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.
The vital importance of user-generated content and user-driven development… May 26, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains, advertising, internet, marketing, seo, trends.Tags: cms, collaboration, community, content, development, drupal, joomla, ning, web
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Perhaps I am a little “late to the party” in this respect. Perhaps I am stating the obvious, but this realization has just struck me now, on this Memorial Day morning with such a vivid clarity like it has never occurred to me before. The time of the “my little corner of the universe” web page has come and gone, perhaps it was never even here to begin with. The whole point of the internet is collaboration, not seclusion. The thing is, unless you own a short, generic, top-of-the line domain (the ones that go for $100k+ nowadays), you will not be reaping substantial profits in the web business without thorough development that attracts, marinates, and retains traffic. I speak of community building of course… It has never been easier to create a community-oriented resource online. There’s Ning, there’s all kinds of PHP CMS utilities (joomla, drupal, nuke, etc.), there’s always forums and chat-rooms you can quickly integrate… if you’re too lazy to do that, start with setting up a survey script with a new question every day, week, or month, depending on what your current traffic stream is and how creative you can be. Even if your website has a ton of really great information, it is not likely to be successful on today’s web without an obvious, attractice, COLLABORATION element that would encourage your audience to stick around and contribute to the growth of this web resource.
Even when some of the most popular virtual destinations for the masses were seemingly one man operations such as Maddox’s and Tucker Max’s dirty humor pages, a collaboratie outlet for their visitors to rant, vent, and argue was ever-present, be it Tucker’s forum or Maddox’s beloved “hate mail” pages…
Ultimately, this should all result in a “stickier” website with a more interested audience, a peer-reviewed informational resource that’s richer in content, and just a more fun web place for visitors to “hang out” at, instead of a one-stop, one-click mile marker for the blazing internet traveler.
That’s all for today… Now let’s party. If you gained any useful insight from this or any of my other posts, please let me know. If it’s complete rubbish, do notify me of that as well. We’re all trying to get better, and we’ve all got to start somewhere… My current craft of choice is writing at this time, and if you’re not a bot, your honest input is much appreciated. Best wishes to all.
Google AdSense now allowing third-party ads… May 22, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Business, advertising, technology, trends.Tags: adsense, advertising, google
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I guess this was posted on their blog three days ago, but I just got an email from Google about it today. Should be fun – I always look forward to better targeted ad campaigns.
We’re happy to announce that the Google content network now accepts display ads served from qualified third-party vendors.
During this initial release, only ads in English are eligible, although we look forward to offering more options in the future.
By accepting third-party ads, we can attract a greater variety of advertising on the Google content network, which we believe will result over time in increased revenue for publishers and more relevant advertising for end users.
If you’re currently opted in to image ads, you’re already able to receive third-party ads.
Give me a reason… May 22, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains, Life, Society, advertising, trends.Tags: advertising, conditioning, culture, Domains, lifestyle, marketing, trends, websites
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In marketing, before you can sell someone something, you must first absolutely convince them that they have a huge problem that the thing you are trying to sell them (which they may or may not really need…) is going to help solve. People have gotten pretty good at convincing other people that they have various problems with intent of selling them garbage. Consider, for a moment, how many healthy people who lead healthy lifestyles buy health insurance and never use it, or how many good drivers buy more car insurance coverage than they really need. But these are cultural, socially-conditioned product offerings by now, so everyone buys both… what I really want to know is how the first insurance salesmen got these concepts to gain momentum and take off… must have been quite a challenge.
The web, in my opinion, is a little different.
It is still a little difficult to convince someone to stay and periodically COME BACK to your website unless your website offers a clear solution to a problem that they ALREADY know they have. So, my strategy for development, is to focus on the most dire needs that people have and create topical websites that offer either physical products, or digital services and content that cater to these OBVIOUS needs and fill these PRE-EXISTING niches. Of course, I select my domains for these websites accordingly.
Some of these needs include, but not limited to the following:
Sex & Love (no-brainer)
Food (also, consider some other items that people tend to consume on a daily basis)
Jobs & Money (most people wouldn’t be able to survive without their 9-5)
Education (people need to read and write to get by, lots want to go to college, some desire Ph.D.s)
Entertainment, Travel, Leisure (Whoo-hoo! These are a little difficult for me to develop websites about, because I would much rather be DOING it)
Real Estate (whether you have a shack on the beach or a million-dollar South Beach villa/condo, you are part of this market)
Health (staying healthy to prevent disorders, or popping pills to “cure” them, either way this topic quickly gets attention)
Spirituality (I still can’t come up with a good explanation for this one, but it seems that lots of people just want to “believe”)
Of course, all of these headings can be subdivided into millions of different categories and sub-categories as you see fit, but I feel that these few form a good initial foundation to focus on.
Lastly, focus development on the topics that appeal to you the most personally. That will keep you interested in your work long enough so that you stick around until success comes and finds you.
The evolution of domain parking May 19, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains, advertising, curious finds, internet, technology, trends.Tags: advertising, development, domaining, Domains, evo, fabulous, parking, web development
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More and more advanced domain parking and development platforms have been coming out in the last few months. The bulk of my domain portfolio is currently hosted on Fabulous.com, which is a more conventional service. The landing pages at Fabulous do not really stand out from the crowd, but I love their analytics and in-depth statistical data. I would say that this service is great for managing, analyzing, and fine-tuning large portfolios of names. Parking pages do not seem to differ all that much across these big-name brands, like Fabulous, Parked, NameDrive, ParkingPanel, DomainSponsor, ActiveAudience, etc.
I have been trying out a more forward-looking “parking” service that really develops your domains and adds quality content continuously and automatically, allowing your sites to grow and develop in a very organic manner. It is called Evolanding. So far, I have been very satisfied with the content provided (news articles being aggregated, videos, pictures, job postings), the ads-to-content ratio, steadily increasing search engine traffic, but it looks like they still have a few kinks to work out in their “Dashboard” control panel account view… some of the revenue and traffic stats are a little questionable, and I still can’t figure out how exactly the advertising revenue is split between EVO and their clients. Check out my site VentureDollar.com for an example of how the EVO platform works. You ARE actually allowed to add your own custom content, which I think is pretty cool. The team behind EVO is constantly releasing new features, upgrades, and other add-ons to their service, there’s a blog link that can be reached from their home page.
The story continues…
Today I came across a cute little website called CandyLinks.com I liked how the site was developed, and wanted to find out whether it was a manual or an automated operation. Turns out, it’s a little bit of both. After doing a little digging, I found that the site was generated with a friendly little php app called SteadyNiche. I guess you have to purchase and then install the script for every domain that you own, and though there are up-front costs, you do not have to switch your name servers to any parking service, and ultimately, you maintain full control of what shows up on your web pages. Though it takes a bit more work, you do reap the benefit of keeping all of the revenue that your ads earn (doesn’t look like there are any revenue sharing schemes involved here…), and you can basically call the sites you produce using this tool, true, bona-fide web development and keep your conscience clear. What’s parking? What’s development? The lines may soon begin to blur…
Disclosures (sort of): Though I use the services mentioned in this post, I am not affiliated with the owners of the parent companies, and I tried to keep this review-like post as objective as possible. Act on my feedback and ideas at your own risk, my experience may be unrepresentative and different from that of others who use these services. If something goes wrong, DON’T BLAME ME! I would, however, appreciate your own feedback and recommendations for other parking and domain development platforms. I think that diversification is generally a good thing. That includes having a diverse domain portfolio, as well as different ways of managing it… then again, to each his own. What works for one may doom another.
Happy domaining!
The world gets more and more mobile, every single day… May 4, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Business, Domains, advertising, internet, technology, trends.add a comment
Sorry for the lack of useful posts during the last few weeks… I’ve just completed another semester of school a week or so ago, and I am entering probably the most trying month of my life… personally, professionally, athletically, financially… and in just about every other way you can imagine, but more on that later…
A recent article in BusinessWeek caught my attention: The Real Threat to Google by Ben Kunz, April 28.
The article discusses the impact that our newfound ability to browse the web conveniently on our cell phones will have on internet advertising, specifically on Google’s AdSense program. Clearly, this is an issue that will impact domainers and the revenues that we generate from advertisement, as AdSense is one of the most popular ad feeds, especially for developed, content-rich websites. I am not quite sure what the short term impacts could be, but I AM: (1) SURE that the trend of increased mobile internet accessibility will continue (look at Japan…), and (2) HOPEFUL that Google will adapt and that internet advertising budgets will continue growing in the long run… though as I always say… I am by no means an expert… :-/
More on the value of generic domain names. April 9, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains, advertising, curious finds, music.2 comments
By now, my readers must have realized that my real addiction is domain names, not alcohol. One of my favorite activities is scouring the web for examples of how different people utilize their domain names, different development and monetization strategies and such… Fresh development ideas drive this business and create opportunities for old domain magnates and new industry entrants alike, and in general, I can never get enough. My most recent discovery is ElectronicMusic.com
Overall, it is a fairly simple website. I’d say that close to 70% of the total content area is dedicated to banners, google ads, and sponsored links. The only source of content is an infrequently updated news posting system, sort of like a blog, though more archaic (anyone remember NewsPro of the olden days?). It is not even a feed or an aggregator. However, this website is still very highly ranked in Alexa, and probably brings in a revenue stream that pays for its yearly renewal fees many times over.
This is a prime example of the value of a well-chosen, generic name. Clearly, such a generic, category-defining, commercial domain deserves much more development than it has gotten so far, but the very fact that it is still ranked within the top 1 million or so sites on Alexa is testament to the huge potential of ths property.
There is huge untapped value in names such as this one, and huge props to the registrant for scooping it up way back in 1996, and good luck with continued development.
Why you may want to hold on to those .MOBI domains after all… April 8, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains, Society, advertising, internet, trends.add a comment
Great post on Matt Buckland’s blog from a couple days ago, about the growth of mobile internet service and mobile advertising. Matt makes some excellent points in this insightful article. Good read, good to think about and plan your domaining business strategy accordingly:
The mobile web: Why the future really is on the small screen.
