CEO at Minds + Machines
Greater New York City Area
- Current
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- CEO at Minds + Machines
- CEO at DotNYC LLC
- Principal at Names@Work
- Board of Directors at DomainsBot
- Past
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- participant at ICANN
- Director, Marketing & Technology at VeriSign
- Founder and CEO at NameEngine
- Founder and CEO at NetNames
- Education
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- Columbia
- Recommended
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7 people have recommended Antony - Connections
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388
connections
- Industry
- Internet
Antony Van Couvering’s Summary
My work is to make good ideas profitable.
With ICANN's announcement that they will be accepting applications for new top-level domains, I restarted my long-time effort to start .NYC, the top-level domain for New York City, and also founded Minds + Machines with some other industry veterans.
Minds + Machines provides comprehensive new top-level consulting and proven, inexpensive, reliable, back-end registry services.
.NYC will bring the Web visibility that the world's first city deserves. It's for New Yorkers: people, businesses, brands, sales offices, anything New York that wants to be on the Web.
My other work -- general web consulting -- is through my consulting company, Names@Work, which I started in October 2005.
Also in 2005, I began an energizing collaboration with DomainsBot, a company out of Rome, Italy, led by three passionate entrepreneurs and three brilliant engineers. In a short time, they have taken over their niche of domain name suggestion and are moving into that fascinating crossroads of language, computing, and search. I helped point their energies in the right direction and assist with business development, product development, and marketing. (Update December 2007 - I set up and negotiated a major investment in DomainsBot from Sedo, the largest aftermarket domain company.)
Over the prior ten years, I started NetNames and NameEngine, which handled domain names and associated marketing and intellectual property issues for large corporations. After I sold NameEngine, I worked for VeriSign for two years.
I grew up in the U.S. and overseas (Africa, Europe, Middle East). I have a degree in comparative literature from Columbia; I waited tables in New York and managed a restaurant in Paris; I started an art-book publishing house out of Paris and New York; I edited and published the works of Joseph Campbell, a scholar of myth and religion, with HarperCollins. Then I found the Internet -- see my experience below.
Antony Van Couvering’s Specialties:
Business and marketing consulting for new top-level domains and domain names generally. Also search, social networks, and commercial networks. Use of domain names from both a marketing and intellectual property perspective. Digital rights and intellectual property asset management; branding, naming and identity; international business, esp. US <-> Europe. Strong presenter and writer.
Antony Van Couvering’s Experience
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CEO
Minds + Machines
(Internet industry)
January 2009 — Present (11 months)
Minds + Machines is a consulting (Minds) and registry services technology (Machines) company focused on new top-level domains.
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CEO
DotNYC LLC
(Internet industry)
January 2008 — Present (1 year 11 months)
Working with the City of New York to start up the new .NYC top-level domain. It's something I've been working on since 2004, and other members of DotNYC since 2000. This time it looks like it's happening.
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Principal
Names@Work
(Internet industry)
August 2005 — Present (4 years 4 months)
I started Names@Work as a consultancy in October 2005. We work with clients who have great ideas and need to make them work on the Web. Recently we had been concentrating on helping our clients acquire new top-level domains through the ICANN process -- this work expanded and so I created Minds + Machines.
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Board of Directors
DomainsBot
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)
October 2004 — Present (5 years 2 months)
I am helping direct the work of an amazing little company in Rome, Italy. If you're interested in naming, you don't want to miss the the domain name suggestion tools at http://www.domainsbot.com. Attention: addictive.
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participant
ICANN
(Internet industry)
1999 — 2009 (10 years )
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Director, Marketing & Technology
VeriSign
(Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; VRSN; Internet industry)
December 2001 — February 2004 (2 years 3 months)
When I agreed to sell NameEngine to VeriSign, I also agreed to work for VeriSign for two years, in their Digital Brand Management Unit. I didn't have a very definite job there, but I guided their market strategy and argued that for a complete overhaul of their backend systems and domain management system -- which I oversaw.
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Founder and CEO
NameEngine
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)
May 1999 — December 2001 (2 years 8 months)
Founded and ran NameEngine, an Internet services company handling domain names and other IP assets for major corporations. Grew to 40 employees and a marquis client list without venture funding. Sold company to VeriSign December 2001.
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Founder and CEO
NetNames
(Public Company; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)
May 1996 — July 1998 (2 years 3 months)
Started NetNames USA, the first company devoted to working with domain names on an international basis, discovering and developing the market for working with corporations who treat domain names as intellectual property. Sold company to NetBenefit, an English web-hosting company listed on the London exchange.
Antony Van Couvering’s Education
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Columbia
A.B. , Comparative Literature, Classics , September 1978 — May 1983
- Activities and Societies:
- My activity at Columbia was exploring New York and avoiding anything sponsored by Columbia.
