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.
Post
Memorial Day Weekend Potpourri of Domain News, Headlines
and Links
We
are coming off a three-day weekendin
America where most businesses
shut down Monday to observe Memorial
Day - a day when we pause to honor
U.S. soldiers who died while serving
their country. The Memorial Day weekend
is also regarded as the unofficial start
of summer in the States and many spent
the extended break going to the beach or
having a cookout. I spent all of it at
my desk finishing up our new
Cover Story on Dan Warner,
the man
Dan
has an amazing personal story and
even though he is very well-known in the
industry it is a story that very few
people have heard before. As always, Dan
was very frank in our discussions and
was equally open in talking about the
good times as well as the bad times he
has been through.
He
has bounced back from some catastrophes
that would have put most of us on the
sidelines for good, including a
near fatal accident and having a con
artist destroy a promising multi-million
dollar company he had built prior to
joining Dark Blue Sea and its
famous offspring, Fabulous.com, in 2002.
I think there is a lot to learn from the
experiences he shares and his amazing
resilience in the face of major
challenges so, if at all possible, set
some time aside and check out this
article - I believe you will
find it to be time well spent.
Dan
Warner
CEO, DomainAdvertising.com
ICANN
was busy over the weekend too, issuing a
boatload of documents, recommendations and the
long awaited 4th (and possibly final)
draft version of their New
TLD Applicant Guidebook. This
details things you will need to know if you are
thinking about applying for one the unlimited
number of new gTLDs ICANN plans to eventually
start rolling out.
As
always seems to be the case, some of
their proposed actions in other areas
are raising some huge red flags
in the domain industry. At the forefront
of those is a proposed Expedited
Transfer Reversal Policy
that, if passed, could be a major
disruption to the domain
aftermarket. The policy is intended to
be a tool to thwart domain hijacking but
it could have the reverse effect as it
would allow someone who has sold a
domain to you to reverse the transfer
of the domain for up to six months
after the "sale" has
been
completed.
As is so often the case with ICANN
matters, George Kirikos spotted
this issue and took it public. Check out
this
thread he started at the DomainState.com
forum more details on the proposed
policy and steps you can take to help
stop it (ICANN has not yet opened a
public commentary period on this
proposal).
Also over
the long weekend, the .mobi
extension took a pretty good punch to
the gut when a Miami
Herald story declared
that "The popularity of Facebook pages and
smartphone apps may signal the death of dot
mobi."
In the paragraph
that landed the biggest haymaker, author Bridget
Carey wrote, "It's not just the iPhone
that made mobi domain names the mobile
equivalent of an eight-track car stereo. The
extension is unnecessary now, thanks to
advances in how websites are built. Formerly, a
.mobi extension was required to follow design
rules that made web pages easy to read on a
mobile phone screen. But now, a site can detect
that a user is on a mobile device and automatically
display in a cellphone-friendly format.
Plus, phone keyboards now come with .com
shortcut buttons - piling the dirt on dot
mobi's young grave."
I don't
know if .mobi is dead yet or not, but it
is certainly walking with a serious
limp and getting knee-capped
by the Herald won't help its
prospects. I will make one observation
though - there are some other
extensions that some people have also
declared dead that, thanks to having
strong keywords that define
commercial products or services, I have
been able to make money with. That comes
from sales to small business end users
and revenue generated by new
monetization programs likes SmartName'secommerceplatform
that
does not
rely on a Google or Yahoo
parking feed for its income. Perhaps,
someone will come up with something new
that will give .mobi a new lease on life
too but right now I would have to say
the odds don't look good.
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
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