It has been a long road to get there, but we have finally secured the neowin.com domain name.
Neowin.com was registered just a few days before we chose to go with the "Neowin" name in October 2000, so we eventually decided to go with what you all know today - Neowin.net. At the time "Neowin" was an actual company based out of South Korea, but they wrapped up their business in 2004. One of the IT guys decided to register it for his own and basically held it from that point onward, at what I would consider a ransom.
Over the years I tried unsuccessfully to get him to part with the domain, but his price was too high, and as you might know Neowin relies solely on advertising and subscriptions for its upkeep, we don"t have thousands of dollars to throw around for a domain name that was being offered off the back of our own success. It has to be noted that in all those years, nothing was done with the Neowin.com domain.
That"s where Stardock, yet again stepped up. Behind the scenes and unknown to me they negotiated with the owner an undisclosed sum to take ownership of the domain and finally "bring home" Neowin.com.
This has cost the site nothing, it is a gift from Stardock, or an early Christmas present as Brad Wardell described it.
I would like to thank Brad for his continued support of the site. It"s clear to me that Stardock and Brad only have the best interests of Neowin at heart, and such efforts should be commended and hopefully shows all of the doubters the real intention here, the betterment of the site.
Neowin.com will redirect to Neowin.net, we"re not planning on changing the homepage to the .com address because that will affect our rank and history.
Going forward, this will mean we can drop the .net branding from our logo as shown above. We"re already working on a new design that will launch before the end of the year and Subscribers will most likely get a working preview before the end of this month.
But for now, on behalf of myself and all of the staff that tirelessly put in the hours for Neowin, thanks Brad and thanks Stardock for your continued support and amazing early Christmas present!
Disclaimer: Neowin"s relationship to Stardock.