History
Here are the main steps of Dada's history.
Dada S.r.l. started its activities in January 1995 on the entrepreneurial and professional initiative of Paolo Barberis, Angelo Falchetti, Jacopo Marello and Alessandro Sordi, following years of research in the field of digital communications. From the beginning, Dada (Design Architettura Digitale Analogico or Digital Analogue Architectural Design) aimed to create a virtual and interactive city to experience the Net in innovative ways.
Dada started its business by offering a connection payment service and by developing the Dada Web City, a portal where web users could find a space to develop their personal interests.
In 1997, Dada offered the Italian market the first solutions for electronic commerce through its Web Agency “Dada Work Shop”, a creative studio space where technology and imagination were combined to provide a communications service.
In order to meet the demands of a constantly evolving market, the Company extended its range of services and soon became a global Internet Company. Dada was one of the first Italian operators to offer value-added services and products in the hosting, housing and professional web development field.
The creation of the DadaCasa Community, with a free hosting service, opened the road to experiencing the Net in a completely new way, not only as a repository of information, but also as a place to develop one’s own identity.
Dada’s positioning as an innovative Internet Company was confirmed by the choice of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) who in June 1999 admitted Dada as the first Italian Company to the Shared Registry System for the registration of general domains .com, .org and .net. The portal www.domini.it, specifically dedicated to individuals and businesses wishing to register one or more domains (either Italian or international), thus became one of the main Italian web sites for establishing an Internet presence.
The creation of superEva saw Dada take another jump into the future in 1999. SuperEva was the first Italian search engine system using the local language and sophisticated services, which also displayed the success percentage of a search. Today it is one of the top Italian portals in terms of user numbers and traffic generated.
On June 29, 2000, Dada went public and became a listed company on the MTAX Italian Stock Exchange: since then it has launched an important acquisition plan allowing it to create the flexible structure that characterises the Dada group today.
In 2006, as one of the World’s top players in web and mobile social networking community and entertainment markets, Dada created a new branding strategy to identify its services in a consistent and effective way, in Italy and abroad.
Dada's consumer offering was gathered together under one umbrella brand, "Dada.net", from the web site www.dada.net, where users can access all its community and entertainment services. The creation of the new logos which are more lively, attractive and full of emotion signalled the next step in the evolution of the company.
2006 saw a year of acquisitions, including Nominalia S.L. (the leading Internet name registrar in Spain), Upoc Networks Inc. (a leader in the US Internet and mobile VAS market) and Tipic Inc. with its brands Splinder (the leading Italian blog and social networking community) and Motime (with its historical US presence).
On february 2007 Dada acquired 30% of E-Box S.r.l. which owns the Blogo platform, the most popular network of vertical blogs in Italy.
On july 2007 Dada acquired Namesco Ltd., top player the UK in the hosting and domain sector.
July 16, 2007 Dada announced the creation of the joint venture “Dada Entertainment LLC”, product of cooperation between Dada and SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT.
