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Several
tidbits for you today as we close out
another week in the domain business and head into
the big Labor Day 3-day holiday weekend in
the U.S. First, in still another sign
of the |
|
shifting media times,
prominent Chicago Sun Times sports
columnist Jay Mariotti has quit after 17
years on the job because, after going to Beijing
to cover the just concluded Olympics, he said
he realized that sports journalism had become "entirely
a website business. There were not many
newspapers there." Mariotti told
the rival Chicago Tribune
that most of the journalists covering the Olympics
were "there writing for Web sites.''
Mariotti, who also
appears on ESPN cable TV added,
""Everyone is hanging on for dear life
at both (Chicago) papers. I think probably the days
of high stakes competition in Chicago are over.
To see what's happened in this business...I don't
want to go down with it.'' Thanks to Brad
Evers for sending the link to that story. |
Jay
Mariotti |
Also thanks to Adam Strong
at Domain
Name News for sending me a link to a related
item from Xbiz.com about a number of
consumer magazines reporting that their website traffic
was was up strongly at a time when print editions are
seeing big
losses in ad revenue. It has become clear that
the web is the future for print publishers IF they
can survive long enough to make the transition. The
problem they are having is they are losing print revenue so
quickly they haven't been able to make up the losses
with their website properties. I write frequently about
this historic shift from print (and from radio and
TV) to the web because it is the biggest media upheaval of
our lifetimes - and many domain owners will benefit.
Every domain name is potentially a media property that can
reach every corner of the globe with virtually no
overhead. That is a tough combo to compete against.
Elsewhere, the administrator
of Great Britain's popular .uk extension
says the ccTLD has just passed 7 million
registrations, having added more than 1 million new registrations
since July 2007 (most of those in .co.uk). Only two
other countries have more total registrations, Germany
(.de) and China (.cn) with more than 12
million each. |
|
T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Co-Founders
Rick Schwartz & Howard Neu |
Moniker
continues to whittle down the list of the domains that
will be included in their live auction at T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
New York next month. You can see the current
list of front runners here
as well as get other relevant information on the
sale.
In a related note, we will
start emailing our August newsletter out within the
next 24 hours. It will feature an extensive T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
New York preview article based on interviews with show
co-founders Rick Schwartz and Howard Neu.
Schwartz also took the opportunity to make some frank
comments about the current state of the industry that will
undoubtedly ruffle some feathers. You will want to read
what he has to say whether you are planning to go to New
York or not. To get on our opt-in mailing list you can sign
up for the free newsletter here. |
|
(Posted
August
29,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you can use
this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-29-08.htm |
|
A
feature in Microsoft's next version of their Internet
Explorer browser (the beta of version 8 was
released yesterday) has a new browsing privacy feature
that will double as a knee to the |
|
|
groin of their arch-rival Google.
IE8 users can select an option called InPrivate
Browsing that Microsoft says will help
"prevent your browsing history, temporary Internet
files, form data, cookies, and usernames and passwords
from being retained by the browser, leaving no evidence of
your browsing or search history." |
|
The reason
Google will hate this is they have their sights set
on entering the display advertising business (a key
reason they bought DoubleClick). Their plan was to
examine the browsing history of Google users to see what
they are interested in, in order to serve up graphical
display ads that those users would likely click on. In
other words, even before the visitor conducts a
search, Google could show them a relevant display ad based
on what the visitor's surfing history tells Google about
that user. If a lot of IE8 users utilize InPrivate, thus
blocking Google's view, Google would appear to be, to use
a technical term, SOL with those visitors.
None of this will have any
effect on Google's lucrative search business (which
provides over 90% of their revenue) or on PPC and
the domain channel. However, it does show you how a small
change in technology could upset the best laid plans of
mice and men.
(Posted
August
28,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you can use
this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-28-08.htm |
|
DN
Journal Exclusive: Two
of the best-known figures in the domain
industry, both of whom already hold doctorate degrees, are
heading back to college! Dr.
Chris Hartnett and |
|
Dr.
Kevin Ham (both of whom were featured in DN
Journal Cover Stories this year) have been accepted
into Harvard's prestigious Advanced Management
Program, the highest level executive program offered
by the Harvard Business School. Dr. Hartnett and Dr. Ham
will join 165 other executives from 45 countries around
the world for the intensive two-month program that will
have them sequestered in a classroom 14 hours a day, six
days a week. Dr. Hartnett and Dr. Ham are close friends
and Hartnett serves on the board of the company Dr. Ham
founded, Reinvent
Technology.
Dr. Hartnett told us he will
be flying from his Heavenly Mountain, North
Carolina home to Boston tomorrow to begin the
program. "When we emerge at the end of October,
hopefully with our fully accredited degrees from the
Harvard Business School, we are hoping we will be better
prepared to launch Reinvent's Global Initiative which has
been in the works now for the last 6 months," Dr.
Hartnett said. "We feel that pulling back the bow for
these 60 days will allow our Reinvent arrows to fly high
when released and will firmly hit the target upon our
graduation, which is scheduled for October 24th
with the closing ceremonies and graduation dinner to be
held at the Four Seasons Hotel in
Boston
."
Hartnett added, "The
only down side to this whole adventure that I can see is
we both will be missing the New
York T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Show for the first time
and we will be having the “Best
Day of Our Lives” in a classroom instead
this time, so that should be quite the challenge. Don
Ham will still be there at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. holding down
the fort for |
Dr.
Kevin Ham
Dr.
Chris Hartnett |
|
HitFarm. In the event
we fail to reach the desired levels of “Best Day
Bliss” we are sure to return to the following
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. with some great stories and with a strong
desire to have the best T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Show of our lives
ever. Will miss you all and please give our very best to
everyone!"
(Posted
August
27,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you can use
this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-27-08b.htm |
|
Two
well-known domain companies have filled key
executive positions by naming new vice presidents. WhyPark.com
has named Stephen Douglas to be their Vice
President of Business
|
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Stephen
Douglas |
Development. Douglas was the
executive producer of the 2007
Domain Roundtable conference in Seattle
and has also served as the senior domain consultant to
both BulkRegister and SnapNames as well as
an adviser to GoDaddy and DomainHop.
WhyPark President Craig
Rowe said, "We’re excited to have Stephen on
board. He brings an incredible amount of industry
expertise, and his energy and passion for the business is
contagious. Stephen’s refreshing approach challenges the
status quo. We look forward to his contributions as we
continue to launch new services and enhancements.”
Douglas, who said he began
investing in domain names in the mid 1990's added, “I
like pushing outside the space to find much-needed
solutions. That’s why I look forward to working |
|
with WhyPark. Their
innovative domain-building system is absolutely essential
for today’s domain investors. I’ve wanted for years to
find an inexpensive solution to build out my domains with
relevant, index-friendly content. When I saw that
WhyPark’s system does this easily and with little
expense, I was hooked."
As WhyPark’s VP of Business
Development, Douglas will manage large domain portfolio
programs and strategic partnerships ad well as lead
general marketing programs and analysis.
Sedo.com
has also welcomed a new member to their management team
with former Oversee.net executive Sam Nunez
coming on board as Vice President of Product Management.
Sedo said Nunez will manage the product roadmap for the
Sedo online marketplace, define marketing requirements and
feature changes and drive their execution.
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Sam Nunez
|
Sedo CEO Tim
Schumacher said, “A well known insider within
the domain industry, Mr. Nunez is an excellent
addition to the Sedo team. His extensive, global
expertise will help Sedo to enhance its leadership
position and expand the company’s product
offerings.”
Nunez, who holds an M.S. degree in Computer Engineering
from Ecole Centrale in Paris, as well
as an MBA from U.C. Berkeley, added "I
look forward to helping Sedo strengthen its market
position in the global domain name marketplace. Sedo
will continue to leverage its tremendous success
with online auctions, as it extends other services
such as live auctions, globally.”
At Oversee.net Nunez
was in charge of product |
|
management for
Domain Sponsor. Prior to Oversee.net, he worked
at Ask.com as Group Product Manager for
Search Personalization and Platforms and at Silicon
Graphics, where he launched, among other things,
the company's first online store in 1998.
(Posted
August
27,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you can
use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-27-08.htm |
|
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With
the big slowdown we are seeing in the general
economy, several friends (many of whom are seeing their
jobs threatened in the traditional media business that I
toiled in for many years as a print, radio and TV
reporter) have asked me if there are still opportunities
to make a living with domain names or on the Internet at
large?
|
As
a young TV reporter I was still writing on a manual
typewriter and working for someone else. I
never could have dreamed of the kinds of opportunities
the Internet would open up in the future -
opportunities that are open to everyone
today. |
I tell them that it is
my belief that there are not only many great
opportunities out there, there are probably more of
them now than at any time in history. That
belief was underscored for me when I started
thinking about a note Tim Davids posted on a
private domain forum this morning commenting on my
last two Lowdown posts (which are below today's
post). Davids noted the vast technology change
spanned by those two posts - one about the new iPhone
and the other about the declining fortunes of the radio
business (where I started my media career as an
18-year-old broadcaster). I replied to Tim's post
with the following comment:
"This has definitely been a fascinating time in history to be alive. The degree to which technology and the way media is delivered
and received has changed so dramatically |
|
in such a short period
of time that it is truly mind boggling. When I finished broadcasting school
( a few months after that photo in the August
25 post was taken) I went to work for a little 500-watt AM radio station in my home town. The owners had spent
half a million dollars putting the station on the air and its coverage area only went out a few miles in a very small
town (with inflation factored in, a half million
then would be the equivalent of around $2 million
today). |
|
Now any kid can register a domain for
under $10, download some free software and broadcast to the entire
world with virtually no overhead. When I started out you had to get past the gatekeepers (station owners, publishers, general managers, etc) to work at something you loved to do. Many talented people never made it through the
gauntlet and gave up. Today there are no gatekeepers. With respect to media, any one can own their own online newspaper, magazine, radio station or TV station and distribute their content
globally. If you have a talent for what you do, you also get to keep all of the revenues instead of working for someone else who determines the ceiling on what you can earn. It's a wonderful world we live in now. Despite the current economic trouble - today's opportunities outstrip anything that could have been imagined before the Internet." |
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|
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Another member of that
forum, Owen
Frager, told me that, in an email to his
clients yesterday, he had circulated a link to a
story called 9
Ways You Can Take Advantage of This Terrible Economy.
One of his readers took him to task for that,
claiming that one of the items on the list
"Start a New Company" was horrible advice
given the current economy.
The reader told Frager
"I hope nobody else thinks that a shrinking market, companies closing down, means you jump and start a new company. Companies closing means demand is down so far there aren't enough sales to keep more doors open. I write about economics and have been doing so for more than two decades. That section in the newsletter about starting a company was very off base and makes me shake my head." |
Owen
Frager |
Now if this reader has been
talking about starting a new brick and mortar
company I would have to agree with her. Been there, done
that and I'm not going to do it again. But with the
opportunities on the Internet today I don't think she
could possibly be more wrong and out of touch with
the possibilities that are there for the taking
today.
|
Frager was able to cite
an example of his own. "With cheap hosting,
shared photo drives, Saas, and third party
alliances, web business is very efficient - you
don't need the millions your |
|
Opportunity
is knocking and the
whole world is waiting on the
other side of the door. |
employer did to start
it. If I could build GrandNames
into a 100 page site with a $79 WordPress
template with my own two hands, and add a social
community (including video presentations interactive
by guest speakers) in seconds after reading about NING
in the Wall Street Journal - all for FREE
- anyone can do it," Frager wrote.
That's the beauty of
the world we live in today. Anyone can do it.
Sure, many new online businesses will fail,
just as they do in the real world. But when you are
only out $79 instead of your life savings you can
try over and over again until you find a formula
that works. I believe we have all been given
specific gifts or talents. If you can identify and
apply your particular talents to the unique global
delivery |
|
platform that the
Internet provides you have a chance to seize an
opportunity and control your own future in a way
that previous generations could never have dreamed
of. |
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|
(Posted
August
26,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you can use
this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-26-08.htm |
|
First
it was newspapers, then
magazines, then TV - now the latest report of sinking
traditional media revenues comes from radio.
According to Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB)
stats |
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released
late last week radio ad revenues have sunk 7% in
the first half of 2008 compared to the same period last
year, and the decline accelerated to 8% in the
second quarter. But, as has been the case other media,
there was one bright spot for radio - you guessed
it - online.
Radio's
off-air revenues (which the industry defines as sources
other than over the air broadcasting - primarily online)
is soaring at double digit rates. MediaWeek
wrote "...radio off-air revenue is "exceeding
expectations," increasing at a compound annual
|
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growth rate of
12.3% over the past two years. The RAB has forecast
off-air revenue, made up primarily of online activity, to
pass $2 billion in 2009."
CL King & Associates
anaylst Jim Boyle told MediaWeek that
the radio industry has failed to recognize that their
traditional over-the-air revenue streams may not come back
unless they come up with some revolutionary changes.
"There is a notable sense of denial of how harsh the
prospects have been and continue to be for radio,"
Boyle said. "The classic CEO reply is radio is not
bleeding as badly as newspapers." None the less all
of the traditional media sectors are bleeding - today only
one medium continues to grow ad revenues at double
digits rates - that is our medium - the Internet.
P.S. If the radio photo above
looks a little dated that's because it is. That's me at
age 18 in broadcasting school, long before anyone had even
dreamed of the Internet (in fact radio had barely been
invented when that photo was taken!).
(Posted August
25,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you can use
this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-25-08.htm |
|
My
new iPhone 3G arrived today. When I first
looked at the iPhone in the AT&T store the day
I ordered it late last week, I immediately visited a
couple of big websites to see if the people |
|
|
who are saying the iPhone is
a .mobi killer were right. My first impression was
that this device could indeed spell big trouble for an
extension devoted to bare bones sites.
With the Safari browser you
can go anywhere on the web, zoom in on any part of a
page and move around to read whatever you want. However,
after spending about a half hour browsing with it at home
today, I'm not so sure. It did get a little tedious
zooming in, out and around full scale sites after awhile.
By the time I went to MLB.com (major league
baseball's site) it was refreshing when it
automatically loaded a mobile optimized site that
fit the screen perfectly with all of the relevant
information I needed and no further need to pan or scroll
around the screen. |
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Of course, a
site doesn't need a .mobi domain to do this (MLB.com,
for example, doesn't use one) but it had me rethinking my
initial reaction that the iPhone is the death knell for .mobi.
Even on an advanced device like the iPhone, having sites
branded as "made for mobile" (as .mobi is),
could be a plus. I'll have a more informed opinion after
using it for several days. The navigation around big sites
will likely feel less tedious as I get used to the
iPhone's touch screen finger control method, but at the
moment, I'm thinking that rumors of .mobi's death at the
hands of the iPhone may be premature.
|
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That's not to say .mobi
doesn't have other hurdles to clear, just that the
iPhone alone may not be the grim reaper. While its
effect on .mobi could end up being neutral,
the iPhone certainly reinforces the supremacy of .com
by putting only a .com button on its keyboard
to help people quickly complete entry of web
addresses. If you want to use any other extension,
you have to type it out. |
Next item:
For those interested in joining other domainers from
around the globe for a great time in Australia this
fall, the agenda
has been posted for the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Down Under
conference coming to the Gold Coast November
18-20. Fabulous.com,
who is based in Brisbane, Australia will be hosting
the event and having been round the Fab crew for years
now, I can assure you they will make sure everyone has a
great time and learns a few new things about the
business while they're at it.
|
Before closing out
another week I also want to mention a very worthy
charity auction project that SmashFactory.com
is helping produce. They've teamed with auction site
Bidjit.com and Escrow.com to put together
a Bids
for Kids domain auction that will raise
money for St. Jude Children's Hospital.
Anyone can submit
names to the auction which will charge a
15% sales commission with 10% of that fee going to
St. Jude. Names will be accepted from now until September
15, with the final catalog to be posted online September
22. The three-day auction will then run October
1-3 on Bidjit.com.
Check it out, it looks like a win win
situation for everyone involved. |
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|
(Posted
August
22,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you can
use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-22-08.htm |
|
|
I
am clocking in late with today's Lowdown post
(one of the best things about being your own boss is you
can play hooky once in awhile without getting fired!). I
have only been able to get online for a few minutes over
the past 24 hours. Last night was my daughter's final
night at home before heading back to college for here
senior year so we all went out to dinner last night. After
we got back I snuck a quick peak at DomainNameNews.com's
live blogging of results from |
|
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Moniker's live auction
at the Search Engine Strategies conference in San
Jose which was still underway.
The final
results from that event were unfortunately
awful with just $15,950 in total sales according to
Moniker's site. An extended online auction in conjunction
with the event will continue through Thursday, August
28, but it doesn't look like the SEO crowd has much
interest in domain names (which could mean some bargains
will be available for the rest of you in the ongoing
online auction). The results from this auction were in
sharp contrast to what we saw in Moniker's last
live/online auction at the Internext Expo earlier
this month where $828,825 in total sales were
booked. |
|
Early
this morning it was off to the airport to get our
daughter on her way back to Philadelphia for
her final year at Penn (next year it's on to
medical school for four years - meaning I am going
to have to start selling a lot more
domain names!). Next, in an effort to help out the
anemic American auto industry it was on to a local
car dealership to buy our first new car in five
years. If you have been through that process you
know how quickly that can kill a whole day! |
|
We finally closed the
deal and drove off the lot just in time to catch
Tampa's rush hour. A couple of hundred emails were
waiting when I got home so I have been whittling
those down and, for those of you still waiting, will
catch up with the rest Friday morning.
One note that was
waiting for me was Page
Howe and Marshall Gilliam's announcement
that they had taken over management of the GeoDomainList
sales newsletter founded by Jeff Kubarych of DNFolio.com.
The free GeoDomainList focuses on acquiring and
offering pure city geo domains for sale in .com and
other extensions, as well as place, region and
county names. The list also includes geo targeted
domains with a city or state name paired with a
service, profession or web application, as well as
brandable domains suitable for development and
end-user resale. I'll be signing up myself tomorrow
(as soon as I catch up with the rest of those
overdue emails!). |
Page
Howe |
|
(Posted
August
21,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you can
use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-21-08.htm |
|
|
New
domain auction site Bido.com
has decided to close down for an undetermined
amount of time after having their one-name-a-day online
auction go down in midstream for the second |
|
straight day today. After the
latest technical mishap Bido co-founder Sahar Sarid wrote
on his blog,
"We believe the right thing to do now is to spend time figuring out the issues and come back when we are ready. It may be few days, weeks, months,
none of us really knows. All who submitted domains to Bido we will work with you to get it back to your accounts."
Sarid said. Two other company services, DNZoom and Portfolio
Help are to continue normal operations. |
|
|
While Bido
tries to get a handle on their problems, Moniker
will be back in action tonight with their latest live
domain auction at the Search Engine Strategies
conference in San Jose. It is scheduled to get
underway at 8:45pm U.S. Eastern time (5:45pm
Pacific). You can download the auction catalog from this
page.
In other
auction news, the latest one-week premium domain auction
at Sedo's GreatDomains.com
gets underway tomorrow afternoon and will run to approximately 2pm U.S.
Eastern time Wednesday August 28. Some of the name
on the block are Citizen.com (there is a high
quality watch company that could really use this great
generic domain), UD.com and Receipt.com, to
name just a few.
|
|
NameMedia's busy
aftermarket sales platform, the AfternicDLS,
has extended its reach with a deal to become
the exclusive provider of aftermarket domains
to registrar Name.com.
Beginning this month, Name.com customers will have
full access to more than 800,000 domains
targeted toward small to medium size businesses
(SMBs).
Pete
Lamson, the senior vice president and general
manager of NameMedia’s Marketplace
|
|
said,
“NameMedia has developed the world’s largest
network of SMB targeted resale marketing partners.
Our mission is to create a global network of SMB
focused domain buyers and sellers. The Name.com
partnership we are announcing today is an important
milestone towards this objective."
Name.com
Founder and CEO Bill Mushkin added, “This
was an easy decision to make. The Afternic Domain
Listing Service has established itself as the
industry’s leading venue for the sale of premium
domains. We’ve been impressed with the consistent
quality of their inventory and business for a long
time.”
(Posted
August
20,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you can use
this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-20-08.htm |
|
|
Veteran
domainer Rick Latona spends a lot of time
traveling around the world. After a recent trip overseas
where he saw many country code and IDN
domains being advertised he came home wishing he had taken
ccTLDs and IDNs more seriously. Latona wrote about that in
a |
|
post on his blog
today. Rick is one of the sharpest guys in the business so
his blog is on my daily reading list, but I don't get a
chance to leave comments at his and other sites I visit as
often as I would like because of time constraints.
I did comment on Latona's
post though because, in addition to the subject matter
being of interest to me, I felt I should respond to a
comment earlier in the same thread that characterized my
view of America's country code, .us, in a
way that while well intentioned, was not quite accurate.
After writing my response, I thought it might be worth
expanding on it a bit and posting it here since many of
our readers are interested in the prospects for ccTLDs as
well. |
Rick
Latona |
|
I have always liked
country codes and with Internet penetration having now reached critical mass, allowing people to find a
local provider of just about any product or service online, the various local ccTLDS are more attractive than ever. I think the same can be said for
IDNs which have many of the same characteristics
as ccTLDs in that they identify a domain as being local in
terms of language in the same way that ccTLDs identify
domains as being local by the geographical location they
represent. Over the past year or two I've noticed in the voluminous
sales data that we receive a steadily increasing number of aftermarket sales for
.es (Spain), .fr (France), .ca (Canada) and many
other country codes in addition to the long-time ccTLD
powerhouses .de (Germany) and .co.uk (Great
Britain).
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|
With respect to .us I do like the future prospects for the American country code and have a large portfolio of them, but I would have to temper
the characterization of how I view them that was
posted by someone else in Latona's comment section.
They said I have been |
|
talking " passionately" about
.us though I've actually written very little about
the extension. However, when asked about .us (as I
was recently by Forbes
Magazine) I tell anyone who asks that I see
a
lot of
potential there. |
.Com is so popular
and heavily mined that many small to medium sized businesses have no chance
of getting a keyword or phrase relevant to their business in .com. If they are
U.S. businesses I think the most logical alternative for them - as it is for businesses in other parts of the world - is their local country code. My .us sales have increased slowly but steadily every year (in both number of sales and
the average value of each sale) since I started buying them in the spring of 2002 (shortly after the
U.S. government opened the extension to all American citizens.
However I have never said, as the commentator in Latona's
thread indicated, that .us is going to be "huge" in the "near
future." It can take many years for recognition of non .com extensions to
develop (and for most of them recognition never does develop - one reason
why I think the vast majority of proposed new extensions ICANN
plans to start rolling out next year are doomed to
fail - but that's another story).
|
.US may
eventually reach a "tipping point" where it has achieved enough recognition that adoption will accelerate (much
as we have seen .ca, .es, .fr and others accelerate
the past couple of years), but no one knows when or if that will happen. I
personally think that it will happen, but if I had a truly reliable crystal ball I would be at the horse track right now rather than writing this post.
You basically have to go with your
gut instincts on how things will play out over time.
Given how the rest of the world uses domain names, I see .us as a common sense long term bet for
appreciation as the Internet continues to expand and
people need relevant domains that mean something and
are memorable to web users. The cost of entry is low and if
Americans eventually follow the lead of so many
other major countries, the rewards could be significant. |
|
It is
becoming more and more about "local" on the web so as an American, if I cannot get the term I want in .com, I
now lean toward .us over .net (which, with its
much higher level of recognition, would be most people's preferred alternative)
or other options. The .us extension imparts a valuable message in the domain name by telling surfers where
I am based. In most countries outside the U.S., web
surfers look to their local ccTLD first because they want
to deal with someone from their country who speaks their
language (same with IDNs). There is also an aspect of national pride
there that ccTLDs benefit from.
To a large degree,
despite our cultural and linguistic differences, people around the world are
the same, so I think Americans, when forced to look for an alternative to
a specific term they want in .com (due to lack of
availability or the high cost of the .com domain they
want), will increasingly give
serious consideration to their .us extension. I don't
think anything on the horizon is going to have any impact
on the dominance of .com, but there are always
opportunities in niches and I think all of the
industrial world ccTLDs and the IDNs are among the most
interesting and promising niches out there right now.
(Posted August
19,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you can use
this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-19-08.htm |
|
One
of the world's top domain companies, Oversee.net,
laid off approximatley 10% of their workforce
Friday, with the cuts evenly distributed across their DomainSponsor,
SnapNames |
|
Mason
Cole, Oversee.net
VP of Corporate Communications |
and Moniker
divisions. I spoke with Oversee's Vice President of
Corporate Communications, Mason Cole, about the
layoffs this afternoon. "Everyone is being
impacted by the weakness in the economy and even though
Oversee is a very sound company we have to behave
responsibly and make necessary corrections until the
economy rights itself and starts growing again," Cole
said.
One key point
Cole added was that Oversee has not changed any of their
plans for the balance of 2008. "None of
Oversee's products, services or partnerships will be
affected - Moniker will stage all of the live auctions
they have scheduled, Domainfest
Global will have another great conference in
January and everything else we have planned will go
forward." Cole said.
In our March
2008 Cover Story
on Oversee |
|
co-founder and CEO Lawrence
Ng, Ng said the company had about 200 employees
at the end of 2007. The acquisition of Moniker.com
that was announced in January added a few dozen to that
figure so the 10% cut across the board likely affected 25-30
employees. No one from upper management was laid off at
any of the Oversee divisions. The realignment was made at
the middle management and staff level.
Cole said that the economic
downturn had affected all of Oversee's divisions uniformly
- no single part of the business was under
performing - it was simply a matter of the economy
affecting business activity overall.
(Posted
August
18,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you can use
this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-18-08.htm |
|
Attorney
John Berryhill has foiled another reverse hijacking
attempt, perpetrated this time by a company
called Hero of Switzerland who tried to use the WIPO
process to steal the domain Hero.com from its
rightful owner. The complainant is a food products company
that |
|
Attorney
John Berryhill |
uses the word
Hero on some of their product lines, but are probably
better known in the U.S. for their Beech-Nut
brand.
"Hero"
is clearly a generic word and it is used by many
different companies to market their products and services.
Still, the Swiss company thought they were somehow
entitled to the hero.com domain even though it
belonged to someone else who has been using it in their
business for well over a decade now.
The current
owner, The Heroic Sandwich of Berkeley,
California, used Hero.com as the name of one of New
York City's first internet cafes in mid 1990s and
after that venture closed, continued to use it as the name
for a consulting service. It was clear that Heroic had every
right to own the domain and should not have had to spend
money fending off the pirates who tried to steal it. |
|
Fortunately
the Hero.com owner made a good choice in enlisting the
help of one of the industry's foremost attorneys in Dr.
Berryhill who made mincemeat of the complainant's argument
in winning a reverse hijacking decision against
them. You can read all of the details from the WIPO
decision here.
This case is another reminder
that there are bad actors on both sides of the
playing field. We all know there are trademark infringers
operating in the domain space who have hurt the image of
the entire industry, but there are also corporate entities
who grossly overreach the limited bounds of their mark,
and resort to attempted theft as happened here. These
cases deserve to get as much publicity as the ones that
cast a negative light on domainers. Respecting the rights
of others is a two way street.
(Posted
August
15,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you can use
this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-15-08.htm |
|
Hard
to believe the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. New York conference
is just a little over five weeks away. This will be the
show's second trip to the Big Apple and if it is
even half as successful as the first
one in June 2007 was this will be another
can't miss event. The lead sponsor of the |
|
conference, TrafficZ
is wangling a tasty carrot in front of their clients who
haven't decided whether or not to attend yet.
If TrafficZ customers register
for the Sept. 23-26 show by Wednesday August 20,
the company will pay for their hotel bill for the first
two nights at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott. That's
a savings of $598 for showgoers who use the popular
parking service. To take advantage of the offer TrafficZ
said their customers can simply register for the show and
book their room from the link at the conference
website. Then, once you have received a hotel confirmation number, email the confirmation, along with your name, to
RSVP @ TrafficZ.com. Your credit card will be refunded for the proper among after your registration has been verified.
In another bit of
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. New York news, Moniker
has released a preliminary list of the top candidates for
their live domain auction at the show. Names like Ad.com,
Stock.com, Bond.com and Asset.com are
on the list and all would be naturals for NYC as a global advertising
and financial center. Moniker is also still taking submissions
for the Sept. 25 sale. |
TrafficZ
customers can get two free nights here - the Marriott
at the Brooklyn Bridge - where T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
New York will be staged Sept. 23-26 |
|
Page Howe,
the subject of our new August
Cover Story that was posted today, has
especially fond memories of last year's Moniker auction at
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. New York. That's where he sold Seniors.com
for $1.8 million. Amazingly, Howe had another $1
million sale just four months later with Guy.com.
We have more on those megadeals and the inspiring inside
story of the rise, fall and rebirth of Howe's Internet
business in the new article. Hope you enjoy it.
(Posted
August
14,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you can use
this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-14-08.htm |
|
Hot
on the heels of the item we posted yesterday
about a downturn in the magazine business comes word that
the New York Times is slashing staff at two
newspapers they own in our area. According to a report in
the Tampa
Bay Business Journal the Lakeland
Ledger is dropping |
|
|
36 employees and the Sarasota
Herald-Tribune is cutting 33 people. Both papers
have now lopped off about a third of the number of
employees they once had.
Ledger
Publisher Jerome Ferson said “It is with deep
regret that we find ourselves in circumstances that
require us to reduce the work force. This is a very
dynamic time we are in. I would characterize it as a
struggle of epic proportions, but we have a base of
talented employees that are capable of rising to the
challenge.” |
|
I am left
with mixed feelings about this kind of news. Those of us
who do business on the Internet are benefiting
mightily from the migration of readers and advertisers
from traditional media to the web. However, having been a
TV reporter in the Tampa Bay area for 17 years I
still have many friends at the local papers, radio and TV
stations and I hate to see any of those people lose their
jobs.
I do feel that in the long
run it could end up being a blessing in disguise
for some of them though. Their talents translate well to
the web and I think many could become very successful as
owners of their own media properties. With a domain
name, a cheap hosting account and the ability to produce
compelling content, something those professional
journalists certainly have, there is no reason they can't
become their own bosses and thrive in the new media
world being created before our eyes.
The kind of historic upheaval
we are currently seeing in the media business has
undoubtedly created pain for many but it has also created
new opportunities that are there for the taking for
those able to adapt to new ways of delivering news and
information.
(Posted
August
13,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you can use
this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-13-08.htm |
|
As
the foundations of traditional media continue to crumble,
print magazines are the latest medium to find their
necks in a noose. We've frequently written about the
problems in the newspaper industry and more recently about
analyst's projections that broadcast TV is headed |
|
for a big tumble as well. Now
comes dour news in the magazine industry's latest financial
report issued by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC)
Monday. Today Erik Sass detailed the bad tidings in
his Media Daily News column titled Mags:
The Hits Just Keep on Coming (and these
are not good hits).
Sass
noted that according to the ABC figures, "several
broad categories are seeing both circulation and ad
pages drops - including newsweeklies, women's
lifestyle and fashion, shelter and business titles."
On average, newsweeklies saw circulation fall 2.8%
since the start of the year and ad pages fell a whopping 17.5%,
with much steeper drops at some individual titles. At
women's fashion and beauty titles, circulation tumbled an
average 10.6% and women's lifestyle mags
experienced an average circulation drop of 11.5%.
Sass |
|
|
added
"Business titles
also took heavy hits in the first half of the year, with
circulation down about 6.5% on average, and ad
pages down 8.5%." Erik's
column has a title by title breakdown showing how all
major magazine titles fared in the opening half of 2008.
With
the downturn in the general economy there is no way to
know how much of the magazine business decline is related
to economic conditions and how much can be attributed to
magazine readers and advertisers migrating to the web.
Whatever the case may be, this is still another
illustration that in this day and age, the Internet is the
place to be.
(Posted
August
12,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you can use
this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-12-08.htm |
|
A
new article about the domain business at Forbes.com
is currently the top-ranked story on the highly
influential business news website. The article, titled Flipping
for Domains, was |
|
written by
Charlie Foster who dropped me a note to let me know
that the piece was the #1 story at Forbes.com
today. Foster's article includes quotes from a Connecticut
teenager, Steven McDonald, who said he has grossed $325,000
from flipping domains. There are also comments from Sedo.com
COO (and Internet
Commerce Association President) Jeremiah
Johnston, DNForum.com
owner Adam Dicker and myself. |
|
|
|
|
I caught Foster's
article just a few hours after finishing Wall
Street Journal reporter David esmodel's
book The
Domain Game while flying home from a
weekend trip to Chicago last |
|
David
Kesmodel
Signing a copy of The Domain Game |
night.
Many others have already praised Kesmodel's work on
this book and you can now add me to the chorus. It's
obvious that a lot of hard work and research went
into a well balanced book that instantly becomes a key
reference for anyone interested in the
history of the domain industry and where it may be
headed in the future.
All of the
key figures are covered with many previously untold
anecdotes that will give you some real insight into
how those people became so successful. Kesmodel also
canvassed a cross section of experienced domain
investors to get their advice for industry
newcomers. That section alone will help you avoid a
lot of costly mistakes if you are just starting out.
So don't
miss it - the price is a pittance compared to
the value of the information in this volume. Besides
David could probably use the |
|
extra income since he
has a new mouth to feed now. His wife Tanya
just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl
(their second daughter) Thursday night (August 7th).
Our congratulations to them on the new arrival,
something even the top spot on the New York
Times best seller list couldn't top! |
|
|
|
While I was away for a
rare three-day weekend (accompanying my wife to her
high school reunion in southwestern Michigan) Moniker.com
held their live domain auction at the Internext
Expo in Hollywood, Florida where they
rang up $578,650 in sales. An online auction
in association with that event is still underway and will wrap up Thursday
(August 14). Meanwhile Moniker has announced the inventory
list for their August 20 live
auction at the Search
Engine Strategies conference in San
Jose (an accompanying online auction will
continue through August 28). The names that will be
on the block include Ad.com, Rebate.com
(and Rebates.com), Searching.com and Brand.net,
just to name a few. |
|
|
(Posted
August
11,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you can
use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-11-08.htm |
|
Editorial
note: There will not be a Lowdown post Friday
(August 8) as I will be traveling all day. Have a great weekend
and I will be back with you on Monday!
|
Domain
owners are in the media business even though
they don't always think of what they do in that way. The
best thing about that is that the media business is a
pretty darn good place to be right now. At Media
Daily News this week columnist Joe Mandese
kicked off his |
|
|
latest article with this
sentence, "Despite broader
issues in the overall economy, the media industry
continues to be among the fastest growing industrial
sectors in America." Better yet, Mandese cited a
new study from private equity firm Veronis Suhler
Stevenson (VSS) that details how the biggest waves within
the media business are all breaking in favor of those of
us who operate online.
VSS
said that "newspapers, long the dominant U.S.
advertising platform, have fallen behind broadcast TV this
year, which itself is poised to be usurped by the
Internet within the next three years." VSS
Executive VP James Rutherfurd said that in 2002,
traditional media soaked up 95% of all ad spending.
It has now fallen to 85% and Rutherfurd said it
will plunge to 68% by 2012. |
|
VSS
projects that ad spending on new media will climb 21%
to $81.67 billion in 2008, and will account for 17.7%
of total advertising and marketing spending, up from just 6.9%
in 2002. "By comparison, traditional advertising and
marketing will inch up only 0.4% in 2008 to $378.48
billion, including a 1.8% decline in
traditional advertising, despite the influx of political
and Olympics advertising, as newspapers, consumer
magazines and broadcast radio all post declines for the
year," the report projects.
|
|
The Internet
land rush is still on despite a weak economy.
Businesses of all kinds, and especially media
businesses, want to operate on the web where the
overhead is low and the reach is wide.
Domains
are the new printing presses for disseminating news
and information, they are the storefronts for the
millions of businesses setting up shop online and
they are the billboards for businesses new and |
|
|
old that are moving
their advertising to the Internet. I continue to
believe that domain owners are in the right place
at the right time as the media business
continues to work its way through one of the biggest
upheavals in history. |
|
(Posted
August
7,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you can
use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-07-08.htm |
|
|
Auction
news is coming at us from every direction
today. Moniker
has released the full catalog for their adult live domain
auction at the Internext Expo Friday (August
8) in Hollywood, |
|
Florida. An online
auction being run in conjunction with that event starts
tomorrow and will continue to August 14. Moniker will also
be running an online only auction tied to the Affiliate
Summit conference in Boston with that
sale running August 10-21. As if August
wasn't already busy enough for the Moniker crew they will
also be running a live
auction August 20 at the Search Engine
Strategies show in San Jose. That event will
also be accompanied by an online auction August 20-26.
Looking ahead to next month, Moniker is accepting
submissions for their live auction at the New
York T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference September 25. |
|
|
|
The New York T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
show will also mark the live auction debut of Thought
Convergence's new Aftermarket.com
platform. The site is now open and accepting submissions
for their September 24 sale (one of at least four live
auctions that will be staged by different providers during
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. New York). More information on the
Aftermarket.com live auction is available here. |
|
RickLatona.com
will also be holding their first live domain auction
at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. New York, also on September 24, and
today Latona announced that his auctioneers will be
World Livestock Champion Auctioneer Matt Lowery.
Nice coup for Rick who always manages to make a big
splash. |
|
Meanwhile. the new .me
registry's premium
domain auctions are still underway. So
far Insure.me (which ends tomorrow) is
drawing the most action with a high bid as of this
writing of more than $37,000. Others already
bid to the five-figure level include Brand.me
($18,540), Hug.me ($15,025) and Match.me
($12,265). As we write this the latter three
auctions still had anywhere from 5 to 25 hours left
to go. The top auctions closed thus far have been LasVegas.me
($15,105), ChatWith.me ($15,035) and Picture.me
($10,240). |
|
|
|
|
One other note today
recognizing Sedo.com
for a nice charitable gesture. Throughout the month
of August Sedo will be raising money for CHF
International to construct new wells in
Dhabardulel
,
Ethiopia
. The wells will make accessing clean water easier
for the more than 30,000 villagers in Dhabardulel
affected by the |
|
severe drought
occurring in the region. Sedo will set aside $10
from every $1,000 or higher sale in its popular
marketplace (and $1 for every smaller sale) with
half of the total amount collected going toward the
well building effort and the other half to a
randomly selected buyer or seller who closed a
transaction through Sedo in August. This is the
first project in a new SedoCares
initiative announced this week to help address
social and environmental issues that are affecting
our world today.
(Posted
August
6,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you can
use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-06-08.htm |
|
|
The
Domain Roundtable Conference is heading east.
The 2009 conference will be held in Washington, D.C.
at the Grand Hyatt Hotel June 14-17, 2009. This
will be the first |
|
Roundtable conference on the
east coast. The event was started by Name Intelligence
(the parent company of DomainTools.com) in 2005 and
the first three annual shows were held in the Seattle
area where Name Intelligence in based. This year the
conference moved down the coast to San
Francisco where the event was held this past
April.
Soon after that show it was
announced that Thought Convergence, the parent
company of TrafficZ.com, had purchased Name
Intelligence. That put Thought Convergence in the |
|
|
conference business and the
2009 event in the nation's capital will be the first
Roundtable staged under their banner (TrafficZ is also the
lead sponsor of the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference and
they plan to continue supporting that event as well).
Though the dates are now posted at DomainRoundtable.com,
the site will not open for show registration until
approximately September 1.
Taking the conference to
Washington D.C. is a smart move in my opinion. In addition
to being a great city with unique attractions, Washington
will play an increasingly important role in the future of
the domain industry. Congress will consider bills (like
this year's ill advised Snowe Bill) that could
greatly impact the business, the Internet
Commerce Association is based there (which
helped them effectively combat the Snowe Bill) and the Department
of Commerce, who oversees ICANN, is also
located in D.C.
By holding the Roundtable
conference in Washington domain owners will be given an
opportunity to be seen and heard by key decision makers
and counter a lot of misinformation that industry
opponents have spread among important players there. It is
going to be an important event, so mark your calendars
now.
|
|
In another show note Fabulous.com
and T.R.A.F.F.I.C.,
who are joining forces to stage the T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Down Under conference in November,
announced that all profits from attendees and event
sponsorships will be donated to the Internet
Commerce Association (ICA), the non-profit
advocate for the domain name industry. T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Down Under will be held November 18-20 at the
Sheraton Mirage Resort on Australia's
famous Gold Coast.
A
joint press release from the show organizers
and the ICA said "The ICA is a grass roots
organization which has been formed to ensure domain
services and owners are robustly represented in
areas of great risk and importance to the global
domain community. The ICA utilizes dues and
contributions to enable activities related to
legislative lobbying, regulatory representation,
industry public relations, legal test case support,
industry publication of statistics and reports,
revenue research, and market intelligence. In order
for the association to continue
|
|
and
expand its activities, it requires the support and
participation from current members, and also from
the entire professional domain name community."
|
Fabulous.com's
Chief Strategy Officer Dan Warner said,
“This is a fantastic opportunity to support
the ICA while networking with prominent
domainers and industry leaders. We have
planned an event where delegates will work and
play hard in an environment like no other.” |
|
ICA
Executive Director Michael Collins
added, “We greatly appreciate T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Down Under’s contribution to the
association, and we hope the community will
follow suit and support ICA by attending the
event in November.” |
|
|
(Posted
August
5,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you
can use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-05-08.htm |
|
|
|
It's
no secret that PPC returns have been diminishing
over the past year. Many domain owners are switching their
focus to aftermarket sales or domain development to help
offset the decline in revenue. In the past week we've also
seen new initiatives spring from the domain community
aimed at improving monetization options. |
|
Recall
Media Group's Bido.com
unveiled a new program called Portfolio
Help (to reach this page that has more details
on the program you have to register at Bido.com) that aims
to improve parking returns rather than abandon the pay
per |
|
|
click platform all together.
Their strategy involves getting portfolio owners to band
together so they can shop a larger block of traffic to
the highest bidder. Their site says "Just because you
may be happy with your existing parking provider doesn't
mean that you're getting the best possible rates. Keep in
mind there may be more than one rate available, such as
individual rates, or bulk rates. For individuals,
bulk rates can be very difficult to obtain. With our
combined volume, however, we are able to pull together to
get outstanding rates that benefit everyone."
|
|
For those who want to
venture beyond parking, Rick Latona's new AEIOU.com
site offers an affordable solution. Latona explained
the new offering in a post on his blog
Friday saying, "We’ve been building, SEO optimizing and marketing our domains as mini-sites for a couple of years now. I hate parking and most of you |
|
know this. When we build a site we put custom written content on it and then do link building on the domain so that
Google and the other major search engines will feel it is relevant. The
end result is that the names get listed in the search engines and have rankings that continue to improve."
Latona added. "What we’ve put together is a simple formula and an
assembly line process that can quickly and cheaply allow us to take
any domain, slap a simple design on it, 5 pages of custom text, and a day of intense link building all at an affordable price.
Because we use separate experts for each task and pump out hundreds of sites per week we are able to offer this service to you, the
domainer, for $250 or less per name."
|
There's one other
interesting new service we want to note today,
but this one involves managing domain news and
information rather than monetization. Many of
you are already familiar with |
|
|
Domaining.com,
a site that pulls headlines from various
domain news feeds and posts them in
chronological order so you can scan the latest
information from a wide variety of sites in
one place. |
|
|
A
new RSS aggregation service has now entered
the fray at DNHeadlines.com.
Their twist is that they keep each site's
headlines together in individual sections
devoted to each source they draw from. |
|
In
an interview with Sergio Rodriguez at Facebook.com,
DNHeadlines creator Michael Rhodes
explained the rationale behind his approach
saying "I had researched RSS Mashups,
but just couldn't get on board with the idea
of mixing all kinds of great content together.
An RSS Mashup would have buried the scope,
continuity, and tone of the content
contributors, and valuable interesting content
would get bumped off the list when new mashed
content is updated. I decided on RSS Feed
aggregation; a method by which targeted feeds
are parsed, pulling out the bits I need like
the title, the most recent ten posts and the
first 200 characters, and the root web address
for the header."
The
result is an in depth, neatly organized
compilation of recent news and information
from close to four dozen sites around the web.
Domaining.com and DNHeadlines.com are quite
different from each other as a result and they
complement each other well. Domaining.com
gives you a quick overview of news from the
past 24 hours while DNHeadlines offers a
broader range of recent material that stays in
view for a week or more. Domain news junkies
will want to bookmark both sites.
(Posted
August
4,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you
can use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-04-08.htm |
|
|
Hot
Link! Entrepreneur Magazine has published a very nice
article on the domain business by Laura Tiffany titled Imminent
Domaining. The piece has extensive quotes from Howard
Hoffman (PPCIncome.com),
John Motson (DNXpert.com)
and myself. The piece does a nice job of explaining this
industry to the magazine's audience of serial entrepreneurs - a
group that is always looking for new opportunities. I continue
to believe that domains offer one of the best opportunities in
the business world for those who do their homework and invest
wisely.
(Posted
August
3,
2008)
|
Interest
in domain development continues to rise as
domain owners seek ways to offset declining PPC revenue.
That makes a new seven-part series on Domain
Development at SearchEngineGuide.com
especially timely. Author Stoney deGeyter just
released the 6th part of the series (with the final
installment due soon) called Seven
Building Blocks of a Destination Website: #6 Voice. |
|
Stoney
deGeyter |
In the latest chapter
DeGeyter wrote about how to craft the content on
your site, regardless of how many people contribute to the
writing, in a way that allows the site to convey its own special
personality. "Understanding who your audience is
and what type of voice will speak best to them is key to
developing an effective voice that goes beyond just
engaging your readers with your product or services. To
engage them, you must be engaging," DeGeyter
said.
Before you start developing
your web content |
|
DeGeyter believes you first
need to determine what kind of voice you want your site to
have and how you'll ultimately deploy it. He added that
your voice could have any of several possible characteristics
- it could humorous, serious, whimsical, thoughtful,
brutally honest, etc. He gives specific writing examples
of each in his latest article.
By giving your website a
voice DeGeyter said, "you create a unique personality
that each visitor is able to identify with. This
personality you have developed is then able to do more
than just sell your product or service, it becomes one of
the main draws that brings visitors back time and time
again. The visitor no longer feels like a guest, but
instead has become a friend."
It's an interesting series
that is well worth reading for anyone planning to tackle
the development process.
(Posted
August
1,
2008) To
refer others to the post above only you can use
this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/08-01-08.htm |
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