Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Educational Capitalism In The New Age

Have you heard the one about the company that bought-up thousands of internet domains for 99% of America's high schools?

BDC Capital, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: BDCI - News) today announced that BDC Partners, its wholly owned subsidiary, has completed the acquisition of more than 23,000 high school and college web domain names. It is believed to be one of the most comprehensive acquisitions of a single category of domain names in e-commerce history.

"We believe that both the individual and the aggregate values of these largely undeveloped domain names hold promise as marketing, communications and outreach vehicles," said Richard Pomije, president and CEO of BDC Capital. "Most educational websites are designated by an '.edu' or '.org' suffix, which often are complex and difficult to remember. Ours are straightforward -- the name of the school and the mascot. And .com and .net remain the most easily memorized addresses."

The company said uses range from sports reporting and marketing, integrated marketing, alumni association membership and communications and contact information.

About 90 percent of the 22,000-plus high schools' domain names acquired by BDC Partners end in ".com," with a much lower percentage ending in ".net". Combined, this represents about 99 percent of all U.S. high schools -- as designated by the name of the high school and the high school's mascot name. For example, BDC now owns the names "Edinahornets.com" and "Edenprairieeagles.com," the sites for Edina High School and Eden Prairie High School, in Edina and Eden Prairie, MN, respectively. It owns similar constructs for high schools in all 50 states.

This outfit has already done the same thing for most of the country's colleges and universities.

Even though we have to give them an A+ for creativity, only time will tell what the grade will be for profitability.

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