How GoDaddy's Quest For Respect Led To an Improbable Partnership With MIT (fastcompany.com)
harrymcc writes: GoDaddy, the world's biggest domain registrar, remains most famous for its tacky Super Bowl ads and controversial founder, Bob Parsons. But in recent years, the company was sold, hired a CEO from Microsoft and Yahoo, and has made a major effort to reinvent itself as a serious, uncontroversial, technologically-savvy outfit. And now it's partnered with MIT's Media Lab in an ambitious experiment--which I wrote about over at Fast Company--involving placing sensors around downtown Boston to collect big data that could help the small businesses which line the city's streets.
Sensors that track customers? Sounds like a very strange definition of uncontroversial, but that's just me...
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
Yes, that's exactly what I came to say. You have a brand that represents one thing, and GoDaddy spend millions to get that idea in the head of consumers. Create another brand to sell the other product.
This is how Disney makes R movies with nudity and violence.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Don't forget they supported SOPA.
From a company/CEO that endorses SOPA (despite its retraction after the boycott), Gitmo/water boarding (despite the later change after the public outcry), and goes out of its way to help law enforcement cease assets against its own customers without even a court order.
Putting sensors everywhere in the street to surveil passers-by seems like a perfect continuation of the same fascist big brother government-knows-better mindset. I'm not sure changing the CEO is going to change anything about the company itself, except may be get a CEO that is better at keeping his mouth shut (than the last one).
By all means write the story but to me this comes across as bartely concealed advertising. I was also under the impression that it is bad form to submit ones own work to Slashdot. Godaddy are also (and always will be) a scummy company. Im suprised Dice are not charging them advertising rates. Tell me.. do Fastcompany have a minimum number of clicks required in order to be paid for the article/advert ?
and ignoring complaints about it.
http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/li...
Thats ok though, IPTABLES fixed that problem.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
On a slow news day, it is free.
My favorite was when I sent their support a pcap showing which one of their servers was sending RST instead of serving my client's website (their choice...) and they dismissed it because 'there's nothing wrong with our servers'.
It's not like there's nobody cheaper or better - such an amazing testament to the power of advertising.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Godaddy weaseling a partnership with MIT is sad enough. Considering what is known about godaddy and it's principles and methods, the fact that the project is to be big-brother (uhh, i mean data) information collection is pretty disturbing.
FBIFM to criticize branding, but they started by choosing a brand that sounds like it was ripped straight from a pedo-porn movie.
What? Wait. Is it just me? It's just me, isn't it?
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
How about their servers still being horribly under powered? I have migrated many clients off of godaddy to another service using the same "base level" accounts and have a 400% speed increase in their wordpress,joomla, etc than on godaddy.
Godaddy feels like most of the time their hosting is on servers from 1998 and overloaded with 10,000 sites per 4 processor Pentium III server.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Assuming the service is good, there should be brand recognition among current customers.
Yeah, BAD brand recognition. When GoDaddy first came along, I used to recommend it to clients as a good cheap web host. But then they started running ads that made the company look more like some sleazy Hooters knockoff than an ISP, and I immediately stopped recommending them or even mentioning them to clients. I'm not sure the audience they were going for (maybe they wanted to be the ISP of choice for frat houses?), but I can tell you that they built a very sleazy reputation over many years that will be hard to shake.
If I were them the first thing I would do would be to change the company's name, and then fire all the marketing people who thought that commercials filled with half-naked skanks were the perfect way to sell an ISP.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
I'll be honest: They lost my respect the first time I heard of them. The name "Go Daddy" is super creepy. I find it hard to take a company seriously when it chooses a name like that. And then I logged into the site at one point when I was helping someone, and the negative associations were reinforced. The whole thing always felt like a spam/scam site. I think I saw one of the commercials once, and I wasn't particularly offended or anything, but again, it reinforced the sense that the company seemed trashy/scammy/spammy.
Even the logo-- that dude with the sunglasses-- I don't know why but he looks like a perv to me. I think it's the "Go Daddy" association, which always sounded to me like it was somehow hearkening to the concept of child molestation. The words "Go Daddy" look like they're written with sloppy and perhaps childish handwriting, as though a child is telling "daddy" to go away. I want to ask, "Is it because Daddy did something bad?" He looks creepy, wearing sunglasses and has some kind of a star stuck to his bald head. And what are those orange lines emanating from the top of his head?
Is it just me? I can't be the first person to think this. Seems like really bad marketing to me, but I've never heard anyone else mention it.
~ I would first like to suggest some changes to GoDaddy's branding.
~ Excellent! What would you suggest we change?
~ The name?
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
I really can't imagine who thought this was a good idea, but it doesn't seem to have done their sales any harm.
It''s obviously true that any advertising or marketing is ok as long as it creates some impression, whether good or bad. In the UK, the "go compare" insurance ads are simultaneously the most hated and most recognisable ones on TV.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
"GoDaddy, the world's biggest domain registrar, remains most famous for its tacky Super Bowl ads and controversial founder, Bob Parsons."
Who the fuck is Bob Parsons? The only reason most people know of them is for Danica Patrick.
Just another day in Paradise
How many times has GoDaddy been in the news for supporting anti-freedom or anti-net neutrality legislation?
Can anyone else remember other ways GoDaddy has abused its position as a registrar? I don't remember the specifics.
They are an evil company, and I'll gladly take my business to another registrar, whether it's cheaper or more expensive.
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.