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For
nearly nine years
the Domain Masters radio
program could be heard at WebmasterRadio.fm
every Wednesday evening. The
groundbreaking show debuted in December
2004 with Monte Cahn as the host
and over the years it featured a parade of
domain industry experts who provided insight
and advice on just about every domain
related topic you could imagine. After a
long run with the show Monte turned the
hosting reins over to Victor Pitts
who kept it going until March of this
year. After
a nine-month hiatus Domain Masters returned
to the air Wednesday afternoon (Dec.
11, 2013) with outspoken Domain Hall of
Fame member Mike
Mann taking over as host.
Mann, who has been profiled in two
DN Journal Cover Stories (September
2003 and September
2007), has founded many
companies, including aftermarket giant BuyDomains.com,
a firm he sold to NameMedia
for a reported $80 million. He
currently runs another aftermarket
platform, DomainMarket.com
and has founded several other businesses
on great generic domain names like Phone.com
and SEO.com. |
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Under
Mann, Domain Masters, which used to be a
60-minute show that aired at 7pm on Wednesday
evenings, is now a brisk 30-minute broadcast
that is on live at 5pm U.S. Eastern time
(2pm Pacific) every Wednesday afternoon.
If you tune in while the show is on, you can submit
questions at the program's Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/domainmastersradio
- with Mike answering those queries as time
allows. If you can't catch the show live, no
problem - WebmasterRadio.FM adds each
weekly program to their archive, usually by the
next day. If you missed Mike's debut show
Wednesday, you can listen
to it here. For
his first turn behind the mike Mann had Phone.com
President Ari Rabban as his guest. The
first half of the show focused on building a
business on a category defining domain. Among
other things, Rabban discussed the methods
Phone.com uses to drive traffic to the site to
complement the steady stream of type-in traffic
that flows to the category defining domain name.
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Michael
Mann |
In
the second half of the show Mann tackled
today's hottest topic - new gTLDs.
Like many veteran investors, he is
skeptical that the hundreds of domain
extensions that have just started to
arrive will ever rival .com's
dominant position. Mann
noted research that found that people were
more likely to trust and buy
from businesses built on category defining
.com domains that can pay for themselves
through the increased traffic and revenue
they generate. You can bet he will have
much more to say on the topic in the weeks
ahead as Mann is known as someone who is
never hesitant to share his opinion. It
is the latter quality that should make the
new Domain Masters show an unusually
entertaining half hour. I only see
one potential pitfall. While it is common
practice to have guests on shows like this
and letting them carry most of the content
load, in this case I think it would
be a mistake to put too much focus on the
guest and not enough on Mike. That's not a
knock on any guest - it's just a fact that
with Mann's domain track record
and his well-known candor, most
people who tune in are going to tune in to
hear what he has to say. That
doesn't mean Mann needs to do a monologue
every week - a lively back and forth with
interesting guests will always add to the
equation - it's just that in this new
iteration of Domain Masters people
are going to expect Mann to be what
another Hall of |
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Famer, former New York Yankees great
Reggie Jackson, once called himself -
"the straw the stirs the drink."
If Mann does that - and I am confident he
will - I'm sure I'll be sitting at the
Webmaster Radio Bar for a few extra rounds
every Wednesday afternoon! |
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