OnlineDomain.com Domain Name News & Opinions
Moniker, the once great but lately failing registrar, seems to be turning a page. Jothan Frakes will be in charge of Moniker as it was announced in DOMAINfest Asia.
Andee Hill, business development director for Donuts Inc., revealed this in a Facebook post today: “Domainfest.Asia exclusive-Jothan Frakes to take the helm of Moniker“.
I find it at least a bit ironic that the photo posted on Facebook has Jothan Frakes sitting next to Monte Cahn, founder and former CEO of Moniker.
In 2008, Moniker was purchased by Oversee.net for $35 million USD. In January 2012, it was acquired for an undisclosed amount from Oversee.net by KeyDrive SA, which is the parent company of competitive ICANN accredited TOP 10 registrar Key-Systems.
Moniker has been having many problems since the KeyDrive aquitition and especially since they changed the Moniker system to the one that Key-Systems is using. The new system and control panel was a disaster with numerous complaints of lost domains. The problems peaked when Moniker was hacked and several domains were stolen. Moniker has lost a large part of the registrar market share in the past couple of years as a result of all these problems.
Since February 2014 Bonnie Wittenburg is new CEO of Moniker. Bonnie Wittenburg is the Executive Vice-President of Key-Systems USA and CEO of Moniker.
Jothan Frakes, is among other things the co-founder and executive producer of the NamesCon conference.
Will Jothan Frakes be replacing Bonnie Wittenburg as the new CEO? I guess will soon learn more details.
Here is one of the post I wrote about all the Moniker problems: Moniker Update: 12 Points On What Works and What Does Not
No offense to Jothan Frakes, but a half-baked potato could replace Bonnie Wittenburg. That’s a sinking ship if ever I saw one.
Congrats to Jothan. A healthy domain ecosystem needs multiple vibrant registrars. Looking forward seeing Moniker correct course and (of course) looking forward to seeing Uniregistry continue to grow and thrive along with it.
I concur with Frank’s comment. Jothan has the innovative confidence to do things with a fresh approach, which I think is needed to turn this company around.
Why would I use moniker so any better companiez, they have nothing to offer! #Failure
When customers needed answers nobody would answer the phone F U Moniker
I hope this change will not compromise the fact that Moniker.com was expected to be part of the few registrars we recommend:
https://www.domaining.com/directory/domain-registration/
It should have happened in August…
In a side note a big THANKS for the HUGE financial support of Uniregistry.com to Domaining.com.
If you look at namepros I only see complaints about Moniker – it will take a loooong of time to rebuild trust among domainers.
I think they could start by offering $0.99 coupons ala Godaddy…
Coupons is not the solution to this.
How do you rebuild trust if no one will reg domains with you?
Their reputation is quite tarnished at this point – and people will need VERY good incentive to go back.
I would not pay $10 to register domains there. But I might buy a few names if I only risk $1.
Transfers out hurted Moniker. Not people that were not registering a few new domains.
Moniker knew exactly what it was doing all along!!!! This was a corporate move entirely to save a dying brand….!
Not one improvement to Moniker since this announcement. It has been 8 months
Did he actually joined Moniker?
Not a word about Moniker on his blog, Twitter & Facebook accounts or his LinkedIn profile.