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Castello
Brothers Speak at the Local Online Advertising
Conference in New York, Sedo Releases Their Latest
Market Survey & Oversee Teams Up with NameMedia
The ever-increasing importance of the Internet
to local advertisers drew a large crowd to
the Borrell Associates' Local Online
Advertising Conference that ended today in New
York City at
the Grand Hyatt Hotel. The domain industry was
well represented there as the Castello
Brothers, David and Michael,
spoke this morning in a session wryly titled "While
You Were Sleeping...These Guys Ate Your Lunch!"
Their audience included many executives from traditional
media outlets who are trying to survive the historic
transition from old platforms to the web. 
Michael
Castello (left) and David Castello of Castello
Cities Internet Network, Inc.
speaking today at the Local Online Advertising
Conference in New York City. The
session notes pointed out that while local media
companies use the Internet to protect their assets,
hungry entrepreneurs are building out independent
Websites and tuning them exactly to the specs of
consumers' and advertisers' needs. They include sites
like Toledo.com, MyrtleBeach.com, SanDiego.com,
and the Castello Brothers' Nashville.com and Palm
Springs.com sites. David & Michael were
introduced as representatives of a new class of
scrappy and innovative geodomain operators whose sites
generate enough revenue to rival that of big in-market
competitors such as local newspapers and city
magazines.
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The Castello
Brothers were scheduled to fly to New Orleans
tomorrow for the Domainer
Mardi Gras conference that gets
underway Thursday night. However, David
told me that snowstorms in the Northeast are
causing cancellations of nearly all flights out
of New York, including their own. They hope to
fly |
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Thursday which
would still get them into the Big Easy
before the show begins that evening. They are
scheduled to speak at DMG Friday
afternoon in a session titled So You Think
You Can Build A Site? Lessons Learned
and Pitfalls to Avoid in Developing a Site. |
I have a
couple of other notes to pass along to you today. Sedo.com
has released their latest Domain
Market Study, a 2009 Overview and 4th
Quarter Highlights. Sedo said they saw strong
growth in 2009 sales compared to 2008, with a good
portion of that boost coming from the fourth quarter
when sales rose 5% versus the same quarter a year
ago. Sedo accounted for 11 of the 20 biggest sales
reported to us in 2009 handling such blockbusters as Fly.com
for $1.6 million, Russia.com for $1.5
million, Call.com for $1.1 million and
Brazil.com for $500,000.
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Jeff
Kupietzky
Oversee.net President & CEO
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In
another announcement,
NameMedia and Oversee.net said
that Oversee will join NameMedia’s Domain
Listing Service at AfternicDLS.com,
opening a new sales channel for Oversee's
massive domain name portfolio. Oversee President
and CEO Jeff Kupietzky said “NameMedia
has built the industry’s largest global
reseller network for domain names, particularly
for retail buyers and small and medium
businesses. DLS will help Oversee tap into this
retail channel and expose its inventory to
millions of customers looking for a premium
domain name.” Kelly
Conlin, Chairman and CEO of NameMedia, added
“Oversee’s portfolio is one of the largest
in the world and will significantly enhance the
size of the inventory offered to NameMedia’s
reseller network." AfternicDLS reached
retail buyers of premium domain names through
its websites at Afternic.com and BuyDomains.com
and through a network of over 40 distribution
partners, including many of the world’s
largest registrars. |
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