Marchex Layoffs Announced
Although they don’t consider themselves domainers, Marchex owns thousands of domain names, and the company is one of the few publicly traded domain-related companies. This morning, Marchex announced that the company is laying off 15 employees, about 4% of its workforce.
They also announced a couple of senior management changes, naming Peter Christothoulou Chief Operating Officer and Matthew Berk Executive Vice President of Product Engineering. In November, Mike Berkens blogged about Marchex and how it’s market cap was just slightly more than the total amount they paid for Yun Yee’s portfolio. While the stock price has increased since Mike’s post, the economy is still taking a toll on the company.
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Comments (8)
Matt
January 31st, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Your related posts text looks like it is part of the post and can be confusing at first glimpse.
Acro
January 31st, 2009 at 7:59 pm
I wonder if Mr. Christothoulou will be taking a cut off his handsome compensation package http://people.forbes.com/profile/peter-christothoulou/51175
Why are senior executives more worthy than the real workers that make a corporation move ahead?
Tim Davids
February 1st, 2009 at 10:22 am
Marchex should be ashamed at what they’ve done to date…the average domainer with 2 employees could have done better parking them and making sure not to drop any.
Michael Carter
February 1st, 2009 at 11:37 am
i’ve read that marchex owns 75,000 U.S. ZIP code sites – is this accurate? if so, you have to think these names are worth $10k/zip, at least, which would mean the total value of zip codes alone = $750mm – 3x+ the company’s market cap – is this correct or am i way off?
Elliot Silver
February 1st, 2009 at 11:40 am
I think you are way off. I sold a zip code domain name for under $500 last year. I think some of the premium zips might be worth $10k+/- but those are very few and far between. Most of the value was also in the fact that Marchex owned them all, making them difficult to find on the open market. In this market, owners would be lucky to get a fraction of $10k, IMO.
Michael Carter
February 1st, 2009 at 11:52 am
fair enough – don’t forget to buy gold in 2009.
Elliot Silver
February 1st, 2009 at 11:55 am
I think it’s a good thing to have precious metals in a diversified portfolio. People should also do research because gold prices have fluctuated considerably in the past, and while they would have more purchasing power than paper money in a financial system collapse, it’s not always easy to turn gold into spending vehicles cheaply or quickly.
Realistically in a complete financial collapse (oxymoron perhaps), how would you use a $2,500 gold bar to buy fair value worth of groceries that aren’t worth $2,500?
Chris Schilling
July 6th, 2009 at 3:06 am
Zip code domains do have value, but only a small percentage have any value at all. 90% of the population lives in less than 10% of the zip codes in the country making most of their zip portfolio worthless. They compounded the problem when they attempted to corner the market on zip code .nets and directed their existing portfolio of .com zip code domains to the .net ones. They have since abandonded this practice. The cornerstone zip domain, 90210.com, sold for around $20,000 and was a great buy.
Great zip code domains can be had for $250 to $2,500 depending on the location, population, and demographic details. I would esitmate that their portfolio of zip code domains to be worth less than $10M.
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