Hollywood Newsroom noted that Google ads are now popping up for searches on “Tom Cruise” that say “Official Tom Cruise Site. Stay Tuned for the Official Launch of TomCruise.com. Check it out!” or alternatively “Official Tom Cruise Site. The Countdown is On. TomCruise.com launches May 5th. Get the scoop!” and links to TomCruise.com.
Because it’s a Saturday and I’m interested in Tom Cruise in the same way people are interested in accident scenes as they drive by, I decided to dig a little.
The site currently shows a countdown clock that ends on 9 AM Monday morning (somebody please double check the math for me). The domain name was registered by an attorney, Benita Das, at the Los Angeles law firm Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger. Das is not listed as an attorney on the firm’s directory, but I did find a reference to her back in 2002. Is this one of the law firms that Tom Cruise uses? I have no idea. They do practice entertainment law, though.
The domain was first purchased on November 6, 1996, but very little was done with it until now. The last update to the whois information was April 28, 2008. My guess is that the law firm bought the domain name on Cruise’s behalf. That would explain why the attorney is the registered owner, at least for now.
Just yesterday Cruise was back on the Oprah Winfrey show promising to “strictly divide” talking about his absolutely insane personal causes, and film promotion. Which topic will be the focus on TomCruise.com? Who cares. This is likely the last time I’ll visit the site.
new scientology site is going on there
Slow news day?
Tom Cruise social network, you heard it here first!
Seriously though, every 25th second flashes. 25 years ago (5th August 1983, to be exact) Cruise debuted on the big screen. Maybe this is hint enough to what this site will be about?
why does everyone who writes “slow news day?” think that they are somehow more funny, unique, insightful or witty than the other 25 people who write that each day on this blog?
Heh. I am tempted to make a post or two to find out more about this. But I just don’t care about Tom Cruise.
I can only hope for the LULZ and that Anonymous has some fun with it though.
Dariusz – wow, you stuck around on the site for 25 seconds? I just wasn’t willing to make that kind of time commitment.
Um so Tom is about to join us in web 1.0 finally? Wow, exciting.
Well at least I guess he can join the late adopters who are still in 1.0 Land.
Who’s placing bets on how long before Anonymous hacks it?
This guy is a moron creep who gives a bad name to gays. He is a closet case media manipulating scientologist jerko. Do not give him any more attention. He does not deserve it.
James – man, I wish my lawyers would let me offer a free techcrunch tshirt to whoever hacks the site first. but alas, they say no. So I am explicitly not asking anyone to hack the site.
Seriously. I’m not asking for that, or suggesting it should be done. and we certainly wouldn’t give a prize to anyone who did it.
i just wish it was both ethical and legal to encourage the hacking of that site.
its going to be ‘Cruise Dianetics’
Maybee he will come out of the closet then.
IT will show this video http://www.yout...h?v=x5qOS4Q39sg
over and over again until you all sign up for the church of Scientology
What’s with the glowing 25?
—
http://crunchlabz.com
The thing I remember most about Tom Cruise is a Mission Impossible scene in which he uses Netscape Navigator to send an email…and there’s a space in the official email address.
Totally ruined the movie for me.
Barbara
@Michael – I was lucky enough to enter the site just when the 25 flashed, I’m not that crazy.
And the countdown will end on 5th May, 17:00 UTC, to be exact.
Anyone cares to decompile the flash and see what happens at that time?
Michael and James:
BRB going to make sure no one with Anonymous knows and to explicitly tell them NOT to mess with Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise is serious business and is NOT to be toyed with.
Elbert – see #3 above.
Darius – what’s UTC? Speak silicon valley please.
PDT is 7 hours behind UTC, so (if I’m not mistaking on the UTC part), the bombs will go off at 10AM.
@Michael: I waisted 3 seconds on the site, from 26 to 24. And I saw the afterglow in the picture in your post.
—
http://crunchlabz.com
@michael arrington: yowch, that hurts. I was merely saying that clearly not a lot is happening if your blogging about the opening of a actors website, which uh, never happens on techcrunch.
And he means the #25 pops/glows, not every 25th second.
Okay, i’ll ask the obvious question: Michael what were you doing google-stalking Tomcat in the first place?
Admit it Michael, you’re a closet Tom Cruise fan!
Elbert – I don’t believe you. I’m betting you stayed on for a full minute at least to see two cycles.
Judson – apologies. just blew off a little steam that built up over a lot of those comments.
Peter – read the first sentence of the post, it reveals all.
The premise: Scientology is for the birds (I know, it’s giving the birds a bad name).
The Kvetch: This is the price we pay for the so-called “religious freedom”. Despite the benefits religions have brought to humanity, we have had to suffer the evil of bin Laden and the foolery of guys like Jerry Falwell and Reverend Wright. If the power of U. S. government cannot shut down polygamists outright and had to wait for the “gathering of evidence” of children being abused to the extreme to take any action, we need to conclude that something is fundamentally wrong.
The issue: we should be careful when we criticize or ridicule cults like Scientology, because we are essentially pointing fingers at ourselves.
uhmmm…who cares if he has a domain. i prefer techcrunch.com over him!
Thanks @nederhoed
http://nederhoe....wordpress.com/
#26 – no, i think we should exercise our constitutional right to ridicule scientology.
The domain name was won in a UDRP decision at WIPO in 2006. There was wide media coverage at the time.
Ugh, I posted a link, but I suppose because I’m not logged in or something, it didn’t get posted. Try searching Google for “tomcruise.com wipo” to see it.
I didn’t see this in the comments above, but apparently he won the name from
a cybersquatter:
http://www.ther...ise_dotcom_win/
@Michael: You see right through me. I have to much time on my hands.. I’m even checking back these comments for replies.. But then again, so are you.
—
http://crunchlabz.com
The countdown ends at 9 am pacific, 12 noon eastern.
I think the math that was wrong above didn’t figure for daylight savings time.
Readers of TechCrunch beware – Michael Arrington is the human manifestation of Xenu.
Ask yourself – would you trust a man who brought billions of people to Earth in spaceships, staked them around volcanoes and detonated H-bombs to kill them all?
If you trust such a man, continue reading TechCrunch. If you don’t trust such a man, join my Church and start on your path to Operating Thetan.
http://twitter.com/scientology
Love the video in #28, Mike. At first, I thought it was a serious interview with Tom Cruise regarding scientology. Then I realized it was a movie trailer. Where does the actor begin and the person end?
EM PLEH
RALLEC EHT NI DEPPART M’I
He hosts through GoDaddy.
Tom Cruise you fail.
the site looks cool as it is right now. if only countdown was set to last for few years….
If you want to see something impressive, do a “dig http://www.tomcruise.com” — the site is hosted by Akamai, so it appears they’re already anticipating huge traffic, and have the hardware and network in place to handle it.
Ugh, now when I didn’t want a link, WordPress turns it into a link automatically. Do that “dig” without the http etc. up front, i.e. use the www plus the domain name.
Whacky DNS, it doesn’t resolve without WWW.
Say No To WWW, Say No To Scientology.
Wonder if it’s Xenu proof ? No joke, check this:
http://www.bost...s_alien_bunker/
Anyone remember when the Rosie O’Donnel TV show was first on (before she also went loony toons) … and she was obsessed with Cruise? She had a Tom Cruise Countdown Clock, counting down the minutes until his first visit on the show.
She had a photo booth on her set, so they could take pictures together when he arrived. Yep, the memories.
#42 — But the MX (mail server) records for the domain do resolve, to GoDaddy.
Interesting!!!
@George
Any ns**.domaincontrol.com are GoDaddy hosted accounts… those are the DNS servers for GoDaddy.
Why anyone would ever host with GoDaddy is beyond me.
#47: The nameservers are GoDaddy’s, but the DNS has been set to create a CNAME record, that points the “www” subdomain of tomcruise.com to a site handled by Akamai. So, it’s GoDaddy DNS + email, but Akamai hosting.
@48
Ah I see… you did a little more research then I did haha.
They must realize that if their site receives high traffic that it will crash if they are GoDaddy servers haha. Kind of a DNS run-around I don’t understand why they wouldn’t just use Akamai DNS as well…
Did you notice the a top Google Trend yesterday was telluride?
http://www.goog...=ytd&sort=0
At first, I thought it was a joke but he even shows up on Google Maps
http://maps.goo...36891b63b8328c6
Perhaps Telluride will be the new Graceland.