Archive for the ‘Development’ Category:
For the first time, more ad money will be spent on Online Ads as opposed to print ads in newspapers this year. According to WSJ. Online Ad sales in the US will hit $25.8 billion as opposed to $22.8 Billion for print ads. Only 6 years ago, Print Ads out spent Online Ads by 5 to 1. We are in the right industry. The only question is how to get more of those dollars into the domainers hands. Strictly using PPC is not the answer. I will explore other avenues in later posts.
I currently am working on building out certain domains. All of a sudden I start thinking about a conversation I had at the Search Marketing Expo East Tradeshow in NY last October with a young entrepreneur. I start looking through many piles of business cards. I then search emails, but still find nothing. How do you find someone when you misplace their business card? Well, since the person was a student at NYU who reads my blog, I thought I’d make a quick post here. If by any chance you are that NYU student and your family is in the cosmetic business, please send me an email.
Search Marketing Expo opened today and runs through Wednesday. It’s an interesting show. I was there earlier today and ended up running into 3 people I knew. If you live in the NYC area, you might want to get an exhibit ticket, which I believe is just $50 and lets you attend some of the main talks. There are some good networking events/parties today and tomorrow. Their website is searchmarketingexpo.com.
A few months back, I noticed the domain Cookinggames.com sell for $350,000. I questioned the sale. I then spoke with the purchaser Bill kara, a developer with online game websites. He said that the term was a popular games term. Well, Bill is doing something right. According to compete, the site has gone from 12k unique visitors per month to over 183k unique visitors per month. Bill, great job !!
Have you ever been to a party with your wife/husband/significant other and start telling a story. As your speaking, that person cuts in and finishes your sentence. Google Instant is like that person only they interupt you on every word you type. In Google Instant, each time you type a letter, Google predicts what your typing and shows search results that change with each letter you type.
either your going to like Google Instant, or you are going to hate it. There is no in between. How will Google Instant affect domains? I have heard thoughts on each side, however I think we have to wait and see. One thing is for sure, if it lowers Google’s revenue, it will be stopped. Unfortunately, I cant say that about people finishing your sentences.
Many of us work out of their home. Most of us do so alone. I have worked for over 15 years out of an office in my house. While my “commute” is only 2 minutes, there are more times that I am late for work than you can imagine. The problem working out of you home is that it is very easy to get sidetracked. In addition, anyone in sales can tell you, some days your on and some days you don’t want to pick up the phone or turn on the computer. Most of us don’t have a choice, If you don’t work, you don’t have the potential to make money.
Summer is one of the things that gets in my way. While I do work, it’s at a much more leisurely pace than the rest of the year. Well, Summer is over. The time is now to get back to a 110% of productivity. Over the next day, I will be putting my game plan together. It will list business projects that I am currently involved in and new projects that I am considering. I will set goals and rewards if I make those goals. The rewards are my motivation. They could be money, accomplishment, or even some time to have fun. Either way, I am ready to go and I hope you are too.
A judge ruled yesterday that Google was not quickly of copyright infringement for earning revenue off copyrighted material on their site. The judgement said that Goggle was protected against Viacom’s claim since they were protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s safe harbor provision.
“Those provisions generally protect a Web site from liability for copyrighted material uploaded by its users as long as the operator of the site takes down the material when notified by its rightful owner that it was uploaded without permission.
“Viacom, which sued Google in 2007 and accused it of copyright infringement after tens of thousands of Viacom videos were uploaded to the site, had argued that Google was not entitled to those protections because it had deliberately turned a blind eye and profited from rampant piracy on YouTube.
Google and groups supporting Internet companies hailed the decision, saying it would protect not only YouTube but also other sites that host user-generated content.
“This is a victory for the Internet and for the people who use it,” said Kent Walker, Google’s general counsel, in an interview. “The decision will let a whole new generation of creators and artists share their work online.”
Mr. Walker said the decision “was an affirmation of the emerging legal framework and ratifies the rules we have all been living under.”
But Viacom, the owner of Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon, said it would appeal the ruling, which it said was fundamentally flawed.
“Copyright protection is essential to the survival of creative industry,” Michael Fricklas, Viacom’s general counsel, wrote in a blog post. Mr. Fricklas said that before YouTube put in place a filtering mechanism to more easily detect copyright infringement, the company had built itself on pirated material and sold itself to Google for $1.65 billion.
“YouTube and Google stole hundreds of thousands of video clips from artists and content creators, including Viacom, building a substantial business that was sold for billions of dollars,” Mr. Fricklas said. Legal experts said that the ruling blessed YouTube’s practices for dealing with copyrighted material, as well as those of many other sites that handle user-generated content in a similar fashion.
“The ruling should give online service providers a lot of comfort that copyright owners aren’t going to be able to force them to change their behavior or put them on the hook for problems that their users create,” said Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech Law Institute at the Santa Clara University School of Law.”
Most importantly, it seems that if you take down copyrighted material after it’s been posted, you are fine.
“But Michael S. Kwun, a lawyer at Keker & Van Nest who previously worked at Google, said the decision would ensure that Internet companies were not legally required to develop such a system and could expect legal protection as long as they took down content when copyright holders complained. “I have no idea how much money YouTube spent on developing its content ID system, but if that was required for any new start-up, you wouldn’t see any,” Mr. Kwun said.”
Ok, so maybe he may not be the future of domaining, but my son has decided to attend Villanova this fall. Jeff, who has attended numerous domain shows, had a tough decision to make. I am happy that he chose Villanova. I think it’s a perfect fit for him as they have a strong business program and a wonderful campus environment.
Even though he will be away at school, Jeff will staying up to date top on the Direct Navigation industry. After all, alot will be expected of him if (when) he returns to the family business.
The most famous line in the movie “Field of Dreams” is “If you build it they will come”. For those of you that have not seen the movie, they are not talking about building a website. If they were, the line would have to be changed to “if you build it and add Seo, purchase advertising, create back links, add content, and some other stuff they will probably come.
It takes more than just a great generic domain to get search engine traffic. Some search engine’s add value to your site if the domain name matches the category but most category’s do not have enough search volume to live off that one category and the domains direct navigation type ins.
Finding the answers to getting traffic involves much and trial and error. How does one start you may ask? For those of you not familiar with seo, there are many sites on the web that will give some basic Seo information like seobook.com. They also have a paid section that adds forums and other tools. For help with building the website, there are a number of excellent sites like freelancer.com where you can hire hourly workers.
Good luck with any project you have, but remember that while the domain name may be the most important part of the of the site, it is not the only part necessary.
Its been a over 3 years since I ran a parking company. I remember the early days when we were basically the only parking firm around. They were long hours but I enjoyed every minute of it. That’s because I was able to speak with other domainers, like myself, 24 hours a day. We spoke the same language. We understood what need to be done and did it. One of the most of favorite stories is how I helped one domainers life change around. This person had just got divorced and was about to lose his house. I had just met him and saw that he had an amazing portfolio that he was doing very little with. Remember, there was very few options for domainers back then. I asked if he would like to sell his names. As a typical programer / domainer, he said he’d rather lose his house first. I told him the possibility existed that if i parked his names with us, i thought he could make at least $ 2,000. He couldn’t believe it but tried anyway. His first payment was not $2,000 but over $20,000 for the month. His life changed for the better. It was a great feeling as people we worked with became good friends.
I hear many things today about parking firms, mostly negative. These range from no transparency to reduced revenue. It’s definitely a changed environment from the time Ari and I started until today, however there is no reason why there cant be more done to explain to the domainer the reasoning behind what is happening and what can be done.
I’m very interested in hearing your thoughts on what you needs to be done in the industry.
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