It has arrived. July 2, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains, Goals, internet, technology.Tags: blogging, blogs, Domains
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The Domain Columnist Blog is officially open, which means that this blog is officially RETIRED. Henceforth I shall be known as the “Domain Columnist” and the “unemployed alcoholic” blog shall be referred to as the “legacy blog”
Dear Readers: Kindly, update your bookmarks and look for me to begin posting on the new blog in the coming weeks. Of course, it will take a few days to get started… pick the right theme, install the right plugins, create a page structure, etc. But I expect the blog to be fully operational in a few days’ time. I am really looking forward to covering the industry, important news and developments, and business strategies with a strong focus on domaining, web development, and internet marketing in general. This is a very dynamic, and fast-changing industry, and with the introduction of the DOMAIN COLUMNIST blog, I expect it to become a premier industry news and information resource, with quality content and original commentary.
Talk soon!
The name of the game is radically changing (excellent read below – promise!) June 28, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains, Investing, internet, marketing, trends.Tags: domaining, Domains, icann, internet, registration, tld
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The most recent cataclysmic event that shook up the domain industry is too important to go unmentioned in this blog, so here I am, making yet another attempt to write a FINAL post for this blog before I start my new one. ICANN’s decision to allow unlimited number of top level domains (TLD / web address extensions) will have a profound impact on the industry over the coming decades. What surprises me most is that authors and commenters on the top industry blogs seem to be dancing around the most important consequence of this. All I hear is “WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE DOT COM?” when they should already be thinking outside of their DOT COM box. The point is that soon enough, the name of the game will change from DOT COM, to *gasp* HOW DO I OWN AND PROMOTE MY OWN TLD?…especially as far as the biggest players are concerned. The dot com? Well, it will not disappear. Most likely, the “marginal” domains bearing this extension will lose much value as registrants begin opting for other extensions in order to have a more meaningful web address instead of going with this “status quo” TLD as a safe haven. Don’t get me wrong, the dot com will never become a dinosaur, nor will there be an extinction. The top dot coms will probably remain most valuable. There are too many financially powerful entities heavily invested in this one extension to let it fade away – this will not happen, or at least it will not happen fast.
So yes, my own goal over the next couple of years will be to control my own TLD… maybe even two or three. There will probably be a few hundred, maybe a thousand or so possible extensions that would be worth applying for with ICANN. I am still not 100% sure about how the process will work, and probably neither is ICANN at this moment, but visit their website for details and updates. These marketable TLDs will be, of course, short, generic, and highly commercial terms that other people would WANT to register their domains under!!! The two best thing to come out of all of this, I think, are (1) that it will probably make domaining much more popular and accessible, and (2) make the URLs of the future more meaningful, and hence memorable and brandable. Sooner or later, dot com will no longer be the “default” extension that pops into people’s minds when they go online and search for information. People will begin asking… “so what does COM stand for anyway??” My money’s on later though. This is indeed the dawning of a new era… though we might have to wait a while to see its day.
P.S. I can’t wait for Kesmodel to update his book to Domain Game 2.0 with commentary on how the industry will be affected by ICANN’s decision.
I JUST CAN’T STOP WRITING ON THIS BLOG!!! June 23, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains, curious finds, internet, trends.Tags: aggregators, copyright, Domains, news
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Man, this sux. Just found a site linking to a whole bunch of my domain-related posts… availabledomains.biz
Looks like a news aggregator where half the screen space is articles re-posted from legitimate blogs such as mine, and the other half is Google ads… Discovering schemes like this one is really de-motivating to people like myself to keep writing and offering original content to the world. I run one blog, where all or almost all of the posts are my own, but this joker aggregates domain news from across the internet, gets huge traffic because of the sheer amount of replicated content, and probably rakes in tons of adsense cash… I swear to god, it looks like there’s not one bit of original content on this entire website… Never once did the owner ask permission to reprint my articles… Where’s the love? Where’s justice???
Well… at least he seems to have a link back to the original sources. What more can you ask? I guess this is a site I’ll just have to write off as “clever web development” in my book, though the webmaster is risking serious legal trouble by reprinting content without permission, if his activities are discovered by someone who cares about this more than I do at this time…
Fuck it. I’m going to bed.
Should the government regulate the internet? (read: How much should the government regulate the internet?) June 22, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Business, Domains, Fulfillment, Goals, Inspirational, Life, Society, curious finds, internet, self-improvement, technology, trends.Tags: Domains, government, internet, regulation
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Let *THIS* be my last blog post… something to think about.
Lots of people (49%) seem to think that the government has a duty to police the digital universe, according to Rasmussen Reports (a story I “dugg” today)… The article is filled with other insightful statistics about internet usage and regulation. I’ll leave the analysis up to you.
The U.S. government already *IS* regulating the net, to a large extent. Many of you probably remember a situation where a domainer had various domains disabled by order of the government because they were pointing to sites advertising travel to Cuba. The guy wasn’t a U.S. resident, nor was he marketing to U.S. consumers. He did make the mistake of registering his names with U.S.-based registrars though (it was Enom, to my best recollection…), and our relations with Cuba are still “so-so” , to say the least.
More regulation on the way? Perhaps the Snowe Bill push was a prelude to that. Historically, a country has rarely gotten any “freer” after it established a federal government, save for revolutions and other such cataclysmic events. Deregulation rarely follows the establishment of a central government. Is China a potential counterexample to that trend? Time will tell.
What all this means for domainers, who knows anymore… too many moving parts and variables to venture any long-term guesses… as the wise man says, hope for the best, plan for the worst.
ANOTHER PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT, ENJOY THE INSPIRATION:
This is a public service announcement. June 22, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Fulfillment, Goals, Inspirational, Life, Passion, Purpose, Society, curious finds, music, popular culture, self-improvement, trends.Tags: experience, failure, success
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Rebranding, retooling, and commencing my bloggings anew (The end of THIS blog)… June 20, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains, advertising, marketing.Tags: blogging, blogs, branding, developing, domaining, Domains, writing
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This is to be my last post on this blog. For more info and the reasons behind my decision, please refer to the following post from earlier this month:
For now, thanks very much to all readers and commenters, it’s been a pleasure writing for you. I plan to take a 2-3 week hiatus from writing to actually develop, but look for me to begin posting under the alias “The Domain Columnist” at DomainColumnist.Com come July… The new blog should include domain industry coverage, web development tips and strategies, as well as general marketing thoughts and insights.
Happy Domaining!
IMPORTANT P.S. If anyone is interested in acquiring the names UnemployedAlcoholic.com , TheUnemployedAlcoholic.com , and UnemployedAlcoholics.com , feel free to get in touch with me somehow… Make sure you REALLY get in touch with me though, I seem to be missing a lot of important communication lately… :-/ If you are interested, please do present an offer for the 3 names together, I don’t intend to sell them separately.
A quick bit on covering your bases upon new domain registrations June 19, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains, valuation.Tags: Domains, name drops, registration, resale, tld, valuation
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This is by no means an exhaustive list of issues to be aware of, but I wanted to bring a few points to your attention that many may not be aware of with regard to registering new domain names, especially keyword-based dot coms. Whether you are registering a domain for development or just parking and looking to sell it in the future, it helps to be aware of a few guidelines I like to use…
First, to protect the potential brand associated with your name and website, you may want to register a .net , .org , and perhaps even the .info version of your .com (assuming you are getting a .com to begin with). This is especially important for names that you KNOW will be developed. You can have them point to the same site or perhaps an associated blog, a tool, or some other feature. This is especially helpful during resale whether you have a developed website or not. Not only are you offering several domain names for the price of one (if you wish to sell them together), but you are also helping the end-user maintain a strong brand identity.
Another point you should be aware of is switching the order of words when registering domains that contain multiple keywords. If the meaning of the phrase does not change much from altering the word order with two or three-word names, I will usually register multiple word combination, at least for the .com TLD/extension. A great example of this is used by the company Evolanding. Their main website is located at Evolanding.com while LandingEvo.com goes to their blog. This, in my opinion, is good foresight with respect to domain branding, and good use of brand capital. Again, brand-protection, and securing more value for the end-user if the names and websites are ever to go on sale.
One more habit that I like to practice is adding the word “the” to two and three-word domain combinations that are meaningful. For example, I recently registered the name TheDomainColumnist.com along with DomainColumnist.com for a blog that I will soon be launching. I wouldn’t practice adding the word “the” to other people’s domains with developed websites. Sure, they missed their brand-protection train, but it just doesn’t seem fair to me to profit from someone else’s effort in this way.
Last thing I watch out for is making sure a new registration is not a domain that has been dropped before. Sure, I register such names every now and again, but only if I am pretty sure that these are names I would not be looking to sell without substantial development (what some would call investment-grade or “development worthy” properties…, at least investment-grade in MY opinion, hence my paying the reg. fee). Having a name that was dropped, or even dropped multiple times (happens often!) is like having a bad title on a piece of property, and may severely impair potential resale value, IMO. DomainTools.com is great for checking the title history on a domain in this manner.
That’s it for today’s domaining ”best practices” ramble. Feel free to leave comments if you have more thoughts on the topic.
DNXpert Domain Blogging Contest Over… June 19, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains.Tags: blog, contest, Domains
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Congrats to all winners listed here: http://www.dnxpert.com/2008/06/19/dnxpert-contest-winners-announced/
Alas, I won nothing. Luck of the draw, I guess. You know what this means, I am BOUND to win something next time I enter a contest, heh… Anyway, the contest was fun, good industry exposure, and I have no regrets about participating. Also, as mentioned in an earlier post, I will probably stop… or at least tone down the posting a bit on this particular blog and move my best posts along with comments to a new blog that I will be starting shortly, the Domain Columnist, which will also be my new alias.
Best.
Kesmodel’s domain book… June 19, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Books, Domains, internet, popular culture.Tags: Books, culture, Domains, internet, kesmodel
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…is finally available on Amazon for about $30. Cool beans, just ordered a copy. “The Domain Game” by David Kesmodel is, apparently, a well-researched documentary on the rise of the domain industry, covering the success stories of today’s biggest players in domaining, including Schilling, Ham, Chernoff, and many others. The book has gotten good reviews from bloggers in the community and I too am really looking forward to this read.
Hopefully the publication will shed some light on this niche industry and attract more attention to our world with the general public.
Will make another post about this once I finish reading it, if there is anything new to add.
Most recent domain name registrations. June 19, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains, Investing, curious finds, technology, trends.Tags: domain registration, Domains, dotcom, health care, nanotech
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I keep proving to myself that there are great dot-com domains still waiting to be registered. Today, I scooped up CloseMonitoring.com, which would make a great brand for anything from a surveillance equipment business, to a health care services website. Another domain I picked up this week is Ormosil.com Ormosil is a nanomaterial with several applications in industry. Yet another one-word domain registered by me this week is Repoxygen.com, a type of gene therapy that is currently being tested, with potential to become a cure for anemia. Opportunities in this business are endless, if you only choose to open your eyes, and maybe read a little.
