FMA Launches Jackass.com & Jogging.com

This morning, Future Media Architects announced the launch of Jackass.com and Jogging.com, two of its hundreds of generic domain names.   As you may recall, Jackass.com was involved in a UDRP dispute last month, and FMA prevailed over the complainant, Viacom, parent company of MTV.

Jackass.com has been developed into a resource site about donkeys.   In addition, there is a search functionality on the site allowing visitors to search the web for information about donkeys, mules and other jackass-related topics.

Personally, I am most eagerly looking forward to FMA’s launch of Ibiza.com, which is expected to happen later this year.

I’ve seen several Internet blogs, articles, and forums where people refer to my friend Thunayan as a “cybersquatter.”   From my own personal experience in launching several websites, each one takes a lot of time, effort, and energy, and it’s no easy task.   I know Thunayan is involved with many projects other than domain investing, so it’s not fair to label him simply because his company owns so many great domain names and is taking its time in launching websites.

It’s always easy to criticize others from a far, but timing is everything when it comes to web development.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

31 COMMENTS

  1. Oh look a site about donkeys. Sure to be a top 100 site for sure. Just what every visitor expected to find there. Right. Admit it or not, the only reason he got that name was to capture all the traffic looking for the MTV show and make money off it. Now that he’s made a small fortune from that and won a court case that he won via legal loophole and lack of common sense, here’s a nice donkey site to rub it in Viacom’s face. It don’t take much brains to figure out what’s going on with FMA, no matter how irrational your reasoning. My question is now much farther out in the future is FMA going to have a reasonably good site? Perhaps in the year 2112? My guess is never.

    • @Rick

      Define what it means “to have a reasonably good site”

      The beauty of the Internet and domain names is that you can do whatever you choose with your domain names (just about).

  2. I think they may be taking the P*ss with Jackass.com

    🙂

    If they could get away with it, 100% guranteed a fan site for Jackass (MTV series) 🙂

    Lets face it 98% of there traffic, (type in) will be looking for it.

  3. I’m not willing to change the subject and debate what is a good site and what is not. Suffice it say, though that I don’t consider a one page site or so-called search engine filled with sponsored links a reasonably good site. Any idiot can do those types of sites. I will say that from a company with a grandiose name like ‘Future Media Architects’ who apparently is sitting on a pile of money and large number of premium generic domains, I would expect ecommerce site, real media sites, reference sites, sites with services no one thought of and acted on it. Sites its users want to visit – not some site a visitor happens to visit because they typed in the wrong url.

  4. I’m not as bullish on jogging.com

    The term is a bit dated – I think most people use “running”, so they’d be smart to go after more running related keywords than jogging (wordtracker shows 5x more volume for “running” and google shows 15x ). And the people who would be the target market for this site – the hard core runners who buy $150 sneakers and heart rate monitors and software – might actually have an aversion to the term jogging, so the site would have to be even better to keep them / get them there.

    It can probably make some decent money, but I don’t think it could become blockbuster that running.com would have…..

    My $.02

  5. I was expecting to see something cool on jackass.com — instead, it is a crappy 3 page site.. Not even a functional or resourceful “mini-site” at that.

    When you visit jogging.com it asks for authentication a couple of times. It requires a login/pass?

    That doesn’t make sense.

    I don’t think the “launches” was even worth writing about.

    Crappy sites on generic domains, that would be a better headline 🙂

  6. They lost because FMA managed to get a TM on using the term Jackass for a search engine, not because their argument wasn’t valid. It was a loophole, a technicality whatever you want to call it. Strange, it doesn’t look like a search engine now. I wouldn’t doubt Viacom goes after it again because its now NOT a search engine, its a site about donkeys. Clearly, that TM no longer applies.

    • @Rick If they want to go after it again, it will cost them a whole lot of money via the court system, and FMA is certainly not shy when it comes to defending its domain names and reputation ala LH.com.

      RE: search engine – I disagree that it was a loophole. They held and still hold a valid US trademark for the term.

      Do you believe that a large company should just be able to take a generic domain name because they named a product after it? Perhaps they should have thought about this ahead of time, no?

    • Those names look great, but Scott and his team are the only ones that know how much additional revenue is being generated. Just about everyone is a critic.

      Whose to say my ChainCatshark.com is a good site or not? I am proud of it because I built it myself and it’s already paid for itself using Adsense. Some people might think it looks like crap, but frankly, I don’t really care. It’s making much more than it would have parked, and traffic has surprisingly grown on it from 0. That’s what matters.

      The legal BS can be saved for the attorneys.

  7. No I do not and yes it would cost them a lot of money. Face facts. FMA is not a media company. Not a web development company. Not any company but a domain holding company. FMA is run by an arab dude with more oil money coming out of his jackass than he knows what to do with. But since he’s got so much money he’s able to do it on a grand scale along with a team of lawyers on staff to get up in corporations faces when they threaten him. No I don’t think corps should be able to take domains from others; that is a major problem for domain owners. But I am also smart enough, have enough experience and have enough common sense to see things at face value and not through a legal prism of distortion. Anyone who thinks FMA held Jackass.com for a search engine is a fool.

    • “FMA is run by an arab dude with more oil money coming out of his jackass than he knows what to do with”

      @Rick… Thunayan is a friend of mine and I don’t appreciate what you insinuate. Where do your facts come from? Just because of his name, you shouldn’t make a racist assumption.

  8. Nobody builds sites for fun / hobby.

    Sites = businesses.

    It is a long term play.. There won’t ever be money pouring in overnight of course but if you know what you are doing it will pay off big time.

    • @WannaDevelop – Everyone has different motives for being in the domain industry. Some wish to develop huge websites and make a lot of money, and others have other objectives. Just because you own a piece of property in Times Square, doesn’t mean you need to develop a hotel or give it to the Marriott because they want the property to bring their hotel closer to Broadway. Sorry but Thunayan is a guy whose company has great domain names and he can choose how/when to develop them.

  9. I don’t care what he does or doesn’t with his domains… It’s his business, and more power to him, but he is a smart fellow as we all know…and I just find it funny that a guy with all that money and resources… The best he could come up with is those two crappy sites.

    Big headlines? Not! :p

  10. I don’t get it (Dot US) when I read such comments that say Jackass would be better for the MTV show.
    “100% guranteed a fan site for Jackass (MTV series)”

    ok ok! Jackass is huge, massive, extremely popular in the US. (mildly in the UK!) But, ask anybody from Mauritius, Malaysia, Uganda, or anywhere else in the world. Chance are they don’t know what the program is all about.

    Open you eyes people. The internet, Dot Coms’ is NOT just for the US. its WORLDWIDE!

    I agree the US have a head start in most things, sets trends etc.. but come on.. does every generic dot com need to be associated with an American product/service ?

    I cringe (maybe too strong a word!)sometimes when I see
    Car.com not serving other countries. How much valuable traffic is lost ..coming from other countries?? I’m sure it must be a lot..

    The rest of the world is now waking up and are understanding the power of domain names,.. but ouch.. too late!! the American have got all the .coms ! (well most of them! 😉 )Nevermind they still can get their ccTLD’s . That’s why I totally agree with Rick Latona et al. when they are betting the farm on ccTLD’s ..

    no disrespect here for Americans, just my honest, humble opinion.

    best,
    Ritz.

    PS: Thunayan promised me a link to quick peek Ibiza.com last September.. if you are reading this elequa j’attends toujours! 🙂

  11. I’m not insinuating anything. Just a fact. I’m sure I wouldn’t mind having a beer with him. I’m just some white dude calling it like I see it. Come down from your politically correct soapbox.

    And like I said before, your site is about self promotion and friend stroking not domain news so it doesn’t surprise me you headline this like its big news or something, that is if he really is your friend. My guess is you say that to attempt to boost your self importance. But, I’ll let you know next time I create a one page site so you can headline that too.

    • @Rick.. you called him an Arab dude with oil money – how is that not insinuating anything? You insulted my friend on my blog. I wouldn’t appreciate it if someone insinuated that I am a Jew and must be a banker or some bullshit like that.

      How about this…

      If I’ve never personally met Thunayan, never spent time with him, and don’t consider him a friend, I will make a $10,000 donation to a charity of your choice. If I do know him personally and have spent time with him, you can simply promise not to read my blog anymore. Deal?

      and Rick… if you do own a great domain name like Jackass.com, I will be happy to post a link when you develop it. My bet is that you don’t own one nearly as good. (OBX…. doesn’t cut it although 7s are nice)

  12. Rick ,

    a human is a human..

    black , white, orange, yellow, purple , muslim, jew, christian, hindu, these are just artificial barriers created by ….humans.

    and you mentioning the word ‘arab’ is simply derogatory as your ‘fact’, as you call it is simply saying ‘ not one of my kind’

    let me guess,.. you must be in your 50’s because my generation, and surely the one after me even more,. no longer think like you.

    PS: Sometimes I can’t wait for E.Ts to find us (or we find them!) ,..ONLY THEN will people see themselves as Humans first, then.. whatever else they want!

    PPS: correction, if a human is purple, that’s bad news,.. but still he or she is still a human.

  13. Elliott,

    Was there ever any PPC links referencing the show on their site before the dispute?

    Why do they own JACKASSTV.NET?

  14. Although these are well known facts, I apologize for my remarks regarding FMA’s owner. It’s irrelevant and should not have been mentioned.

  15. The real tragedy here is a guy from NYC owning ChainCatshark.com. You probably eat fish several times per week and yet you act like sharks are your friend…you’ve probably never even met a real SHARK!

    pushaaaa

  16. Who is this “Rick”? Let’s talk about this guy. It’s about time I say something finally. I take it you do not know his identity.

    Elliot…..have you been noticing a big surge in criticism domainers, or even developers in many cases in the last six months? It really has gotten nasty lately. It is especially true on one word primo generics.

    I have been speaking with some other domainers after noticing some irregularities in some of these posts on the domain blogs. Something has just been askew in the replies. Why is there so much fervent badmouthing and mischaracterization of domain owners and their efforts? Why was it worth several posts to Rick to say Future Media Architects is doing no good? Why waste that much energy saying his three page site sucks? Don’t you find it a litte suspect? Maybe he is just a snooty web designer that likes to look down his nose? Possibly….but I doubt it.

    We think we have uncovered something after studying this for some time now. I noticed the irregularities, but a couple of other domainers adept at investigation uncovered some real dirt. I don’t want to go totally into the details of who is behind this since we are still studying them.

    This is organized criticism that is going on. What do I mean? This is organized criticism by at least one law firm and public relation firm working in tandem to influence opinions with the public, with UDRP panelists, and lastly with the courtrooms. They aim to change the status quo and leverage our assets away from us for their clients who want our domains but don’t want to pay for them. They want to steal them by intimidation, threat, lawsuit, whatever…..it’s what they do. These guys are pros at this. They can get these domains away from us much easier (and at 1/10 the price or free) than the companies that want the domains can. These are two of the biggest players in the world…..in their respective industries…..legal and PR.

    A big attack has been being planned for about five years. They are now launching the second part of the attack and are using “Astr0 Turfing” to force their agenda…..which is designed to foster an agreeable environment in which to pry domains away from domain owners.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing

    Now this guy Rick may or may not be involved in this. But this is what is going on. There are just too many folks now with these strange replies now posting. They don’t seem real in their negative criticism.

    Many of “Rick’s” posts seemed designed to get you to “jump”…..like the Arab statement. They also seem designed to paint us as scum. He basically is painting your friend as some seedy, rich foreigner hiding in the deserts of Arabia using American domains to do no good. Rick even says that the original registration intention was bad even though it is being used for a donkey site. He cuts no slack for any circumstance in which the domain could be used. He still boo-hoos the guy. Is he trying to set the stage for a future lawsuit? Maybe he works for this PR firm or lawyer doing a favor for Viacom.

    The ultimate desire of these guys is to denigrate us and paint us all in a negative light so as to open the UDRP process and courts to more amenable circumstances in which to “win”, really steal, domains.

    These are organized crooks that play by the book…..but very dirty. If you saw all the shit we uncovered your heart would start beating faster……this is the real deal. If I was the only one that thought this I might think I was going crazy but these other domainers see it too.

    How successful will they be? We don’t know. They have had a few setbacks here recently in influencing the environment. Some cases backfired on them in the UDRP process and the current did not flow the direction they wanted. However….they are determined…..have more money than Microsoft and are very powerful and politically connected.

    Fair warning guys…..the crooks are coming.

    Hopefully I can say more in the future. I don’t mean to talk in riddles but for now that is all I can say. I just wanted to give my fellow domainers and developers a heads-up on what is going down.
    .

  17. OMG…….I just now went to DNW and found out that Rick is trashing the guy that owns StansDad,com…..which is another Viacom UDRP case.

    Total coincidence I just went there. Anyone starting to believe me now? 🙂
    .

  18. Thanks for the links to some excellent sites, Wanna (great work, Scott/Digimedia).

    As for Thunayan/FMA, they’re their domains to do with as they please…and short of mind reading, none of us know how their sites do…or why they own any of the names they own.

    Rick’s remarks are/were racist; with his apology for such the right thing to do.

    Anybody from anywhere with money from any source(s) is entitled to buy and own (subject to TM laws an’ such) what ever domains they want.

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