Buying a Domain Name Too Costly? Think About Leasing

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In a world where popular domain names sell for $1 million or more, it makes sense that people should be able to lease them.


Jonathan Boswell launched LeaseThis.com, a company that does just that.


“It’s like starting a business and only having the option of buying a building to work out of, and not able to rent,” Boswell said. “That’s what the Internet world has been like so far.”


The L.A.-based company kicked off this month with about 500,000 domain names for lease and last week announced a strategic marketing partnership with NameMedia’s Afternic Domain Listing Service that gives the company access to an additional 700,000 domain names. Within a few months, the Web site will have more than 4 million domain names available for lease, Boswell said.


LeaseThis.com targets seasonal clients as well as small businesses that can’t afford to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a domain name.


For advertisers and retailers that want to sell candy only during the Halloween season, for example, can lease “Candy.com” for a couple months. A dentist in Eagle Rock looking to set up a Web site for his practice may want to try out the domain name “Eaglerockdentist.com,” for example, before buying it.


Lease for domain names valued at about $3,000 will run under $100 a month, but the company is in the process of securing domain names that cost millions, Boswell said. Those will run thousands of dollars a month.



DevZuz CEO

Dave Parker has been appointed chief executive of Marina Del Rey-based DevZuz, an open source software provider.


Parker was previously the founding president of WebLogic, acquired by BEA Systems. DevZuz, formerly Simula Labs, recently secured $9.25 million in venture funds from Mission Ventures and Redpoint Ventures. The company sells open source development tools for managing software projects.



AssistMed Purchase

L.A.-based AssistMed Inc., a developer for the electronic health record market, acquired Clinication, a software provider, for an undisclosed price.


The company will use the Clinication software to help patients manage long-term care and self-care regiments.


AssistMed is an information technology company that integrates health care information for medical institutions.



General Invitations

L.A.-based CircleUp Inc., which created a fancy way to send and collect mass e-mails for users, secured its first round of $3 million in venture funding from Sid R. Bass Associates.


CircleUp.com functions almost like Evite.com, the popular electronic invitation site, but for more general purposes.


“We’re sort of the Evite for everything else in the world beside having a party,” said John Payne, the company’s chief executive. “We’re more of a messaging service.”


An office manager organizing an office luncheon, for example, can log on to the site, list the recipients by e-mail addresses or instant message IDs. The site then contacts the recipients and directs them to the site where they answer the question the office manager set up.


“The office manager can then PDF the results and e-mail it to the deli,” Payne said. The information can be e-mailed to the user or downloaded into an Excel spreadsheet.


Payne expects users to tap into the program for Christmas wish lists or for something as complicated as a company’s bid on a request for proposal.


Revenue will come from text and banner ads placed against user-generated content. CircleUp plans to roll out a subscriber-based premium package that is ad-free and with added functions by year-end.



Staff reporter Booyeon Lee can be reached at

[email protected]

or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 230.

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