|
|
|
|
|
|
The
Lowdown
Sept.
2012
Archive |
 |
Subscribe
to our RSS
Feed |
|
Here's
the The Lowdown from
DN Journal,
updated daily to fill you in on the
latest buzz going around the domain name
industry.
The Lowdown is
compiled by DN Journal Editor & Publisher Ron
Jackson. |
|
|
|
|
|
Afternic
Website to Get Major Makeover Next Week +
Domain Industry Women Take Center
Stage
|
|
Expect
to see
a
much different website if you log in at Afternic.com
around this time next week. The popular
aftermarket domain sales venue sent a letter to
its members today, giving them a heads up on the
impending makeover.
The
letter said, "Next week we will be
launching the newly
|
|
|
redesigned
Afternic.com, saturated with novel features
and upgrades to make selling your domains
even easier than before. The new Afternic is a
clean, simplified, improved user experience for
both buyers and sellers."
The
letter went on to provided some specifics,
noting "The Member Center has been upgraded
to include personalized Member Portfolio
Pages to feature domains from your
portfolio, Domain Profile Pages for all
active domains, Parking Management
allowing editing and viewing of all parking
data, and a centralized Offer Area to
allow easy management of offers and price
requests. In addition to these upgrades, the new
Afternic features a simplified escrow process,
and an improved shopping cart experience with
tiered service pricing."
If
you are an Afternic member, you won't have to do
anything to take advantage of the new features.
The letter said, "All your information and
domains will be transferred seamlessly to the
new Afternic, with nothing required of you.
Next week we will be sending out another email
with specific information on what to expect when
you log on to the new site, and more detail on
the new site features."
|
Image
from Bigstock |
One other
note today - that being kudos to Raymond
Hackney for profiling nearly two
dozen domain industry women in a
five-part series that concluded today at
Ray's HybridDomainer.com
blog. Back in 2005 we wrote a Cover
Story about the need for more
women in a business that had
everything going for it except
diversity. We were able to feature three
great trail blazing ladies in Donny
Mahony, Marcia Lynn Walker
and Michele Miller, but few
others were in the domain game then.
Thankfully, as Ray's series clearly
illustrates, things have changed
for the better with dozens of smart,
exceptionally talented women occupying
key positions throughout the industry.
Our field is much stronger and more
professional as a result. |
|
If
you missed Ray's series here are the
links to HybridDomainer.com that will
take you to each installment:
|
|
|
(Posted Sept.
28, 2012)
To refer others
to the
post above only you
can use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2012/dailyposts/20120928.htm
|
|
Companies
in the News: Yahoo, Media.net, Sedo, Go Daddy,
NameMedia, Team Internet and Oversee.net
|
|
If
company activity
in
the domain industry over the past 24 hours is
any indication, the final quarter of this year
(that gets underway Monday) is shaping up to be a
busy one. I don't recall the last time I've
seen so many notable announcements packed into
such a short period of time.
|
|
Let's
start with Yahoo's decision
to make another run at Google's powerful AdSense
platform by joining forces with Directi's Media.net
division to serve ads for third party sites from
across the Yahoo
Bing Network. The move comes two
years after Yahoo threw in the towel on their
previous Adsense competitor - the Yahoo
Publisher Network.
Website
owners will undoubtedly welcome the new
option for earning
advertising revenue by using the Media.net
platform to create and place relevant pay per
click ads monetized through the Yahoo Bing
Network.
|
|
|
Media.net
founder and CEO Divyank Turakhia said
Media.net has contextually optimized over
$200 million worth of Internet traffic and
is expanding rapidly, with plans to reach 500
employees by the end of this year. Yahoo's Vice
President for Business Development, Al
Echamendi, said, "Since its inception,
Media.net has invested tremendous resources –
people, capital and time – to build what Yahoo
identifies to be a terrific monetization
solution for web publishers. During
our evaluation process, we recognized Media.net
as a technology and innovation leader, with a
strong management team that has a significant
business track record and industry
experience.”
|
|
|
Elsewhere,
Sedo
announced two significant
initiatives, including a new auction
offering for its SedoPro
clients called Last Chance Auctions
(LCA) that gives domain owners an
outlet for domain names that might
otherwise languish in their portfolios.
LCA domain auctions will start under
$99, and all names have low reserve
prices.
|
|
Sedo’s
Chief Sales Officer, Liesbeth Mack-de
Boer, said “Sedo is always
exploring new ways to help domain name
owners maximize the potential of their
portfolios. Our Last Chance Auctions
provide valuable Sedo customers with the
means to auction domains to our user
base of over 1 million members
around the world. With our international
reach and industry reputation, we hope
to help our clients find the best prices
for any domains they are ready to
sell.”
Currently,
listing domains in Sedo’s Last Chance
Auctions is available exclusively to
SedoPro customers. Every auction
runs for seven days, and sellers have
the ability to choose when an auction
starts. To view names that are currently
in Last Chance Auctions and Sedo’s
Marketplace Auctions, you can use this
link.
|
Sedo
also announced
an expansion of their
existing partnership with Go
Daddy that adds SedoMLS
Make Offer domain
listings to the Buy Now
offerings that Go Daddy
customers have seen since
January 2012 when the giant
registrar teamed up with Sedo.
End users worldwide can now
place bids on premium domains
listed at Sedo and negotiate a
purchase price without leaving
their Daddy account. |
|
|
|
|
|
NameMedia
had some big news
of their own - unveiling a new service
called NameFind
that they described as "the first
collaborative, one-stop business name
generator platform." The
NameFind site allows new business owners
|
|
to generate
ideas for naming their new business by
checking for available domain names,
determining name availability on social
media sites and receiving feedback on
their name choices from their network of
friends and colleagues.
|
The
NameFind platform anticipates
both legal and marketing
considerations, showing a matrix
of |
|
NameMedia
CEO Kelly Conlin |
options:
domain names (including
unregistered, aftermarket and
premium variations), available
social media handles on Facebook,
Twitter and other social
networks, and U.S. trademark
registrations. Users can then
review the price of each domain
and share their top name choices
with their communities and
networks to receive feedback,
comments and ratings.
NameMedia
CEO Kelly Conlin said,
“Bringing together all these
services in one platform makes
naming a new business easier
than ever. While there is a
common perception that ‘all
the good names are taken’ this
tool makes it clear that there
are literally millions of
compelling domains and social
media handles that are still
available to register or to buy
on the secondary market.” |
|
|
Team
Internet AG also
had a new service
offering to announce -
the Direct Navigation
Traffic eXchange at DNTX.com.
Team Internet is widely
known for their ParkingCrew.com
platform that monetizes top
tier traffic,
however they also have
rapidly growing traffic
that can't be
monetized |
|
|
through
their tier 1 upstream
provider. Feeling that
second tier traffic
still had considerable
value that was not
being recognized, the
company created DNTX to
unlock that
revenue.
Team
Internet CEO Nico
Zeifang said "We
feel that what
traditional 2nd tier
feeds pay for this
traffic inventory does
not reflect its true
value and decided to
tackle the issue from a
new angle. We believe
the traffic was never
priced right as a
lot of targeting options
were missing at
traditional tier 2
feeds. The more granular
we allow our advertisers
to target the traffic
inventory they want to
buy, the more they
can pay for the
respective subset of
traffic. Our
advertisers can
therefore choose from a
variety of settings:
1)
Traffic Category:
A filter that let's the
advertiser chose between
Non-Adult (brandsafe)
and Adult traffic
2)
Campaign Type:
Run of Network (all
traffic from a certain
country) or Keyword
Campaigns
3)
Ad Type: Pay Per
Redirect or Pay Per
Click
4)
Device Targeting:
Desktop, Mobile or
Tablet
Zeifang
added, "We
soft-launched DNTX
during Affiliate
Summit East 2012 and
advertiser feedback has
been great so far. As
more and more
advertisers discover our
product, we can already
see RPMs rise on our
tier-2 traffic. We
believe that DNTX.com
should be an open
product and will give
other publishers access
to our advertiser
inventory in the fourth
quarter of 2012. |
|
|
|
Also
crossing our
desk was news
of a new
executive
appointment at Oversee.net.
The company
hired Min L.
Chan as General
Manager, Mobile
Solutions. Chan
will be
responsible for
the |
|
development
of mobile apps
for Oversee’s
consumer-oriented
websites in the
travel, retail
and consumer
finance
verticals. He
will also bring
his expertise to
initiatives
designed to
enhance the
monetization of
mobile users on
Oversee’s DomainSponsor
direct
navigation
traffic network. |
|
Chan
is an
experienced
technology
executive with a
long track
record of
developing and
delivering
successful
mobile
strategies. In
his most recent
position as
Executive
Director, Mobile
Consumer
Products for YP
Holdings LLC
(formerly
AT&T
Interactive),
he led product
and distribution
efforts for the YP
mobile app. Prior
to that, Chan
was Director,
Mobile Search,
Ads, and Digital
Media Service
for Helio LLC. |
|
|
|
|
|
(Posted Sept.
27, 2012)
To refer others
to the
post above only you
can use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2012/dailyposts/20120927.htm
|
|
|
|
T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Releases List of Over 300 Domains to Be
Auctioned Off at the 2012 Show October 8th
|
|
With
the 2012
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference
less than two weeks away final show
details continue to be announced. Today the list
of domains that will be sold in the T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
live auction on Monday, October
8th was released with more than 300
names on the roster including category defining
domains FanClub.com, AmusementPark.com
and Saws.com.
|
|
|
The
auction is scheduled to run from 3:00-5:00pm
(U.S. Eastern time) on the second day of a
four-day meeting that will run October 7-10
at the Ritz Carlton Hotel on Florida's
Fort Lauderdale Beach. There will also two
pre-show cabana networking days on Friday and
Saturday, October 5th and 6th.
|
|
Rick
Schwartz
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Co-Founder |
T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Co-Founder Rick Schwartz, who
personally selected the names that will
be offered, said, "With the
way the 2012 auction is designed, more
domains will be sold, percentage-wise,
than any other live domain auction. Over
60% of entries will be at 'No
Reserve', including Tumors.com,
GamingApps.com and LastLaughs.com. Bidding
in the 2012 T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Domain
Auction is reserved for those attending
the show or qualified telephone
bidders. To request telephone bidding
access, bidders must complete a request
form that can be found here.
The current auction list may be viewed here.
Though the auction submission period has
closed, Schwartz said a few more select
domains may be added to the current
list. More
details, including some interesting
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. auction history, was
included in a press
release the show sent out
today. |
|
|
(Posted Sept.
25, 2012)
To refer others
to the
post above only you
can use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2012/dailyposts/20120925.htm
|
|
Above.com
Integrates Domain Monetization, Registration
& Sales in a New Domain Investor Platform
|
|
Above.com
has
undergone a major makeover. The
well-known domain services company based in Australia launched
a new Domain Investor Platform today that
combines a
new Domain Name Marketplace, Domain
Registrar and Escrow service with
their
|
|
|
existing
Domain Parking Manager service.
|
|
With
those changes Above.com customers can
now manage and register domain names and
buy or sell domains through a single
interface with access to a much
higher level of detail |
|
Ren
Warmuz
Above.com Founder and CEO |
(independent,
third-party traffic and revenue statistics with
demographics and a daily breakdown covering up
to six months)
to base buying decisions on.
The
new domain market place allows instant
domain transfers to buyers and features
integrated domain escrow service for all sale
transactions, while the new registrar interface
was designed specifically with domainers in
mind.
Above.com
Founder and CEO Ren Warmuz said, “For
the first time, domain investors can make
purchase decisions based on verified,
historically accurate domain statistics
independent of the monetization service used. 18
months in the making, our new platform
simplifies 'everything' with an integrated
registrar, domain parking manager, escrow and
aftermarket." Warmuz said a key feature of
the new sales platform ensures that all revenue
and traffic statistics are imported directly
from third-party monetization services
assuring buyers that all reported statistics are
factual. |
|
Above.com
Director of Domain Services Victor
Pitts added, "“Our goal is to
provide domain investors with cutting
edge technology and a better choice.
Domain investment becomes smarter and
easier with the new Above.com
platform." Pitts noted that the
company's system makes it easy to test
and compare traffic and revenue
from different domain parking services
on a single dashboard so the
investor can see the total revenue that
domain or portfolio earns. "This
is especially helpful when deciding
which domains to keep, delete, develop,
or sell as domains are expiring,"
Pitts said. Regarding
the new auction marketplace,
Pitts said, "It is designed to make
domain submission to auctions easy,
while still giving the domain investor
full control over the particulars of
the auction. Investors can even
opt to disclose the full monetization
history of any domain submitted to the
marketplace making traffic, earnings,
and geographic distribution of traffic
immediately available to the buyer." |
Victor
Pitts
Above.com Director of Domain Services |
Pitts
said the Above.com team will be next month's T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Conference on Florida's Fort
Lauderdale Beach to personally demonstrate
the system's features and answer any questions
domain investors attending might have.
|
|
(Posted Sept.
20, 2012)
To refer others
to the
post above only you
can use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2012/dailyposts/20120920-2.htm
|
|
DOMAINfest
Global Gearing Up For Return Engagement in Santa
Monica, California February 5-8, 2013
|
|
The
DOMAINfest
Global conference
will
be returning to the oceanfront Fairmont
Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica, California
for the 2013 show that will run Tuesday, February
5th through Friday, February 8th, 2013.
This will be the 7th annual DOMAINfest Global
event staged by Oversee.net
and the fourth in a row to be held at the Fairmont
in Santa Monica. Your can see our complete
reviews of the previous conferences there at
these links: 2010,
2011
and 2012.
|
|
|
While
Oversee announced the dates for the 2013 event they said it will be a couple
of more weeks before specifics on the conference
agenda, online registration and discounted hotel
room rates are released. Look for that
information to be posted in early October on the
show's official website.
|
|
(Posted Sept.
20, 2012)
To refer others
to the
post above only you
can use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2012/dailyposts/20120920.htm
|
|
Back
to the Future - Two Geodomain Veterans Return to
the Spotlight With Plans for a New gTLD
Conference
|
|
First
of all
let
me apologize for the "typo" in the
headline. It probably should have said Back to
the Futr - as in GEO.FUTR
LLC, the name of a new St. Louis,
Missouri based company that plans to develop
media products and services for the Geodomain
and GeoTLD industry (GeoTLDs being proposed new
gTLDs representing geographic location, such
as .paris, .london and .boston).
The
new firm was co-founded by two veterans from the
geodomain space, Former Associated Cities Executive
Director Patrick Carleton and Chicago.com
Chairman Josh Metnick. The first big
project the duo has on the board is the
first annual GEO.FUTR
Geodomain & GeoTLD Investors and Operators
Conference, an event to be staged in
the fall of 2013 at a location that has yet to
be announced. Carleton
and Metnick both have extensive experience in
the geodomain conference arena. During
Carelton's tenure at Associated Cities the
organization staged several Geodomain
Expos, the last being held in New Orleans
in April
2010. Metnick has also been involved
in show planning and had an especially high
profile at the July
2008 Geodomain Expo held in his
hometown of Chicago. The
new GEO.FUTR conference they have planned will
cover both traditional geodomains with locations
to the left of the .dot (like Chicago.com and
Denver.com) and proposed new gTLDs with the
locale to the right of the dot like .nyc and .miami.
They said "attendees
will learn strategies, techniques and best
practices for maximizing the value of GeoTLDs
and Geographic domain names. Conference
participants will benefit from the select
networking opportunities made available only to
conference participants." The
announcement of their conference plans comes on
the heels of two .NXT new gTLD conferences
that were cancelled
at the last minute this year due to lack of
support. Much of
|
Patrick
Carleton
GEO.FUTR LLC Co-Founder & President
Josh
Metnick
GEO.FUTR LLC Co-Founder
|
|
that
could be attributed to delays in the launch of
ICANN's controversial new gTLD program. Carleton
and Metnick believe the timing will be far
better a year from now when they plan to
run.
They said the conference will cater to
registries, Geodomain and GeoTLD operators and
investors, hotel, travel and tourism entities,
municipalities and governments, brands and
advertisers with local reach as well as digital
professionals and service providers.
|
Image
from Bigstock |
Carleton
said, “With the internet addressing
space expanding into thousands of
top level domains, a new world of
possibilities has opened for Geodomain
owners. Finding and evaluating the paths
that lead to value creation will be a
major challenge for both established and
new Geodomain entities. The conference
agenda will be tailored to the specific
issues and needs facing GeoTLD and
Geographic domain name registries,
owners, developers and partners.”
Metnick added, "The
complexity of operating a sustainable
Geodomain-based business is |
|
increasing
significantly, and making personal
connections in this evolving world
will be critical to being successful in
the new, multidimensional Geodomain
landscape." |
The
GEO.FUTR conference team has issued a call for
proposals for presentations. To submit a
topic for presentation or speaker proposal,
visit http://geofutr.com/speakers
to complete their form. The submission deadline
is October 1st, 2012. For
sponsorship opportunities, contact Alexis
Evelyn, VP of Business Development at [email protected]
or Patrick Carleton, President, at [email protected].
|
|
(Posted
Sept. 18, 2012)
To refer others
to the
post above only you
can use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2012/dailyposts/20120918.htm
|
|
Google's
View of My Hometown - What Are All of These
Strange Domains Doing In My Search Results?
|
|
A
couple of time each year
I
go back to the small Midwestern town
where I grew up, Delaware, Ohio,
to see my mother who still lives in my
childhood home. I'll be going up again
next weekend and in the course of
deciding what Diana and I might
want to do on this trip, I did a casual
search on Google for
"Delaware, Ohio" to see what
might be going on while we were in the
area (Delaware is 25 miles north of the
state capital - Columbus (home of
the Ohio State Buckeyes). A
little known fact is that in 1812 the
state capital was relocated with
Columbus and Delaware competing for the
honor. Columbus wound up winning by one
vote). In addition to finding some |
Downtown
Delaware, Ohio |
|
entertainment
ideas (the County Fair, which I haven't
been to in decades, will be going on so
there is one nostalgic option) I also
found a domain story. |
From
a domain nut/internet entrepreneur's
perspective, what I found interesting was
which ten websites Google put on page 1
(out of more than 1.5 million pages for
the term "Delaware, Ohio" in quotes)
in
a search request for this particular geographic
location. To get relevant results you have to
include both the city and state name - if you enter "Delaware" alone most of the
results will be about the State of Delaware
rather than the Ohio town that is predominantly
known for three things - the Little Brown Jug
(part of harness racing's Triple Crown - this
year's race will be held the day before we get
to town), Ohio Wesleyan University and Rutherford
B. Hayes, the 19th President of the U.S.
who was born in Delaware (and for whom my high
school was named).
|
|
The
top result on page 1 of Google is
DelawareOhio.net
- the city's official website. After a Wikipedia
entry about the town, The 3rd entry is Delaware.org
(DelawareOhio.org also
redirects to this site, an independent
city guide that has been online
since 1995). With the .net and the
.org versions
of DelawareOhio leading the results, |
|
I
of course wondered what was going on
with DelawareOhio.com and why it
was nowhere to be found? It turns out
that domain, the one you would generally
expect to be dominant, remains undeveloped,
even though it was registered back in
1997. It was also interesting to
see that the domain is owned by a small
business in a similarly sized Ohio town,
Marion, that is 20 miles north of
Delaware (Marion is also the birthplace
of a U.S. President, Warren G.
Harding). The same company owns MarionOhio.com,
registered the same year, so they likely
had an idea to corner some Central Ohio
community domain names for future use -
too bad the future still has not arrived
for those names. |
|
|
By
now, I was finding this little exercise
to be more and more interesting.
Studying page 1 of Google results for a
term that interests you is a good way to
while away a rainy day and at the same
time learn a good bit about about how
certain domains are used (or not used)
and the value Google places on the ones
that have been developed.
One thing that
stands out is how many different
extensions show up in a world that
is dominated by .com. The #4
result was a .US domain
(America's country code) - the official
Delaware County website at http://www.co.delaware.oh.us/.
That kind of convoluted addressing is
common with governmental sites (prior to
2002 .US was reserved for government use
but since then it has been open to all
U.S. citizens). DelawareCounty.us
(which I happen to own) would have been
a more elegant and memorable solution,
as would DelawareOhio.us, however
the latter domain redirects to a page
about the city's best-known cemetery
(presumably aimed at someone other than
the current occupants)! |
Image
from Bigstock |
I
didn't find any other developed websites for the
term DelawareOhio (one of the undeveloped ones, DelawareOhio.info,
is another of mine). The balance of Google's 1st
page included the local Convention and Visitors
Bureau site - VisitDelOhio.com
at #5 (they do not appear to own the
unabbreviated VisitDelawareOhio.com and
it is not developed), a page
about Delaware from the ubiquitous City-Data.com
at #6 and the Delaware County Fair's
website at #7 (located at DelawareCountyFair.com).
Rounding
out the 10 entries on page 1 were the Ohio
Wesleyan website at OWU.edu,
the local newspaper's website - DelGazette.com
(the Delaware Gazette has been
published continually since it was founded in
1818 and is still in busines despite challenges on
ever side from the Internet. They also own the
unabbreviated domain, DelawareGazette.com,
but choose to forward it to the shorter version) and DelawareOhioRealEstate.com,
a blog operated by a local real estate agent
(that high ranking will be appreciated by Rob
Grant who owns the world's biggest
portfolio of .com city-realestate
domains).
|
The
late, great Eckel's Lake in Delaware,
Ohio
billed itself as "The World's
Unique Water Gym" |
While
I felt like I knew a lot about my hometown, I left a long time ago so that
quick search on Google gave me a lot of
insight into how the world sees the
city through search engine results
today. It also reminded me how much things
have changed. If Google had existed
when I lived there (Yes kids, there
really was a time when there was no
Google!) the top results might have
included Sharon Phillian, a
Delaware native from my era who competed
in the Miss America contest, Eckel's
Lake and the A&W root
beer stand |
|
where
everyone liked to cruise on Saturday
nights. Sharon is still with us but
Eckel's Lake and the A&W no longer
exist. |
Though
Google generates mixed feelings in the
domain world (due to their dominance of pay per
click advertising and a widespread suspicion
that they do not share revenues equitably with
their domain partners) you have to give them
props for serving up a wealth of information on
any topic you can think of and (whether you feel
the criteria they use to rank sites is fair or
not) the price is certainly right (and if you
still don't like them, there is always Bing).
|
|
(Posted Sept.
17, 2012)
To refer others
to the
post above only you
can use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2012/dailyposts/20120917.htm
|
|
Team
Internet CEO Jumping with Joy After Landing Axel
Kaltz for Key Role at ParkingCrew.com
|
|
Nico
Zeifang,
the
CEO at Munich, Germany based Team
Internet AG is always upbeat, but he
was more excited than usual when he contacted me
today to rave about a new addition to the
team at ParkingCrew.com
(Team Internet's domain monetization
unit). Zeifang
wanted to let me know that Axel Kaltz, an
industry veteran with more than eight years in
the domain space (including various positions at
Sedo including Director of Sales
Operations - Europe/Asia-Pacific) had come on
board as Managing Director of ParkingCrew.
Axel will be responsible for driving and
maximizing revenue for ParkingCrew publishers. Kaltz,
was keyed up over his new assignment too. He
said, "Having been involved mainly on the
sales side of the business in the past years, I
am very excited to join the young and
refreshing team at ParkingCrew and be a part
of their vision of being the most innovative
domain monetization platform out there."
|
Axel
Kaltz - Team Internet
Managing Director of ParkingCrew
|
|
Zeifang
added, "We have exciting plans for
ParkingCrew that will be rolled out over the
coming months and Axel will be instrumental
in making them happen. We are really excited
to have him with us." Is it just me, or are
you getting the impression that Nico is excited
too? :-)
I
can say that I have been hearing a lot of
positive things about the company over the past
year and had a chance to be around several of
the ParkingCrew team leaders at the Domaining
Europe conference in Valencia,
Spain last April. As Axel noted, they are a
young, high energy crew that you can't
help being impressed with. It will be worth
watching them over the next few months to
see what they have up their sleeves.
|
|
(Posted Sept.
13, 2012)
To refer others
to the
post above only you
can use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2012/dailyposts/20120913.htm
|
|
Gregg
McNair Expands Into the Domain Registration
Business Taking Equity Position and Chairmanship
at Internet.bs
|
|
PPX
International Group
Chairman
Gregg McNair (who was profiled in
our October 2009 Cover
Story) spends most of his
time crisscrossing the globe overseeing
his far flung business interests, both
inside the domain industry and out.
McNair has just added yet another
iron to the fire, expanding his
domain interests (which already include DomainAdvisors.com
and DomainManager.com)
into the domain registration
business.
McNair
has
acquired a substantial equity
position in Internet.bs
Corp. (IBS) and has
also been appointed Chairman of
the fast growing Bahamas based registrar
that was founded in 2004 (.bs is
the country code for the Bahamas. IBS
owns both Internet.bs and, for global
purposes, Internetbs.net).
Internet.bs
Founder and CEO Marco Rinaudo was
delighted to have McNair come onboard,
saying "For
some time we have been looking to
broaden our horizons and we believe the
combination with Gregg will provide market
confidence and opportunities
which would have taken much longer to
realize without his resources and
support. Gregg and the quality teams he
has built are renowned for their success
throughout the wider domain industry and
we are genuinely excited at the
move."
In
conjunction with McNair's appointment,
IBS has aggressive growth plans
going forward. Rinaudo noted "With
around 700,000 domains already
under management and leading edge
technologies, IBS is already among the
fastest growing registrars in the world
and we are poised to become the
industry's preferred International
registrar with an emphasis on security
and privacy. The range of registrar
services will also expand”
McNair
added, "In these times where any
domain name is vulnerable to hackers,
courts or even Governors, it's difficult
to find an International Registrar you
can really trust and depend upon as custodian
of valuable assets. I have observed
and dealt with Marco and his excellent
team for many years and I am obviously
impressed and welcome the opportunity to
help build and shape the future of IBS.
Marco runs a great business fully
committed to excellence, innovation and
to making a difference in our
world." |
Gregg
McNair
New Internet.bs Chairman
Marco
Rinaudo
Internet.bs Founder and CEO |
|
|
(Posted Sept.
12, 2012)
To refer others
to the
post above only you
can use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2012/dailyposts/20120912.htm
|
|
DomainSherpa's
Michael Cyger Launching Twitter Based Venture Supported
by 275,000 Followers
|
|
Most
of you
are
familiar with Michael Cyger's DomainSherpa.com
website, one of the web's best domain
information resources thanks to a rich library
of in depth video interviews that Michael
has conducted with dozens of industry leaders in
recent years. Michael was a successful
entrepreneur before he entered the domain space
and I didn't have to spend much time around him
to figure out that he is one of the brightest
people in our business. So, it came as no
surprise to me to learn today that he is
launching a new venture that is already
off to a flying start. Cyger's
latest enterprise, developed with co-founder John
Sortino,
revolves around Hashtags.org,
a developed website with 100,000 monthly
visitors that he acquired in January 2011.
Hashtags.org, originally
launched back in 2007, was the first
service to provide hashtag tracking on Twitter.
While Hashtags.org was already a going concern
(it now has 275,000 followers on Twitter)
Cyger has been working on a complete makeover
|
Michael
Cyger, Hashtags.org
and DomainSherpa.com
|
|
ever
since he acquired the site over a year and a
half ago. The new site, which Cyger says is like
Google Analytics, but for Twitter hashtags,
launches tomorrow (Wednesday, Sept. 12,
2012).
|
|
|
|
Cyger said,
"We have re-engineered our service
from the ground up, based on extensive
customer feedback. With global, real-time
hashtag data available to customers,
we are positioned to better assist
organizations in making the most of
their social media marketing." |
|
Hashtags.org
does that by organizing the extensive
data available – but not easily
tracked otherwise - around the use of
hashtags in various social media (with 340
million tweets per day on
Twitter, you can imagine how hard it is
to index, store and create analytics for
the service). Cyger said this data
allows businesses leaders, marketers and
agencies to monitor awareness,
engagement and return on their marketing
investment for their brand, products
and services. That analytical
information can in turn be used to
formulate actionable tactics.
The
robust
analytics available through
Hashtags.org allow users to:
*
Monitor discussions about their
brand/company/product/service/event 24×7
*
Track awareness, engagement and growth
*
Discover early adopters, influencers and
detractors
*
Track historical analytics for past
campaigns and events
*
Directly tie marketing activity on
Twitter to metrics of business success
In
addition, the new Hashtags.org website
now offers new features including
hashtag definitions, a hashtag chat
feature, a discussion forum, useful
how-to content, an event calendar, and
additional resources for effectively
managing social media marketing
campaigns.
One
particularly cool feature on the new
site is the ability to compare topics,
such as:
*
Technology: #iPhone vs #Android
*
Television: #DWTS vs #Idol vs
#Survivor
*
Celebrity: #LadyGaga vs #JustinBieber
*
Politics: #Obama vs #Romney
Co-Founder
John Sortino noted “We continue to see
enormous growth by businesses,
organizations and social movements using
hashtags to engage their audiences and
constituencies. Political conventions in
the United States, human rights issues
in developing nations, geological
phenomena – all are talked about in
real-time by a growing audience. Factor
in the need from businesses to track
their competition and you have an ever
increasing demand for the social media
analytical information provided by
Hashtags.org.”
Hashtags
provides four different levels of
service. Some analytics are free
but power users will want to go for one
of the subscriptions ranging from $49
to $349 a month based on the
amount of usage. Annual subscriptions
are also available. Hashtags.org looks
like another winner for Michael and I
know I will think of him every time I
see a hashtag now! |
|
|
(Posted Sept.
11, 2012)
To refer others
to the
post above only you
can use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2012/dailyposts/20120911.htm
|
|
Costco
Does Domains - Warehouse Club's Magazine
Dispenses Advice From Go Daddy
|
|
I
was leafing through
the
September 2012 edition of The Costco
Connection - a magazine that is sent to
members of America's largest warehouse club
(Costco is also the 5th biggest retailer in the
U.S. and the 7th biggest in the world) -
when I was surprised to come across an article
about domain names. Costco offers their
small business members a lot of useful products
and services but I didn't know domains were one
of them. The article refers to Go
Daddy (the world's largest
registrar) as Costco's "online solutions
provider." The
article offered advice
|
|
|
from
Go Daddy on what business owner's should look
for when selecting a domain name for
their company. The tips included some that will
be familiar to domain pros - pick a name that is
memorable, one that is short and one without
numbers or hyphens which often lead to
typos.
One
bit of advice that I haven't seen in these kinds
of articles before is a recommendation that the
business use the name of their city or state
in their domain name to improve their search
results. I've always thought geo-targeted
domains were a good idea, even though we don't
see a lot of them in our weekly domain
sales reports. That is likely due to
the market for such names being limited to a
specific locale.
It
was also interesting that the advice gave
greater weight to using generic keywords
in a domain rather than the specific name of the
business (for example a business named Bobby's
Motors in our city might be better off using
TampaUsedCars.com - again because words that
describe your product or service (as well as
locale) will usually yield better results
in search engines).
|
|
Other
tips included avoiding trademarked names
and registering alternate spellings to
keep them away from competitors. Go
Daddy also recommended registering the .com,
.net and .org versions of
your name (cynics might think that, as
a registrar, it is no surprise Go
Daddy would advise registering
multiple |
|
domain
names for one business - but with
domains being so cheap, you can't fault
their advice to spend a few extra bucks
to protect your brand (I have DNJournal
in all three original extensions, as
well as a few others). |
It
is always good to see columns about domains in
mainstream publications like this. The general
public is still woefully uninformed about domain
name issues and the importance of domains
to the success of their business in today's
world.
|
|
(Posted Sept.
10, 2012)
To refer others
to the
post above only you
can use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2012/dailyposts/20120910.htm
|
|
Keynote
Speaker Named for T.R.A.F.F.I.C. 2012 Conference
Coming Up Next Month on Fort Lauderdale
Beach
|
|
Declan
Dunn,
a man who has been referred to as the "King
of Affiliate Marketing", has been
chosen as the keynote speaker for the
2012 T.R.A.F.F.I.C
conference coming up October 7-10
at the Ritz Carlton on Fort Lauderdale
Beach. T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Co-Founder Rick
Schwartz (AKA "The Domain King")
made the announcement in a letter sent out to
those on the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. mailing list this
afternoon. Schwartz
said, "In the year
2000, four years before T.R.A.F.F.I.C. was founded, I met Declan Dunn and we became fast friends. He is a
dynamo! I am so very happy to say that he
will be our keynote speaker on October 8th
at T.R.A.F.F.I.C."
|
Declan
Dunn
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. 2012 Keynote Speaker
|
|
"Just
listening to what Declan has to say and the way
he says it is worth the price of
admission. You would have to go all theway back
to John Reese (the keynote speaker at
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. West in Las Vegas in 2007)
to have a speaker of this caliber. Declan will
make you money!", Schwartz declared.
|
|
Schwartz
noted, "Declan is one of the most
popular marketing gurus on the
Internet today. All of his affiliate
programming methods have earned some
degree of popularity on the Internet. He
has also written several eBooks
on the subject that have become Internet
marketing bestsellers. Two of his most
famous books are Winning the
Affiliate Game and Complete |
|
Insider's
Guide to Associate and
Affiliate Programs. Most
Internet marketing amateurs rely on
these books to become fully acquainted
with the process of affiliate
marketing."
"Declan
Dunn is also known for many other
products. He is the author of the
program Net Profits: How to Win
the Internet Game and The
Ten Step Master Plan for Maximizing Your
Profits. He writes articles on the
Internet, gives consultation to budding
Internet marketers, speaks at seminars
and does a lot of stuff that keeps him
in the reckoning,' Schwartz added.
You
can see the latest update on the
complete T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference
agenda here. |
|
|
(Posted Sept.
6, 2012)
To refer others
to the
post above only you
can use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2012/dailyposts/20120906.htm
|
|
The
Jackson Family's Weekend Wedding Had a Distinct
Domain Flavor
|
|
The
past few days
have
been a whirlwind surrounding my daughter
Brittany's wedding to David McCreery
at the Powel Crosley Estate in Sarasota,
Florida on Saturday (Sept. 1, 2012). Things
could not have gone better, for which my wife Diana
and I are immensely thankful! The weather was
hot but otherwise picture perfect for the
outdoor ceremony (we have spen the past year
praying for no rain that day and our prayers
were answered). Thanks to some good friends who
came from out of town for the event, the wedding
had a distinct domain flavor.
(Left
to right): Domain industry friends Barbara
Neu, Michael Berkens
(with Diana & Ron Jackson), Judi
Berkens and Howard Neu helped make
an
already special day one of the most memorable of
our lives. Howard also did a
phenomenal job officiating the ceremony and
Barbara took some fabulous
photos that will help us re-live these
special moments for the rest of our lives.
A
shot of the Powel Crosley Estate with the
wedding ceremony just getting underway
in the courtyard at the bottom center of this
picture by Barbara Neu.
Above:
Proud dad Ron Jackson waiting at the
landing
to escort his daughter Brittany down the
aisle.
Below:
On the way to the altar.
Brittany
and David chose Howard Neu as their
officiant and they
worked closely with Howard
to plan a unique ceremony (including Howard
singing!) that everyone LOVED. We heard
nothing
but effusive praise from guests about how
original and moving the ceremony was.
Ron
Jackson and daughter Brittany Jackson
McCreery
The
next morning Brittany and David were on a flight
to Munich, Germany to begin a two-week
honeymoon in Europe. When she returns she will
resume her final year of medical school while
getting her new life as a wife underway. Having
gained a son we have an interesting new chapter
to look forward to as well. Thanks to everyone
who made this such a magical day!
|
|
(Posted Sept.
3, 2012)
To refer others
to the
post above only you
can use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2012/dailyposts/20120903.htm
|
|
If
you've been out of the loop lately, catch up in the Lowdown
Archive!
|
|
We need your help to keep giving domainers The
Lowdown, so please email [email protected]
with any interesting information you might have. If possible,
include the source of your information so we can check it out (for
example a URL if you read it in a forum or on a site
elsewhere).
|
|
|
Home
Domain Sales
YTD Sales Charts
Latest
News The Lowdown
Articles
Legal Matters Dear Domey
Letters
to Editor Resources
Classified Ads
Archive
About Us |
|
|
|
|
