Rebranded as Sonic, and how it got Sonic.com — Why Sonic.net
Nearly decades following it was founded, Sonic.net purchased the matching .com domain name and rebranded.
When Dane Jasper co-founded California ISP and telecom firm Sonic.net in 1994, he settled on .net since the .com was by now taken.
Another California firm, Sonic Solutions, had registered Sonic.com the year ahead of. Using a .net didn’t seem like a big problem for Jasper at the time, even if he wanted the .com.
“We were a network service provider and everyone back then that was a network service provider was pretty much on a .net, like earthlink.net,” he stated. “It wasn’t a big deal to not have the .com at that time.”
Over the past couple decades, Jasper realized there were drawbacks to operating as Sonic.net. There was a bit of client confusion and the occasional email accidentally sent to sonic.com rather than sonic.net.
Jasper wanted to acquire Sonic.com, partly since of this confusion. But he also wanted the added credibility of owning the .com, especially a short dictionary word on .com.
The opportunity to acquire Sonic.com presented itself following Sonic Solutions was purchased by Rovi. Sonic.com became a landing page on Rovi’s website, and then Rovi sold the Sonic Solutions products to yet another firm. Jasper decided to see if he could make a move on the domain.
Jasper Fedexed a letter to the firm’s CFO, explaining how Sonic.com could be useful to the ISP and asking if it would entertain an offer on the domain name. He got an affirmative response, and Sonic.net struck a deal to acquire the domain name.
Sonic.net was later able to acquire the @sonic twitter handle as well. With the .com domain name and twitter handle in its control, Sonic.net officially rebranded as simply Sonic late last year.
“This allowed us to solidify our brand as Sonic,” Jasper stated. “Where we had always stated Sonic dot net ahead of, now we are able to simply be Sonic, the one and only.”
It took Jasper nearly two decades to get the .com domain name for his business, and he states it has added to his firm’s credibility. Jasper sees a lot of firms in the Bay Area starting up with trendy two letter domain names. He understands it’s less expensive for these firms, but he believes owning Sonic.com is notable for his business.
“For an infrastructure firm like ours that’s providing a critical service, we can’t be a little startup on a .ly,” he stated. “We need to be on a .com and to control that part of our identity.”
