News broke yesterday of a partnership between Afternic and eNom and I think it represents a major win for Domainers, and potentially a look at what’s ahead. If you are new to the Domaining world allow me to introduce you to these two companies – if you’re a veteran you can skip the following paragraph.
Afternic is the worlds largest domain marketplace and eNom is a domain registrar and also has a nice aftermarket business running via NameJet. These are two major players in the Domaining space and many Domainers have accounts with both services.
So what does this mean for Domainers? First, this means that two major companies in the space are working together, which I think shows a taste of what’s to come in the future (more on this later) and second it means that we all have access to an even better service. I’ll start with how we win and then get-into my futurist mumbo jumbo 🙂 As Domainers we win because now all domains who have with eNom can easily be listed on Afternic and suddenly be promoted across a huge distribution network!
However there are two benefits here and it’s important to understand both. Not only can eNom customers now easily sell their domains through Afternic, but eNom resellers can now integrate Afternic’s listing service into their sites using eNom’s API and Instant Reseller Services. This opens-up a lot of doors for people that list their domains with Afternic to be seen in even more places.
So as Domainers I think this is a win-win, and as someone who studies the industry I think this is the beginning of a trend. With so much segmentation amongst companies in the Domaining space and a small group of users I think that as the spaces grows and evolves more partnerships like this will arise. Companies that make moves like this are actually taking the industry in the right direction by making it easier for customers that use both of their services.
Of course the magic question now is – what other partnerships are in the works? Feel free to make your predictions here and we can look back a year from now and see who was right!
