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service I saw that automatically added a relevant photograph
to parking pages. As much as I like language I've
always believed that the old adage "a picture
is worth a thousand words" is true. When
someone landed on a DomainSpa page the photo
instantly told them the page had information on
the subject they were looking for. Users reported
good results at DomainSpa and before long graphic
elements were adopted at just about every parking
company.
In addition to running DomainSpa, Lichtman stayed
busy buying up top quality domain names. Many came
to know him as Mrs. Jello, because that
pseudonym appeared in the WhoIs records of the long
list of domains he acquired. To many Mrs. Jello was
a mysterious character but all along Igal was hiding
in plain sight. He was a fixture at live domain
auctions but many never knew he was on the premises.
The former Israeli Air Force officer prefers
to keep a low profile compared to some of the
industry's other "rock stars," but there
is no question Igal is on the same elite level.
Lichtman
in the audience at the 2010
DOMAINfest Global live domain auction in
California.
While Lichtman's love of domains remains
unabated, his real forte is building very
valuable companies. The veteran engineer and
programmer usually does that by creating new
technology to solves a widespread problem. That is
what he is up to now with TrafficMedia, especially
with the company's "Vortalizer Technology"
that enables its ultra-slick MediaSiteBuilder
product that removes much of the time and cost
involved in developing domains. This same automatic
website building software has been integrated
with their DomainParking.com monetization service
and it was clearly turning heads a few weeks ago
when the company was providing live demos at
the 2012
DOMAINfest Global conference in Santa
Monica, California.
At
DOMAINfest Global 2012 DomainParking.com's Eran
Shatzman demonstrates how a domain
in the company's system can be turned into a complete
website in just a couple of minutes.
I got my first look at this technology
last fall after Igal dropped me a note telling me he
had something exciting he wanted to show me.
Whenever he says that, I know he has something that is
definitely going to be worth looking at. We got on the
phone so we could talk while Igal ran an online demo
that allowed me to see exactly what he was talking
about as he put the website builder through its
paces.
| Starting with a plain white
"canvas" on the right side of the
screen I watched in amazement as Lichtman
simply pointed at one of many content options
in a column on the left side of the page, then
dragged and dropped it onto the canvas.
One drag and drop and a beautiful graphic header
stretches across the page. Another drag and
drop places an article related to the domain
name on the canvas. Another instantly
installs a relevant video. Within a
minute he had produced a rich content filled
home page by moving elements around the page
with one finger.
It reminded me of that classic scene in the
The Minority Report where Tom Cruise
used quick hand gestures to move elements
around a screen. Futuristic stuff that has now
become a reality in website
development. |
MediaSiteBuilder screen shot |
The platform lets you choose from
several overall site designs and various monetization
options. It will also let you create forms for lead
generation. If you elect to use PPC you can designate
how many PPC ads appear on your site. TrafficMedia
will host the websites for you but if you want to use
your own nameservers the sites generated can be
published anywhere. You would lose the PPC
revenue option if you use an independent host but you
can still add your advertisements and feeds.
If you leave the hosting to
TrafficMedia as most will do, you can still sell
your developed website and the company will charge
the new owner just $15 a month to maintain it. You can
see examples of websites produced with the Vortalizer
technology here.
In another head-turner, the platform
also produces a mobile version of the same
website as well as a Facebook company page. The
software produces such great results and is so easy
to use it has already been adopted by a
$5 billion Wall Street company that signed
a deal with TrafficMedia to use the technology. That
company is a major global player in the Yellow
Pages field and they are using Vortalizer to
produce websites, mobile sites and Facebook
pages for their thousands of small business customers.
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Lichtman
emphasized that even though DomainParking
clients have access to this technology it is
not a parking or mini-site product. It is a
full scale development platform that is
limited only by your imagination. In addition
to the graphics and content provided by
TrafficMedia you can upload your own unique
articles, graphics and videos and easily
incorporate them in your site.
Lichtman
said the Vortalizer technology was built with small
to medium sized businesses (SMBs) in mind
and that domainers need to start
thinking of themselves as SMBs - not
just domainers. If you really want to move beyond
parking with some of your better names the
technology makes it possible to do it in a
fraction of the time it used to take. Better
yet, the system is free to use if you
have a domain portfolio that generates
as little as $100 a month in PPC revenue. |
Because
you will be building real websites - not the mass
produced spam sites that Google inevitably penalizes -
Lichtman said sites made with Vortalizer can rank well
in the search engines. Lichtman said it has taken the
company two years to build the system they are
now making available to clients. If you were at the T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Las Vegas show in 2010 you would have been
one of the first people to see TrafficMedia start down
this road when they set up a booth there to introduce
themselves.
At
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Las Vegas in January 2010, Igal
Lichtman (at far left) sat in on
a demo of what the company was building. The slogan on
the screen says "Transform
Your Domains from Parking to Private Property"
- a promise they are now fulfilling
with thousands of Vortalizer based sites already
developed and online.
While the fruits of TrafficMedia's
labor are just now starting to become widely known,
Lichtman is already looking even further down the
road. That same day last fall that he showed me
the site building platform, he also gave me a peak at
some eye-popping virtual reality work he is
rolling out and continuing to refine.
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The example he showed me can
be seen now at his Jerusalem.com
site where you can take a virtual
tour of the Holy City. You have an avatar
that represents you in the streets of
the city. You can walk along to historic
points of interest and even go off on side
streets or into shops (the actual shops and
streets are the same ones that exist in the
real world). You can even select a Christian
tour or a Jewish tour to make sure you see the
sites most relevant to your faith.
Lichtman noted that the
technology opens the door for your avatars to
go into shops around the world, look at
merchandise and make purchases, with the
actual merchandise then being delivered |
You
can take this virtual tour at Jerusalem.com. |
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your door. The endless possibilities are
starting to make my head hurt (and I don't
want to even think about how much
damage this could do to my credit card
statements)! Fortunately, this is a topic we
can put off to another day, so back to the
subject at hand... |
Ever since domain parking revenues
went into a tailspin several years ago, domain owners
have been talking about domain development as the way
to gain independence from the search engines
upstream that were siphoning off most of the pay per
click revenue. However, development was hard work with
no guarantee of success. Even with the great new
technology now available you still need to put in some
effort keeping content fresh if you want to
have long term success but much of the development
work has now been successfully automated.
The fact that one hit website can
produce more revenue than a 1,000 undeveloped domains
should be enough incentive to take advantage of these
new advances, especially if you are really serious
about taking control of the cash register
yourself, rather than settle for whatever upstream PPC
providers decide they want to give you for your own
product (your domain's traffic).
You even have multiple brand
new automatic site builder options available to choose
from. Just three days before I published this article Winged
Media announced their new DevName.com
site building platform and DomainHoldings is
about to roll out a major upgrade to their DomainPower.com
platform. Clearly, if you are among the many who have
said they want to develop, you're running out of
excuses not to!
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