Demand Media announced today that it has a new brand name for its soon-to-be spun off domain services business, and it has appointed a CEO to run it.
The new brand will be Rightside, and the CEO will be current Demand Media EVP of Domain Services, Taryn Naidu. Wayne MacLaurin will serve as CTO and Rick Danis as General Counsel. David Panos will be appointed Chairman of the Board, and and Shawn Colo, Demand Media’s Interim President and CEO, will be appointed as a Director of Rightside in connection with the separation.
Your identity is in your name — welcome to Rightside. http://t.co/to8wgNS7oj
— Rightside (@rightside) November 5, 2013
Demand Media announced the resignation of CEO and Chairman Richard Rosenblatt last month.
“Establishing the leadership team and brand identity of the proposed new company marks an important milestone in achieving our plan to separate our business into two distinct market leaders,” said Colo. “I am pleased to announce a very strong executive team led by Taryn. This team has a wealth of industry experience, has played an integral role in building the largest wholesale domain registrar and is driving the transformation of this business into one of the largest end-to-end domain name service providers in the world.”
“Rightside’s mission will be to help millions of businesses and consumers define and present themselves online. We’re able to deliver on this through our distribution network of more than 20,000 active partners, one of the leading domain services technology platforms, a large number of applications for new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs), and a deep bench of industry talent,” said Naidu. “It’s an exciting time for us, as new gTLDs start going live this year and our path to becoming an independent public company as a leader in our industry progresses.”
Last week, Demand Media announced that its United TLD subsidiary became an ICANN accredited gTLD registry, that its eNom and Name.com have signed the 2013 ICANN RAA, and that the company has joined the newly launched Domain Name Association.
Rightside will be based in Kirkland, Washington. It includes eNom, Name.com, United TLD and NameJet.
Upon Rosenblatt’s resignation, the company indicated that it was still evaluating the timing of the spin-off. The company will no doubt have some comments about it on Thursday when it shares its Q3 financials.
