekend which came from non-registrar sources. But, that is not unusual for a holiday weekend, nor would it cause legitimate requests to be rejected. Nevertheless, we have now proactively removed the rate limit for Namecheap, as a courtesy, but it is important to point out, there still may be back-end IP addresses affiliated with Namecheap of which we are unaware. For complete resolution, we should be talking to each other — an effort we are initiating since they have not done so themselves.

-Rich Merdinger
Sr. Director of Product Development – Domains
Go Daddy

One side says the practice is “against ICANN rules.” The other side says the practice is “standard.” Any DNS experts want to weigh in?

Image via: AdJab