It has indeed been a busy two weeks. Last week, all our Go Daddy Girls traveled to Scottsdale for individual and group photo sessions. We use Mark Hendrickson — an independent photographer, located in Scottsdale. Mark’s work – in my opinion – is in a class by itself.

Quite a photo shoot!
Mark photographed Indy Car Star Danica Patrick, WWE Star and Star of our three Super Bowl commercials, Candice Michelle, motorcycle land speed record holder Valerie Thompson, Go Daddy Girl - Daytona 2007 Lara Haworth, Go Daddy Girl - Scottsdale 2007 Marisa Peck and yours truly. He took individual and group photos and some fun shots that include the Go Daddy Chopper and my personal Harley Davidson Fatboy.

Click here to see a sample of the photos taken last week. The top row, left to right: Candice, Valerie, myself and the Go Daddy Chopper; Lara, myself and my Harley Fatboy; Danica; Candice. The bottom row, left to right: Valerie; Lara; Marisa.

Our newest Go Daddy Girl.
On Friday, I went to Hacienda Harley Davidson in Scottsdale for their annual Arizona Bike Week "Kickstart Party" where we held our first Go Daddy Girl - Scottsdale contest. More than 70 women entered. Candice, Valerie and Lara helped me judge the contest. I’m proud to announce the contest winner is Marisa Peck of Scottsdale. Marisa was awarded a cash prize, a professional photo session with Mark Hendrickson and a chance to be in our next Super Bowl commercial. Here's a highlight video of the first part of the contest — to see it please click here.

A donation to the fight against Parkinson’s disease.
On Saturday, I attended Muhammed Ali’s annual “Celebrity Fight Night” black-tie celebrity fund raiser in Scottsdale. “Fight Night” exists to raise funds for the fight against Parkinson’s disease. Muhammed Ali has been courageously battling this terrible disease for years. Each year Go Daddy donates what it can to help. This year we donated $750,000. This is up from last year when we donated $450,000.

Working to keep our legislators informed.
On Monday, Go Daddy’s General Counsel and I flew to Washington D.C. where we spent two days meeting with staffers, Congressional Representatives and also Arizona Senator John Kyl. The purpose of the trip was to keep the discussion going about various issues of concern to all Internet Users. We were particularly interested to meet with California Congresswoman Mary Bono. We discussed Congresswoman Bono’s proposed legislation that would – finally! — make Spyware illegal. We agree with the Congresswoman that it’s about time something is done here, and offered to be of help in any way we can, as the bill is refined and works its way through the drafting and mark-up process.

A special one-on-one interview.
In between all of this, we recorded our first Internet-Only edition of Life On Line with Bob Parsons – which aired on Wednesday evening. The show featured a fun and revealing one-on-one interview with Lara Haworth. To listen to this show, go to www.LifeOnLine.com or click here.

Valerie will be racing this weekend.
Valerie will be racing this weekend in the AHDRA event at FireBird Raceway in Phoenix. In her last race, Valerie qualified second, but in the process blew the engine in her Harley Vrod. The engine in her bike has since been replaced and we expect her to be in contention for the top prize.

Keep your eyes on Danica!
Last week Danica fought car problems the entire race, but still managed to fight her way to 7th place when a late race mishap pushed her back to a 14th place finish. We love the fact that Danica races on the absolute edge. Danica will be racing again this coming Sunday in St. Petersburg. She and the Andretti Green Racing team are working to iron out the bugs in her new car that she wrestled with in Homestead. On Saturday, I will fly to St. Petersburg, Florida to cheer Danica Patrick on in her second Indy Car race Sunday. I expect her to be in contention and wouldn’t be a bit surprised if she wins!

Why our marketing is so GoDaddy-esque.
If I’m asked why I use such ... well ... GoDaddy-esque (i.e. fun, edgy and a bit inappropriate) marketing to promote ourselves, the answer is also simple: It draws sharp attention to the company. In a nutshell, it works.

No other company markets like Go Daddy!
There is no mainstream company that promotes itself the way we do. Only Go Daddy does that. I hear time and again that if we continue with our style of marketing, it will bring about our demise. But the facts say something very different.

The facts say our marketing works.
Consider that The Go Daddy Group is the world’s number one provider of domain names. Presently, we have more than 19 million domain names under management. Our closest competitor has about 7 million names. Since last Super Bowl, our market share of new registrations has grown to between 36% and 42% worldwide, depending on the day. Our closest competitor averages less than 8%. We are also the world’s largest provider of hostnames and one of the world’s largest hosting companies. Our prices are among the best in the world, and our customer support is literally second to none. The Go Daddy Group has now just over 1,500 employees and almost 1,100 of them are in customer support – that’s more than 73% of our staff – and they are all located in Arizona.

The turnover rate in our support area is the lowest I know of – more than 21% of our support staff has been with us longer than 2 years. Because our numbers have grown so sharply, it is hardly possible for this number to be higher. I know of no other large call center that can make this claim – maybe there are others, but if they exist, there aren't many of them. We offer our customers the widest range of domain name-enabling technology, and with one minor exception, all of it has been developed by us. That means when customers have issues with anything, they have only one company to call — Go Daddy!

We did it all without acquiring a single competitor.
Now consider we did all of this without acquiring a single competitor. We sold our first domain name registration in November 2000 and since then have grown to be not only the biggest company in our industry – by far —but also the best.

Why would we ever change our marketing?
So I would say the marketing works. It enables us to draw sharp attention to ourselves and because of the large numbers involved – we have right at 4 million active customers – provide our customers with world-class products, at great prices, with unsurpassed service. There’s something else very important our marketing enables us to do. It enables us to give back to the community. We're able to underwrite the efforts necessary to lobby Capitol Hill on behalf of Internet Users for what's right. But even more important, we are able to make sizeable donations to struggles like the battle against Parkinson's disease and many other causes. All this in mind, I then ask you the question: why would I change our marketing?

Sister was right!
When I was a little boy in Catholic school, the nun who taught my 3rd grade class used to say that “busy hands are happy hands.” While Sister was never quite happy with what my hands were busy at, she was certainly right. It’s good to be busy.

Until next time.