Plummets, Joins Tucows, Marchex — Communicate.com Stock

Communicate.com stock plummets on earnings release; third domain name firm to take a hit in past two weeks.

As of 11:30 AM CDT this morning, shares of Communicate.com (OTC: CMNN.ob) have dropped to $1.72, 22% lower than yesterday’s open. On Tuesday evening the firm disclosed modest revenue growth for Q2 2007 compared to Q2 2006. Its first half loss was $247,952 ($0.01 per share) compared to net income of $42,621 ($0.00 per share) for the same period of 2006.

Communicate.com owns a number or premium domains counting Perfume.com and Boxing.com. It operates most of its domains as either e-commerce stores or parks them. The firm’s share price nearly doubled in June following the firm disclosed a fresh CEO, Geoff Hampson, who also invested $1M in the firm.

Communicate.com isn’t the only domain name related firm to take a hit in the public markets recently. Shares of Marchex (NASDAQ: MCHX) fell from an opening price of $12.20 on August 9 to an open of $9.19 on August 10 following announcing dissapointing earnings. Domain registrar Tucows saw a big drop the prior week too. Tucows’ shares have fallen regarding $.25 to $.96 following announcing earnings.

For Tucows and Marchex, this may be a sign of poor execution rather than underlying weakness in the domain name market. Critics have blasted Marchex’s slow speed of monetizing its domain portfolio and poor management of its advertising properties. Tucows has been blamed for poor marketing efforts. Communicate.com has a fresh management team and it’s too early to tell if they’ll be able to execute on the firm’s vision.