I have visited the Go Daddy and Afternic office in Cambridge, Massachusetts two times. One of the things I noticed when driving to the office was the close proximity to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus. MIT is one of the leading engineering schools in the world, and it produces some talented graduates. The GoDaddy office is a stone’s throw away from MIT.
Perhaps a result of the closeness, GoDaddy and MIT have established a collaboration. In an article in the Phoenix Business Journal yesterday, it was announced that “GoDaddy Inc. and MIT Media Lab have announced a collaboration to explore and develop emerging technologies to help small businesses achieve success.” The article further stated that GoDaddy and “the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab will dedicate teams to research a range of projects on topics such as big data, user interface design, collaboration technologies and social research.”
I think this is a big win for GoDaddy and the companies it operates.This could also produce results that will benefit GoDaddy customers as well. MIT has many talented students, and having them look at some of GoDaddy’s services, stress points, user interfaces, and processes could lead to changes in the way GoDaddy operates.
The Phoenix Business Journal article mentioned that GoDaddy will “provide a gift to the Media Lab’s Social Computing research group,” but I would imagine the results from the collaboration will bring more to GoDaddy than whatever the company is giving in the form of a gift.
This collaboration is a smart move by GoDaddy, and the company and MIT’s students should both benefit from it.
Being from Boston but living in Scottsdale now I know both GD and MIT very well.This is a great win for GD for the following reason-they now have access to the capital markets if need be (via now being a public co.) for any future ventures-however large.I wasn’t going going to buy GD stock but now I’ll be watching to see if they could become a major tech company outside of the domain world. Time will tell.Thanks for the post.
Smart move. Anytime a company can collab with students from a great, dynamic school as MIT, it should do it. These alliances bring innovations that are helpful to everybody.