There are times when a company feels the need to do a drastic makeover in order to take its business to the next level. It could be that the old way of doing business is at a standstill and, in order to move the company into the future, changes are necessary. For some industry experts, the dot-com industry bubble ended with the new millennium. But some companies like Communicate.com, who still see the Internet as a way of generating profit, are changing the way they do business.
Communicate.com builds, owns and operates some of the most powerful and engaging content and commerce destinations on the Internet. It connects people to each other and to the information, brands, and products they are passionate about. Communicate.com Inc. is doing business as “Live Current Media Inc.” and will seek formal shareholder approval to change its legal name to Live Current Media Inc. later in 2008.
The company owns more than 1,100 domain names, some of which are potentially the most highly valued domain names on the Internet. At present these domains are not for sale. To give examples of the kind of real estate value domain names hold, diamond.com sold for $7.5 million in 2006, asseenontv.com sold for $5 million in 2002, pizza.com sold for $2.5 million in April of 2008, and Fund.com (FNDM.OB) was sold for nearly $10 million in March.
Live Current is staying in the domain business by building a network of e-commerce and information sites to accompany the hundreds of domains it owns. The company believes that a new class of experienced consumer is emerging, and hopes to target these changing behaviors in its new social media platform; DestinationHubs™. The company’s aim is to get communities to come together, interact and discover more about the things they love and care about at one specific destination.
Live Current’s focus will be on integrating all of the ways that consumers interact with the Internet today (including mobile phone access) into DestinationHubs™. The company intends to initially build these DestinationHubs™ within the categories of travel, sports, and health and beauty. These three industries are high traffic areas. According the Travel Industry Association, the February Travel Price Index (TPI) rose 7.6 percent compared to February 2007. Americans still consider sports a valuable pastime, and the health and beauty industry has many trends that continue to evolve.
The company recently acquired Auctomatic, a company whose tool is used for managing eBay businesses. Auctomatic can track inventory, pictures, auction templates, and traffic. Live Current sees this acquisition as an opportunity for it to rapidly grow its technology and product development capabilities. The two management teams will also join forces together to build a better company.
Live Current has already posted a successful financial year and reported revenue of $9.1 million in 2007, up 17 percent over the prior year’s $7.8 million. Revenue growth was mitigated because the Company stopped selling off its portfolio of domain names, instead focusing on its strategy of using them as commerce sites. E-commerce sales represented the majority of sales, and increased 15 percent to $8.6 million in 2007 compared to $7.5 million in 2006. In the future, the company is expected to continue generating revenues through e-commerce transactions as well as advertising revenue.
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