I think anytime BrandBucket sees a site that has a good list of over 250 names they approach the owner and tell them how good their names are and that they would love for them to be part of BrandBucket. In reality it is just a way for them to be in control of the competition. They approached you, MediaPlow (Michael Krell), Excitemental etc…….and many more to come. They know the other two big marketplaces in BrandRoot and Namerific became competition and this is how they prevent it now.
It's simple business, control the competition and you control the brand space.
This is also how I perceive the ambassador program as well. BB has seen how sellers tend to branch off and start their own site and they want to reverse that trend as it dilutes the marketplace. The ambassadors have their names listed on BB
and on their own site but under the auspices of BB and sales are processed through BB. (At least that is how it appears. The ambassadors can correct me as needed.) BB gets a nice commission but Ambassadors get increased exposure and can factor the sales commission into their pricing if needed just like we all do at other domain marketplaces like GD and Flippa.
I think its a smart approach and is going to make competing with BB for market share even more difficult. I think having 2-3 central brandable market places is good as competition keeps things sharp. However the current situation of having 30+ places for brandables dilutes the marketplace to the degree that clients get confused and turned off.
Here's a partial list along with each website's Alexa ranking (a
low Alexa number means
higher web traffic):
28,990 Brand Bucket
40,794 BrandRoot
127,713 Namerific
156,594 YourBrand
227,172 NameStall
365,882 ExciteMental
469,538 MediaPlow
731,968 Vibrand
787,074 Brand Flip
887,868 BrandLance
938,920 Clickable Names
1,193,000 Domain Name Nexus
1,200,000 BranDo
1,505,458 Catchy
1,713,000 Domaintricity
1,755,000 NamePerfection
1,878,000 ICBrands
2,144,000 BrandStarters
2,168,000 NameKraft
2,419,000 JustTheWord
2,504,000 Domain Geek.net
3,000,000 BustaBrand
3,133,064 Crispbrands.com
3,604,000 ShopTopDomains
4,700,000 Name Brandable
4,800,000 Elite Brand Names
6,363,000 NameStrap
7,051,000 Viper Domains
7,728,000 ReadyMade Names
10,500,000 Brandable Names
11,000,000 Nameably
13,000,000 BrandChovy