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.
Advertising.com
Co-Founder Joins U.S. Congressman on Speaker's List for
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. South Beach + Domaining III Award Winners
The T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Miami conferencecoming
up on world famous South BeachOctober
17-20 continued to add to its exceptional
roster of speakers today when show organizers
announced that Advertising.com Co-Founder
John Ferber will be there. That news came
just 48 hours after T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Co-Founders Rick
Schwartz and Howard Neuannounced
that T.R.A.F.F.I.C. will have a U.S.
Congressman - Cliff Stearns (R - Florida) -
as a featured speaker, a domain conference
first.
Ferber
(who also co-founded Domain
Holdings) is a past winner of the Ernst
& YoungEntrepreneur of the Year
Award who has a standout resume that ranges from
creating the first-ever online interactive
game to building Advertising.com into the
world's largest and most successful third-party
online advertising network. The company was sold
to America Online for $500 million
and is now the cornerstone of AOL's Platform A.
John
Ferber
At
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Ferber will join a panel
discussion Monday, Oct. 18 titled Where
Are Our Developing Partners? He
will be joined on the dais by an
all-star industry line up that will
include Ted Olson (Smartname.com),
Rob Monster (Epik.com), Craig
Rowe (WhyPark.com), David
Castello (CCIN.com), Michael
Castello (CCIN.com) and Dan
Warner (DomainAdvertising.com).
Congressman
Stearns, a member of the powerful Energy and
Internet-Sub-committee, will also
appear on the 18th to bring attendees up
to date on the latest bills that effect Domains and the Internet. The
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Miami agenda is nearing
completion. You can check out the full
schedule here.
One other note
from the show circuit -Inverdom.com's
Dietmar Stefitz, who staged the Domaining
III conference in Valencia,
Spain last week, sent out a release
today with some extra details about what
happened there. Stefitz said nearly 100
people (including 16 speakers) representing
12 countries attended Spain's biggest domain
conference. The show closed Saturday
(Sept. 25) with the presentation of its Domaining
2010 Awards.
Scene
from the Domaining III
conference
last week in Valencia, Spain
The award
winners were as follows:
Best
Domainer of the Year:
Luis Tolosa from Domibay.com.
Best
Domaining of the Year:
Javier Ruiz from Domisfera.com.
Honourable
Domainer Mention:
Michael Castello
and David Castello
of CCIN.com
(who were also keynote
speakers at the show
along with Sedo
CEO Tim Schumacher).
Honourable
Domaining Mention:
Jordi Planas for
this knowledge of the
sector and its
legislation and his
efforts to improve Dominios.es
management.
The
award winners were
chosen from nominees
received by a panel of
judges that included Alejandro
Suárez Sánchez-Ocaña,
Francisco Santibáñez
Pérez and Félix
Mezcua Coronil.
Luis
Tolosa of Domibay.com receives
Domaining III's Best
Domainer of the Year
Award from Félix
Mezcua Coronil
(left)
who represented the
judges.
Bodies
Continue to Pile Up Under Internet Assault - Latest
Victim: The White Pages - Plus
NumericDomains.com Offers New Domain Sales Option
A
headline in a local newspaper(the
St. Petersburg Times) caught my
attention a few days ago. It said White
Pages End Is Near. Wow, still another
true institution of American life is about to be
swept away by the web. Everyone in our
business should be thanking our lucky stars that
we are on the right side of this
irresistible wave that continues to wash away
things that have been have been a part of
everyday life for the past century or more.
The
article by Ivan Penn was about the Florida
Public Service Commission granting Verizon's
request to stop delivering White Pages
phone books to residential customers unless they
specifically ask for them. Verizon has
been delivering one million copies of the
White Pages to local homes every autumn and I
can't imagine how many of those go straight into
the recycling bin (as mine does, along
with
Yellow Pages books) or worse, into
regular garbage cans and destined for
immediate incineration. With listings
readily available online, unwanted printed books
have been a massive waste of resources
for years now for those who have moved onto the
Internet (and these days that is most of
us).
Verizon
has also asked other states, including
New York and New Jersey, to
allow them to stop delivering White
Pages books. However, whether you want
them or not, they want to keep throwing
Yellow Pages books in your driveway
because they still sell ads to a lot of
businesses who don't know that mostpeople no longer see their ads in
the quickly trashed books. Still, it is
just a matter of time before the Yellow
Pages become history too.
In
a similar vein, I've also been reading a
lot this week about new set top boxes
that bring Internet TV directly
to the HDTV in your living room.
This development has cable TV executives
in a panic. They've already seen
the devastation in other media -
newspapers, radio and local TV, so they
know the handwriting is on the wall if
they don't find a way to adapt. Websites
(built on domain names of course)
are inexorably becoming the media
distribution platforms that people are
gravitating too. Things may be tough all
over, but I don't think anyone could be
situated in a better place than owners
of quality domains and websites are
today.
Speaking
of websites, Domaining.com
owner Francois Carrillo
has just cranked out another one
- smartly built, as he always
does, on an exact keyword match
domain name. This time it is NumericDomains.com
that adds
another
piece to Carrillo's network of
specialty domain sales sites (a
group that also includes PremiumDomains.com,
BargainDomains.com, TrafficDomains.com,
Catchy.com and Flipping.co.
As
you would expect
NumericDomains.com specializes
in selling domains composed completely
of numerals - especially
those with three or four
numbers. With the site's low 8%
commission rate (and that
includes the escrow fee), you
might want to give it a
try.
Two
New Domain Conferences Added to the Calendar Today +
Where Did YOUR Parking Revenue Go? More Fingers
Pointing at Google & Yahoo
The domain conference calendar
got two more new entries today. IDNTools.com
announced their first show - IDN
Event - a one-evening meeting
devoted to International Domain Names that will
be held in New York City on Saturday, October
30.
The
$99 registration fee will include a sushi
dinner and an opportunity to network with other
domainers including Elliot Silver (ElliotsBlog.com)
and Patrick Carleton (Executive Director
of Associated
Cities).
One
of the organizers, Aaron Krawitz, said
the meeting will focus on how domainers can make
money abroad. There will also be a simultaneous
auction. IDN Event, a conference that is being
co-hosted by Register.com, Moniker®
and SnapNames®.
We
also learned today where the first T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
conference in 2011 will be held.
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Co-Founders Rick
Schwartz and Howard Neu announced
they will host a T.R.A.F.F.I.C. ICANN
Retreat conference in San
Francisco March 11-12, 2011, right
before an ICANN International meeting
begins there March 13). More
details will be forthcoming.
Meanwhile
Schwartz and Neu are making
final preparations for their T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Miami conference
coming up October 17-20, 2010
at the Loew's Hotel on South
Beach - the only
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. show the long
time partners are staging this
year. I hooked up with Schwartz
and Neu for a show preview interview,
however the conversation quickly
morphed
into
one covering much more
ground than thatonce we
started talking about recent
changes in the industry and how
the current business environment
will be addressed at
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Miami.
Schwartz
told us, "Domainers
are not happy with
the trends. They
feel like they are
getting the shaft
while our so-called
“partners” are rolling
in the $$$ we are
making for them...The
end user pays $5.00
for a click, but we get 5
cents and we are
supposed to believe that
is an 80% cut? I
think every domainer
knows this is garbage
and that it has to
change. I believe that
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. is going
to start a conversation
that Yahoo and Google
cannot ignore. I have
listened to their empty
lip service for six
years and now it is time
for show and tell."
Schwartz,
who has never been shy
about speaking his mind,
was just getting warmed
up with those comments.
You can read
the entire article here.
T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Co-Founder Rick Schwartz
Jeff
Kupietzky
President &
CEO, Oversee.net
In
case you missed
it, we published
another major
article over
the weekend -
our latest Cover
Story
- a profile of Jeff
Kupietzky, the man who has guided
Oversee.net (parent company of
DomainSponsor,
Moniker, SnapNames and
DOMAINfest) through a severe recession and unexpected crises that could have easily brought down a company with less skilled leadership.
The
topic of domain
owner complaints
about diminished
PPC revenue
also came up in
our interview
with Jeff. He
also attributed
it to the search
engine giants at
the top of the
pyramid keeping
a bigger share
of the pie for
themselves.
Kupietzky told
us, ""The
reason for some
of the declines
in the past
years has to do
with how
those ad dollars
are being
divided
among all the
players in the
value chain
based on their
respective
positioning.
There is no
longer
sufficient
competition among
the
upstream
search
networks so more
of the profits
are captured
there than are
flowing to us.
Our segment
remains quite
competitive
which maintains
share of
payouts.
In terms of the
future, I do
expect
competition to
increase among
the search
networks which
will be positive
for all
publishers."
One
final note today, two of the
Oversee divisions Kupietzky
oversees, SnapNames.com
and Moniker.com,
will be launching newly redesigned
websites tonight. Some of the
improvements you will see include:
Easier-To-Use
Search and Monitoring:
You will be able to search
for domain names more
quickly while keeping
up-to-date on upcoming
opportunities to buy and
sell names at auction.
News
& Resources: The
site have opened and will
continue to add to a
resource center to provide
information and tips for
making the most of
auctions.
Account
Management Centralization:
Moniker Domain Management
and SnapNames Auction
activities can now be
found in the "My
Account" area of the
site.
Support
Portal: Their support
portal now includes an
expanded knowledge base
where you can submit and
track support questions in
one place for all your
Oversee.net accounts. The
portal is available and
monitored 365 days a year.
Domaining
III Attendees in Spain Hear Keynote Comments from Sedo
CEO Tim Schumacher and CCIN Co-Founders Michael and
David Castello
The Domaining
III conferencein Valencia, Spaincontinued
today with keynote speeches from Sedo
CEO and Co-Founder Tim Schumacher and the
Co-Founders of the Castello
Cities Internet Network, Michael
Castello and David Castello,
highlighting day two activities at the Hotel
Sorolla Palace. An appreciative audience
also had a chance to ask questions directly to
the keynote speakers in a lively Q & A
session that followed their talks.
(L
to R) Keynote speakers Michael Castello (CCIN.com),
Tim Schumacher (Sedo.com)
and David Castello (CCIN.com) answer
questions from the audience after
delivering
their addresses today at the Domaining III
conference in Valencia, Spain.
After
interacting with conference attendees for the
past couple of days, David Castello told us,
"I believe the domainers who attended Domaining
III will become the core foundation
for the Spanish domain industry for years
to come."
The
conference will close Saturday with a day of
networking that will include a boat ride on a
local lagoon and a dinner featuring the region's
favorite dish, Paella Valenciana. This is the
third annual show in a conference series staged
by Inverdom's
Dietmar Stefitz.
I want to
close the week with congratulations to a
couple of companies that have something
special to celebrate. One is DomainConsultant.com
who announced the launch of a new domain
auction platform at Boxcar.com
that offers a number of new twists,
including the ability to put lots
of domains (multiple domains in a single
lot) up of sale at once. Best of luck to
Mike Fiol and his teammates at
DomainConsultant.com and Boxcar.com
Afilias
Director of Security Greg Aaron accepting a 2010 Excellence in Registry
Services award Thursday
night in Washington, D.C.
Also today Afilias,
a leading provider of Internet
infrastructure services and the registry
provider for the .INFO domain, is
celebrating the 2010 Excellence in
Registry Services Award they just
received from the Online
Trust Alliance. Afilias was
recognized last night (Thursday, Sept.
23rd) at the Online Trust Alliances’ 5th
annual Excellence in Online Trust
Awards in Washington D.C.
for its innovative leadership role in
online safety initiatives over the past
year.
Afilias’
cyber security initiatives included its
pioneering Anti-Abuse
Policy for the .INFO domain,
which has helped .INFO to continuously
score one of the lowest phishing uptimes
for all generic top-level domains (TLDs).
It also includes cross-industry
collaboration initiatives which have
helped suppress two of the largest
cyber-gangs and incidents in the
Internet’s history, Avalanche and
Conficker. In addition, Afilias has
worked to increase implementation of
Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC),
which is the only known protection against
cache-poisoning and man-in-the-middle
attacks.
Ram
Mohan, Executive Vice President and
Chief Technology Officer for Afilias,
said, "We appreciate the
recognition of our work to enable a more
trustworthy Internet and owe thanks to a
very cooperative industry, including our
domain name registrars who have been
responsive in helping us address domain
abuse. We will continue to strengthen
our anti-abuse program and will add
DNSSEC protection to more than a dozen
registries in the months ahead.”
Domaining
III Conference Gets Underway in Valencia, Spain With
Good Early Reviews from the Castello Brothers
The Domaining
III conferencegot
underway today in Valencia, Spain with
the first business sessions and an opening night
cocktail party at the show venue - the Hotel
Sorolla Palace. TheCastello
Brothers, Michael and David,
made the trip to Spain to conduct a workshop
today and deliver a keynote speech Friday
(the conference will continue through Saturday).
Standing
at far right, the Castello Brothers (David
and Michael) answer
questions during a workshop on Domain
Names and Brand Power
at the Domaining III conference today in Valencia,
Spain.
David
and Michael
were impressed by what they have seen in the
early going at the show. In a further sign of what a
global
business domaining has become, David noted,
"These Spanish domainers really "get it"
and the level of excitement is quite
high."
David
also sent me a shot from the opening night cocktail party
tonight where guests
enjoyed the opportunity to chat with fellow attendees
and conference speakers one on one.
(L
to R) David Castello, Domaining III promoter
Dietmar Stefitz and Michael Castello
at the Domaining III opening night cocktail
party this evening in Valencia,
Spain.
David
estimated about 85 people congregated for the cocktail party with more expected
to arrive in Valencia tomorrow. The show schedule will feature another high
profile keynote speaker - Sedo CEO and
Co-Founder Tim Schumacher, giving the third year event, being staged
by Inverdom's
Dietmar Stefitz, a set of headliners that any conference would envy.
Another
major European conference is
less than two weeks away. DOMAINfest
Europe will run in Prague,
Czech Republic October 5-7 and
today the show's organizers
released the final Moniker
live auction catalog
for a sale that will be held at
the show venue - the InterContinental
Hotel - on October 6.
The auction will run from 4
p.m.-7 p.m. local time,
which will be 10 a.m.–1 p.m.
US Eastern time. There will also
be an extended online auction
that will continue for 7 days.
If
you want to get a jump on
things, Live
Auction
Pre-Bidding is available online
now and will
continue until Tuesday, October
5, 2010, at 6:00 p.m. US Eastern
time.Each name’s highest
pre-bid will automatically
transfer to the live auction for
in-room and online bidding
completion.
The
auction catalog includes Digital.com,
a domain being offered by Hewlett
Packard exclusively through
Moniker, as well as category
defining names including
Restaurants.com, Physicians.com
and Tools.com, to name just a
few.
Next
Stop on the SedoPro World Tour: Tuscany, Italy + New
Details About Prague's DOMAINfest Europe &
Highlights From Verisign's Latest Quarterly Domain Brief
Europe's
domain industry version of a baseball
doubleheader featuring
two perennial powerhouses is just two weeks
away. It begins with DomainSponsor's DOMAINfest
Europe in
SedoPro
clients and supporters were invited to register
for the event in the charming Tuscany town of Chianciano
Terme in an email sent out Monday. The agenda
includes an opening day address from Sedo CEO Tim
Schumacher and a series of special events
that will allow you to experience the full
flavor of the region.
The
two days in Tuscany will also give you
an opportunity to network with top
players in the industry and key Sedo
staff as well as to hone your domaining
skills in workshops with Sedo
management.
We
also got an update on DOMAINfest
Europe today. Show organizers announced
that they have obtained exclusive
use
of two highly popular Prague
venues for the show's two dinner
networking parties - the National
Museum (for opening night) and
Duplex Club & Café
(for the farewell dinner the next
evening).
The
Museum, in Prague’s Vaclavske
Square, is the oldest and
largest museum in the Czech
Republic and
Duplex is one of Prague's hottest
night spots (Mick Jagger
celebrated his 60th
birthday
there)!
DOMAINfest attendees will
have exclusive use of the Duplex's
rooftop lounge and dance club. It
overlooks Wenceslas Square in
the heart of Prague’s vibrant
city center.
In
addition to business networking on
opening day, DOMAINfest Europe
will offer attendees a chance to
build deeper personal
relationships on day two by
participating in unique, fun
excursions in and around
Prague. During online
registration,
attendees can choose from a
variety of activities that range
from Grand Prix Go Kart Racing
and a Pub Hunt Contest to AK47
and M16Shooting
Contests or a walking tour of Prague
Castle and area churches and
cathedrals. You can view the
full
selection here.
One
other note today, Verisign
has released their latest
quarterly Domain
Name Industry Brief
covering 2Q-2010. This
always interesting report is
loaded with data on the current
state of domain registrations
around the world, including the
ebb and flow within specific
extensions.
The
second quarter of 2010 closed with
a base of more than 196.3
million domain name
registrations across all Top Level
Domains (TLDs), an increase
of more than 3 million domain
names, or 2% above the
first quarter. Registrations grew
by 12.3 million, or 7% over
the past year.
In
other highlights, new .com
and .net registrations totaled
7.9 million during the
second quarter, an increase of
13% from a year ago. By
contrast, .cn (China'sccTLD) experienced a
second-quarter decline in
base registrations, due to new
Chinese government restrictions,
dropping the domain from fourth to
sixth largest among all TLDs. That
allowed Great Britain's .co.uk
to move up to #4 and .org
to advance to #5 in the TLD
popularity rankings.
Skip
Hoagland Sells MyrtleBeach.com in a Multi-Million Dollar
Deal + The T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Hong Kong Conference Has Been
Canceled
Geodomain giant Skip
Hoaglandhas
sold one of his marquee websites - MyrtleBeach.com
- in a multi-million dollar deal that
will also give him 100% ownership of several
other .com city domain websites he previously
co-owned with long time partner Intellistrand,
LLC.
Skip
Hoagland
Founder, DomainsNewMedia.com LLC
Hoagland,
founder of DomainsNewMedia.com
LLC, told us that in
exchange for MyrtleBeach.com
Intellistrand gave him $6.5
million plus their 50%
interest in several other
major geodomain sites they had
been operating jointly. That
gives Hoagland full ownership of
a group that includes
Honolulu.com, Baltimore.com,
Wiliamsburg.com, ParkCity.com,
Daytona.com and SouthCarolina.com.
Hoagland said the deal will also
resolve some oustanding
litigation between the two
partners allowing them to move
forward with their own wholly
owned projects.
Hoagland,
who was profiled in our July
2008 Cover
Story, has one of
the world's best geodomain
portfolios - a network that
includes Atlanta.com, BuenosAires.com,
HiltonHead.com and many
others. He also holds many
category-defining sites outside
the geo space, especially in the
sports enthusiast category -
including Fishing.com and
Shooting.com to name just
a couple.
In
other major news - promoter Rick
Latona has announced
cancellation of the T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Hong Kong conference he was
planning to stage November
15-16, 2010. That would have
been the last of five T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
conferences Latona contracted to
produce this year under a
licensing agreement with
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. co-founders Rick
Schwartz and Howard Neu.
The other four ran earlier this
year in Las Vegas, Milan,
Vancouver and Dublin.
In
making the decision Latona noted
that an explosion
of new shows and
changing business conditions
have dramatically changed the
landscape since he took on
responsibility for
the
five shows in the summer of 2009
(Schwartz and Neu kept just one
2010 event for themselves - T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Miami - coming up on
South Beach where it will
go on as scheduled Oct.
17-20, 2010 with a large
crowd expected to be on
hand).
Rick
Latona
Latona's
decision to take on five
shows (four of them
outside the U.S.) at a
time when the conference
calendar was already
getting crowded was an extremely
ambitious one - but
that is Latona. He is a
serial entrepreneur
(check out our December
2009 Cover
Story about
Latona to see how many
different businesses he
has been in) who swings
for the fences every
time. Home run hitters
strike out more than
other players but they
also earn the biggest
paydays.
Latona
and his team put on four
solid shows this year
(plus T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Amsterdam in
2009) that attendees
thoroughly enjoyed. The
problem was not with the
product it was simply
the fact that the
conference pie has been cut
too many ways for
all of the promoters to
keep making a
profit
producing them (just last
week the DomainConvergence
conference scheduled to
run this week in Montreal
was also cancelled).
Latona can make money
too many other ways to
keep investing his time
and resources in this
game.
Still,
for show goers a lot of
good things came out of
Latona's one-year
romance with the
conference business. A Vancouver,
Canada show
had been long overdue.
The spectacularly beautiful
city has spawned some of
the industry's biggest
names and Latona's June
event there was as
exceptionally enjoyable
one. He also took the
domain story to two
major European cities; Milan,
Italy and Dublin,
Ireland for the
first time. The
conference explosion has
been great for domainers
as the fierce
competition and wide
variety of new locations
has made it easier and
more affordable for them
attend an event.
However, for the people
who make these
invaluable networking
opportunities possible -
the promoters - it has
become a much bumpier
road to
travel.
Domain
Pioneer Award Winner Rick Schwartz Has Helped a Lot of
People Make Money - Including His Critics...Plus Notes
About the Castello Brothers, Jessica Bookstaff Doppelt
and DomainConsultant.com
The 1st
AnnualEpik
Developers Conferencecloses it
3-day run today in Seattle. In news from
the show Thursday, T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Co-Founder Rick
Schwartz was honored as the first
recipient of the Epik conference's Domain
Pioneer Award. A very nice tribute video
(produced by Owen Frager and Danny
Pryor) featuring over 20 of Rick's
friends and industry associates was shown when
the well-deserved honor was announced. One of
Rick's close friends, Michael
Berkens, took a copy of the video to
Schwartz's home Thursday and recorded Rick's
emotional response after he saw the video for
the first time. Michael posted both the original
video and Rick's response on his
blog.
I'll
add this to what I said in the video - I don't
think anyone has championed the value of good
domain names as fervently as Rick has
over the years. Along the way, through
Rick
Schwartz
Epik's Domain Pioneer Award Winner
his
original domain board (a private forum) and his
current blog,
Schwartz has generously shared his expertise and
opinions with others. That has earned him many
ardent supporters while, at the same time, his
high profile and outspoken nature, as he will
readily admit, have also attracted more than a
few critics.
What
I find interesting about that is that
Schwartz's tireless promotion of
domains, his globally publicized high
end sales and his creation (with Howard
Neu) of the T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
conference, all helped push this
business to levels I don't think
it ever would have have reached in
such a short time frame without him
continually beating the drums. The
irony in that is that he has helped
everyone, including his harshest
critics, make more money. That is a unique
legacy to leave behind, one fitting for
such a unique individual.
On
a related note, today
T.,R.A.F.F.I.C. released the
first half on an all-star list
of speakers that have been lined
up for the highly
anticipated show
coming up October 17-20
on Miami's South Beach.
This will be the only
2010 T.R.A.F.F.I.C. event that
Schwartz and Neu are doing
themselves (Rick Latona
took on the other five).
The
18 speakers named in an email
sent to those on the conference
mailing list today included Keith
Levinson, Mike "Zappy"
Zappolin, Michael Berkens,
Michael Gilmour, Ari Goldberger,
Lonnie Borck, the Castello
Brothers, Juan Calle, Lori Anne
Wardi, Ted Olson, Owen Frager,
Dr. Chris Hartnett, Donny
Simonton, Kathy Nielson, Dan
Warner, Divyank Turakhia and
Ron Jackson. The second half
of the list is due out next week
and the organizers said it will
include a lot of names that will
be new to most of you. The show
agenda is also nearing
completion. You can check
that out here.
Speaking
of the Castello
Brothers
(who are on the
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. speakers
list above and will also
be keynoters at next
week's Domaining
III
conference in Valencia,
Spain) - Michael and
David are the special
guests on the second
episode of Simon
Johnson's excellent
new series of DomainerIncome.TV
video interviews.
Johson,
who is based in Australia,
traveled all the way to Palm
Springs, California
The
Castello Brothers (Michael,
at left, and David)
to
film this interview with
the Castello Brothers
(who own PalmSprings.com).
The episode runs 29
minutes and is broken
into two parts to
accomodate YouTube.
Anytime you can spend a
half hour listening to
Michael and David's
advice I can guarantee
you it will be time well
spent.
Jessica
Bookstaff
Doppelt
PigeonForge.com
Jessica
Bookstaff
Doppelt,
another key
player in the
geodomain
community that
the Castellos
are such a big
part of, is
featured in an interview
of her own at Brian
Null's
excellent MO.com
website devoted
to successul
entrepreneurs.
Jessica
owns and
operates PigeonForge.com
(a very popular Tennessee
resort town
famous for Dollywood
among other
things), Durango.com
and TheVirginIslands.com.
One quote from
her interview
sums up the
power of a
strong domain
about as well as
anything I've
seen. "When
the opportunity
to buy
PigeonForge.com
came knocking, I
opened the door
and saw
my freedom-
personal,
professional and
creative,”
Jessica said. If
you want to
learn the ropes
there is no
better way to do
it than see what
people who have
already been in
the ring have to
say.
One
other
note
today - DomainConsultant.com,
fresh
off
their
big sale
of DomainName.com
a
couple
of weeks
ago -
has
another
notable auction
for a
huge 1,244
name network
of
sports
related
ecommerce
sites
coming
up Wednesday
(Sept.
22).
DC's Mike
Fiol
told us all
of the
names
have
been
developed
and now
yield
a $5,000-$7,000
monthly
profit,
even
though
no money
has been
spent on
promotion
or
marketing
of the
keyword
name
based
network.
If you
are
interested
in
bidding,
visit www.domainconsultant.com
for more
information.
A
full
prospectus
and list
of
domains
is
available.
Dave
Evanson Joins Sedo as Senior Sales & Brokerage
Consultant - DomainConvergence Conference Postponed -
.CO Passes 500,000 Registrations
A
familiar figure in the domain industry,Dave
Evanson, has joined Sedo.com
as Senior Sales and Brokerage Consultant. Dave
is a regular attendee at the major domain
conferences (and was also a speaker at T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Orlando in 2008). He is one of the
most highly respected and personable people in
the industry and looks from here to be a perfect
fit for the Sedo team.
Evanson
has over ten years of experience with domain
name investment strategies and web marketing. Evanson
also has an extensive business background in
strategic planning, marketing,
consultative selling and executive management.
As president of the global marketing
consultancy he founded in 1991, his clients
ranged from Fortune 500 to small
companies and included American Express, VISA,
Dun & Bradstreet, and General
Electric. Prior to 1991, he held senior
sales and marketing positions with Bank of
America, Citicorp and Harte-Hanks
Direct Marketing.
Dave
Evanson Senior Sales & Brokerage Consultant Sedo.com
Sedo
COO Jeremiah Johnston said,
"With Dave's domain industry
expertise and overall background, we’re
excited for the contributions he can
provide our growing business. We’re
thrilled to welcome him aboard." If
you don't already know Dave and would
like to introduce yourself, he can be
reached via email at [email protected].
The
DomainConvergenceconference that was
scheduled to be held in
Montreal, Canada next week
has been postponed. Show
organizer Frank Michlick
told us the event is being
rescheduled for next spring in
Montreal. Tentative dates are May
12-13, 2011, pending
approval of a final contract
agreement with the hotel.
The
postponement will eliminate a
conflict with the Domaining
III conference in Valencia,
Spain that will run on the
same dates DomainConvergence had
been scheduled for. Domaining
III gets underway a week from
today - Thursday, May 23
- and will run through the 25th.
One
other note today - congratulations
to the .CO registry team
are in order as the re-launched
extension hit another major
milestone yesterday when it
passed 500,000 total
registrations. That figure was
reached less than the two
months after the TLD
re-opened for public
registration in July (.CO is
officially Colombia's country
code, but it was re-launched as
a TLD available for use around
the globe).
Juan
Diego Calle, the CEO of
registry operator.CO
Internet S.A.S.,
said, "In passing the
half-million registrations mark
so quickly, the Internet and
business communities have voiced
their desire for
new
and better options in branding
their online presence. The
strong demand for .CO domains
validates our business strategy
and the work we have done to
bring .CO to market. We
are extremely pleased with our
results to date – and look
forward to continued growth in
the coming months and years.”
The
initial success of .CO, the
fastest growing new TLD (in this
case newly re-launched TLD) to
date, has won kudos for, among
others, Calle, Lori Anne
Wardi (.CO's Director of
Marketing), the Pappas
Group (who has
administered .CO's extensive
advertising campaign) and Neustar,
who provided .CO's back-end
registry services and technical
infrastructure.
Bing
Passes Yahoo in Nielsen U.S. Search Engine Rankings For
the First Time But Blew Chance to Beat Google to the
Instant Search Punch
Microsoft's
Bing search enginehas
slipped past Yahoo to become the 2nd most
popular search engine in the U.S.
according to new
data released by the Nielsen
ratings company today. Bing (and it's Microsoft
cousins MSN and Live) accounted
for 13.9% of searches in August 2010
while Yahoo's share slumped to 13.1%.
Bing increased its market share by 30%
over the past year (from a 10.7% share in
August 2009) while Yahoo watched its share
plunge 18% from the 16.0% slice of
the pie it
had
in the summer of 2009. As most of you know, Bing
began powering Yahoo search results in late
August but Nielsen still credits the searches
made at Yahoo.com to Yahoo.
Google
continued to hold a commanding lead over the
field in August 2010 with 65.1% of all
searches, a 1% increase over the search
giant's share a year ago.
Laurie
Sullivan had some interesting background on
the search engine battles (and an analysis of
the Nielsen results) on her Search
Blog at MediaPost.com today. While
wondering whether Google's new Instant Search
feature would boost Google's share going forward
(Instant Search starts providing results as soon
as you start typing something), Sullivan noted
that Bing passed up a chance to beat
Google to the punch with that innovation. "Long
Zheng (a Microsoft programmer)wrote
the front-end technology for Microsoft's search
engine a year ago, using existing AJAX
APIs and coding that allows searchers to see
updates to queries as they type. This could have
provided the boost Bing needs to close the gap
with Google," Sullivan wrote.
Sullivan
cited a Fast Company magazine
article
written by Kit Eaton last week
that detailed what Zheng had come up
with. Eaton noted, "Zheng provided
the same idea to Bing and Microsoft last
year, effectively for free. And the
company's exec team surely noticed. Then
they ignored it. They've got
thousands of smart programmers, huge
server farms, and experts in search on
staff. They too could've come up with
clever ways to upscale the system for
their millions of users, and totally
beaten Google to the punch. But ...
they didn't."
I
bet Microsoft would like to take a mulligan
on that one.
That's
Show Biz: The Next 5 Weeks Will See 6 Domain Conferences
Spread Across 5 Countries and International Waters!
Though
not quite as busyas
a crazy
stretch in August that saw five
domain conferences crammed into just 14 days,
the show circuit will be lit up by six
conferences over the next five weeks.
The action will take place on both sides of the
Atlantic and will end up touching five
countries as well as a wide swath of international
waters!
The
action gets underway Wednesday (Sept. 15)
when the 1st Annual Epik
Developers Conference gets underway
in Seattle, Washington. We have a lot of
behind the scenes details on that event,
which
runs through Friday (Sept. 17),
in a special interview with conference
founder Rob Monster that ran in
our latest monthly
newsletter. Incidentally, in
addition to the conference information,
that interview has some very interesting
views from Rob about the future of
domain development versus domain
parking.
Next
week the marathon continues with not
just one, but two shows going in
simultaneously - one in Canada
and another in Spain. Both will
start on Thursday, Sept. 23 when
the third annual Domain
Convergence conference gets
underway in Montreal and the Domaining
III meeting (also in its
third go round) kicks off in Valencia,
Spain. The keynote
speakers at Domaining III
will be Sedo co-founder and CEO Tim
Schumacher and the Castello
Brothers (Michael and David). The
Montreal show continues on the 24th while
Domaining III will run through the 25th.
(Update:
On Sept. 16 DomainConvergence announced
postponement of their show - it will be
rescheduled for next spring in Montreal
- tentative dates are May 12-13, 2011).
After
a 10-day break, the schedule
resumes with the first of three
major October events - DOMAINfest
Europe in Prague,
Czech RepublicOctober
5-7. This event, staged by DomainSponsor.com,
will feature Search and Social
Expert Bas
van den Beld as its
keynote speaker.
Bas
will be joined by an all-star
line up of speakers and industry
experts (details
here) and, for the
first time ever, free on-site
interpreters will be
available to help non-English
speaking guests from Germany,
Poland and the Czech
Republic get the most out of
their DOMAINfest experience.
The
following week, the conference circuit
takes to the high seas when Chef
Patrick hosts the first
domain conference on a cruise ship! DNCruise
will sail from Miami on Monday
October 11 and the Carnival
Cruise Lines ship will make stops in
Key West and Cozumel, Mexico
before returning to Miami on Friday,
October 15. My wife Diana and
I will be on the boat and, like a lot of
people joining the cruise, we will stay
in Miami for the grand finale in
this six-show run - T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
South Beach.
From
everything I am hearing this
event October 17-20 at
the fabulous Loews Hotel
on Miami's world famous South
Beach, is shaping up
to be one of the best
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conferences ever.
It
is the only show that
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. co-founders Rick
Schwartz and Howard Neu
are putting on this year
and
they
are pulling out all of the stops
to make their return to South
Florida (where it all started six
years ago) a blockbuster
event. Wild horses couldn't keep
me away from this one. By the
way, you can keep up with the
latest T.R.A.F.F.I.C. South
Beach developments on a special Facebook
page the organizers
have set up.
As you can
see, there are going to be a lot of
great opportunities over the next five
weeks to get out and start building new
relationships (or re-enforcing old ones)
and catch up on the latest developments
in a constantly changing business. With
the number of shows on the calendar
these days it is much easier to find one
that is close to you and priced within
reach (one of the benefits of the heavy
competition among promoters). We all
love our computers and spending time
online, but there is still no
substitute for meeting face to
face if you really want to jump
start your business.
Hitting
Home Runs With Domain Development: The Castello Brothers
and Rob Grant Show How It's Done
Website development
has been a hot topic among domain owners this
year. While much of the conversation has
centered on developing a large number of domains
at once - some of the most successful developers
in our business continue to do it the old
fashioned way. That involves carefully
building full blown online businesses -
brick by brick - on category defining domain
names, or adding powerful new features to
existing online businesses to make them even
stronger and more profitable.
A
couple of examples of what I'm talking about
crossed my desk this week. One came in a note
from David Castello of Castello
Brothers fame, telling me about a
great looking new music
section on their Nashville.com
website that is starting to explode.
to
be Nashville.com's Music Editor and
Holthouse has commissioned articles that
are making waves in the national
press. The latest is an item written
by David
Scarlett that featured
country music superstar Trace
Adkins's view on the Ground
Zero Mosque controversy in New York
City. Mainstream media outlets
like USA
Today, CBS
News and Arizona
Central jumped on the
story, crediting Nashville.com for originating
it. That's what you call "publicity
money can't buy" and it is
helping make the site synonymous with
Nashville news and information.
Rob
Grant (left) and John
Burke in front of
the Select Sotheby's
International Realty
office in Saratoga Springs,
New York.
Another
example of developing real
online businesses came in from Rob
Grant. A few weeks
ago I told you about a domain development
deal that Rob's
company - RealEstateDirectory.com
- cut with Select Sotheby's
International Realty
involving some of Grant's New
York real estate domains. This
week the partners proceeded with
stage two of their
agreement - the launch of www.SaratogaSpringsRealty.com
and www.CatskillsRealEstate.com.
Grant,
who owns the largest network of
geo-targeted real estate domains
in the world, said, "Our
strategy is to create a powerful
New York based real estate and
referral network linking the
largest regional markets
throughout upstate New York. Our
goal is to combine our unique
real estate domain brands with
Sotheby's extensive agent
network. If this model works the
way we hope, it will pave the
way for additional referral
partnerships throughout New York
State."
John
Burke of Select Sotheby's
Realty added, "The real
estate industry is going through
a metamorphosis with regards to
the prevalence of technology
based lead generation, and
with the large scale industry
wide consolidations that are
projected, we feel it is
important to have a multi-pronged
technology strategy that will
help us proactively ride in
front of the market movement.
Rob Grant is an Internet
pioneer and his resources fit
into out overall technology
marketing strategy."
While
I believe new platforms that are
making it possible to develop a
lot of domains at once hold a
lot of promise for domain owners
who are seeking better ways to
monetize their assets, I also
think the longest home runs will
continue to be hit by those who
take one or more of their best
properties and build them
into full fledged businesses
as the Castello Brothers and Rob
Grant have done and continue to
do.
We
Are Not Alone: Life Discovered Outside the Internet
Solar System!
For
the past eight yearsmy
life, like a planet orbiting the sun, has revolved
around domain names. That's not a complaint,
I have loved every minute in this business - but
after being forced to spend a full week away
with almost no Internet access it dawned
on me that there is life beyond the web
and that other world has a lot
going for it too! As I wrote in my last post
before heading out of town, the occasion that
pulled me away from the computer was the wedding
of our son Aaron that was held Sunday on the
stunningly beautiful white sand beach on Sarasota,
Florida's Siesta Key.
A
scene from Aaron and Nancy's wedding
Sunday on the beach in Sarasota.
Aaron
and new bride Nancy live in Boston where
Aaron is a chemical engineer, but he grew up in
Sarasota and wanted to come back home for his
wedding (Diana and I lived in Sarasota for 11
years when I was the Sports Director at the
local ABC-TV station and it is still just over
an hour's drive away from our current home in
Tampa).
I
have been to a lot of weddings but the way this
one was done made it the most fun of them all.
Dozens of members of both families rented condo
units for an entire week at the complex where
the wedding was held. Most arrived five days
before the wedding, so every day we all had
a chance to get to know each other as we hung
out on the beach or by the pool and moved from
one impromptu condo gathering to another in the
evenings.
We
had only met Nancy once prior to the
wedding and had never met any of her
relatives before going to Sarasota, so
this was a fabulous family bonding
experience that we would not have
had otherwise - especially since most of
her relatives live outside the U.S.
There
was no Internet access in our
condo, so the only way to get online was
to sneak off to the complex clubhouse to
use the wifi access there. I did it only
twice during the week and
that
was just to check to see if there was
any critical email. To my surprise, the web
withdrawal symptoms I had expected
didn't materialize (OK, so maybe getting
an occasional fix through my iPhone
helped a little - I didn't want to be a
fanatic about it!).
I
did take a half day to run around town
collecting photos and information for a Sarasota
website I am thinking about building. I know the
town and its current media situation well and
think there is an opportunity there for a new
website to do well. It is a very popular and
wealthy resort town with some of the world's
best beaches, a gorgeous waterfront, great
restaurants and a thriving art, theater and
museum scene - so content would never be in
short supply.
Above:
Part of the Sarasota skyline looking east
from the city's beautiful bayfront park.
Below:
Life-size bronze dolphins play in a
stunning fountain adjacent to the bayfront
marina.
This
would be my first geodomain project, so I have
some more research to do - the most important
being to determine the kind of subject matter to
focuson that would allow us to
stand out from the crowd and reach our goal,
which would be to become the city's signature
website. That is much easier said than done but
I love Sarasota and one thing I have learned is
that having a passion for what you
do - the kind of passion I have for domains -
dramatically increases your chances to succeed.
I wouldn't take on full scale development on any
topic I wasn't personally excited about.
Editor's
Note: We returned from the wedding (see last
post below) late today. I have a lot of unpacking and answering
email to do, so I will wait until tomorrow (Wednesday,
Sept. 8) to resume our regular daily Lowdown posts. I'll have a
few shots from the wedding and Sarasota for you then! (Posted
Sept. 7,
2010)
Back
to My Old Stomping Grounds For a Family Wedding
and Research on a Possible GeoDomain Project
I
will be in Sarasota, Floridauntil
next Tuesday (Sept. 7) and this will be
the last Lowdown post I will have a chance to
make until I return to our home base in Tampa
that day. Our son, Aaron, is getting
married on the beach at Siesta Key (one
of Sarasota's beautiful barrier islands) on
Sunday. With family and friends coming to
Florida from around the country for the wedding,
Diana and I decided to rent a condo at the
complex where the ceremony will be held and
spend a full week here to visit with others who
are coming in early (the photo below was snapped
from our window this afternoon).
View
of the Gulf of Mexico from the
complex where the wedding will be held
Sunday.
Sarasota
is a special place for me. I spent
11 years here as a TV sportscaster at the
local ABC station. During those
years I spent part of almost every day on
the beach in the photo above. I lived on
the mainland about 10 minutes away and
would get up every morning, drive to the
beach and spend a few hours soaking up the
sun in one of the world's most
beautiful locations. At mid-day I would
head back home to get ready for work on
the 6pm and 11pm newscasts.
I
later moved on to a major market station
in Tampa (CBS at the time but now a Fox
station) and spent 6 years doing sports
there before opening my own business and
leaving broadcasting for good to become an
entrepreneur. I never forgot Sarasota
though and have always thought about re-connecting
with the city in some way. Recently I
acquired a Sarasota geodomain that I like
a lot and as time permits this week, I
will go around town and do some research
to decide if I want to go ahead with the
project (I don't want to release more
details at this point - best not to tip
competitors off in the event I do take the
plunge). Right now, my mind says yes
- do it!, but my current work
schedule says, "Are you out of
your mind!" If I tackle the
project I will have to be very hands on -
I have never been a good delegater,
probably my biggest weakness - but knowing
that in advance will hopefully help me
make a sound decision.
This
is a great thing about domains though -
they open the doors to an endlessvariety
of opportunities - the biggest problem
is often deciding which ones you want to
(or have time) to pursue. Have a
great Labor Day weekend (for those
outside the U.S. - this is a big national
holiday on Monday - one that marks the
unofficial close of summer) and I hope to
see you back here Tuesday!
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).
