According to a report in the New York Times, Penthouse Media Group just invested $500 million into Various, Inc., operator of 25 social networking sites, including Adult Friend Finder and its related Friend Finder Network websites. Combined, Various’ companies have a reported member base of more than 260 million consumers, with about 1.2 million paying consumers.

The purchase shows how bullish a company like Penthouse is in the Internet marketing channel. As the Internet continues to mature, magazine and newspaper publishers have struggled to maintain viewership, and they’ve had to put out a strong web product to keep their customers satisfied. It will be interesting to see how Penthouse and the FFN leverage each other’s assets and industry knowledge to create a stronger company.  It will also be interesting to see if they work under one company name or if they maintain their own brand identities.

At the recent TRAFFIC auction the FFN network paid $1.8 million for Seniors.com.

Greetings from my father’s store in New Hampshire. I am in the region doing some research for my Lowell.com website which should launch in a couple of months, and I am spending the day with my parents (Happy Birthday, Mom!!) Of course, my mind is always thinking about domain names, and that was clear when I walked into the book shop next door to buy a birthday gift.

At the register, I noticed that they were directing people to their website, which wasn’t close to the exact name of their shop. Knowing the manager, I asked if they had tried to acquire the generic .com for the store (a generic word + Bookshop). He said they had, but it was too expensive. Ironically, after coming back and researching, I saw the generic name is owned by a friend of mine, and I know my friend develops all his names (hence the reason for the high cost he quoted).

I also asked if he bought the actual name of the book shop, as that would also have been an even better choice. He said he hadn’t, but when I searched, I saw it was registered back in August and is now a PPC landing page. Unfortunately, the owner has privacy protection on his Whois so it won’t even be possible to ask if he would sell it, leaving them with the choice of either maintaining the status quo or filing a UDRP. The name of the store is fairly unique and the only Google references for the term together are for this little shop.

The shop has been in business for over 15 years, so there were plenty of opportunities for them to buy the name, but they didn’t have the foresight to do so. They are lucky the current owner has a book related PPC landing page rather than adult-related material. The moral of the story is to spend $8 to register the name of a potential new business or idea. The cost of acquiring it after someone else buys it can be financially restrictive and time consuming.

At TheDomains.com, Mike talks about his experience buying an Ipod from a vending machine. Although the experience wasn’t as good as expected, its neat to see this type of POS buying opportunities.  Some day, Mike won’t even have to swipe his credit card. He will aim his cell phone at the vending machine, push a few buttons, and voila, a new Ipod!