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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Great news for us guys. June 1, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Men, Society, trends.Tags: babies, boys, fertility, pregnancy
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Apparently, there are 17 fewer male babies for every 10,000 children born in the U.S.
Some researchers are blaming pollution, others feel it’s a natural population swing. Either way, it makes me feel like my stock is going up 
Original post here: Baby Boys on the Decline…
Song lyrics websites, something to sing about… May 31, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains, Society, music, popular culture.Tags: Add new tag, Domains, lyrics, music, songs, websites
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Another random thought for the weekend. I often like to look up song lyrics. For some reason, I can never settle for bookmarking one specific lyrics website and going there for every song I look up the lyrics for. Now, I think over the past year or so, I’ve ran into DOZENS of DIFFERENT websites that basically offer the same thing (song lyrics). Of course, it is difficult to differentiate this product offering… They’re all based on a similar concept, some kind of a cute design that’s simple to navigate, several of categories, and tons of advertisements. Nevertheless, all of these lyrics sites I’ve come across seem to rank very highly in Alexa, almost every one I hit happens to be in the top 100k.
The lessons of this phenomenon as I see them:
1) Content is indeed king, even if the content is redundant, and has been reproduced multiple times with similar content presentations. Just make sure that the content is well-organized, in demand, and somewhat useful. A shitton of interlinked HTML pages will do… HMM! Ideally, this will not remain the case forever, someone is bound to start cleaning up the internet of this mess sooner or later. On second thought, perhaps the word “WEB” by definition implies a messy concept…
2) Search engine traffic is hot. Type-ins? I don’t think so… Doubtful that people previously unfamiliar with the resource would type in “LyricsFreak.Com” in the address bar, yet this is a site comes close to having top 1k Alexa rank. Some people go for quantity with domain names, some go for quality. Sometimes, just having a dot com that makes sense with tons of sought-after information is enough for a guy to live on…
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.
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.
Can you figure it out if and when you need to? (QUICKLY!) March 29, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Business, Society, internet, technology.add a comment
In a world that is overflowing with superfluous data, being able to sort through the heap, identify, keep track of, interpret, and synthesize the information that really matters (or matters to your particular purpose) efficiently, is quickly becoming a vital skill for just about any individual desiring to succeed in any trade or profession that is in demand today. This goes back to much of what Tom Friedman was talking about in his excellent work, “The World is Flat.” A huge part of this skillset involves being able to use the internet, of course. Fortunately, the technologies available to us for sorting through this proverbial “information pile” are evolving almost as quickly as our needs for them grow. However, keeping track of the resources that are available to us is a tall order all on its own! For example, just a few years ago, the browser address bar and a few original search engines were pretty much all we had to work with… Even now, huge amounts of type-in traffic to websites and parked pages seem to indicate that a large portion of internet users are not yet adept at utilizing even this simple search method (meaning SEs). But what percentage of internet users are aware of newer, more specialized technologies that allow you focus your search on forums (i.e. BoardReader, Omgili, etc.), images, videos, previously asked questions (i.e. Assista, Amason’s Askville, etc.). There are specialized algorithms for finding the right videos, images, jobs and products, whatever it is you are searching for, yet so many people are still stumbling around in the dark, having absolutely no clue about the wide range of sophisticated tools and shortcuts available to aid them in their quest for knowledge. Even I am not as adept at managing, locating, and synthesizing data as effectively as I would like to be… One piece of advice I can leave you with, is that in addition to stocking all of the tools mentioned above in your search arsenal, you should try to visit TechCrunch often and to subscribe to their newsletter to get updates on rising startups in the industry to stay abreast of the evolution of this massive, dynamic behemoth, that we call INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, and the various methods available to us for traversing the expansive oceans of internet media.
Ask yourself, what percentage of your total time do you spend searching for things? Realize that this time is no-value-added. Then, figure out how to eliminate this drain on your resources.
“Lord of War” Arrested. March 26, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Business, Movies, Society, curious finds.add a comment
The movie was based on a fictionalized story of guy’s life:
Domain names as status symbols? March 18, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Business, Comedy, Domains, Inspirational, Investing, Life, Society.add a comment
The idea of domain names having purely collectible value (that is, in addition to the obvious commercial potential) has been raised by many individuals. What I want to touch upon today though, is a possible emerging trend that will have people pursuing domain names purely to say that they own a catchy name (we all agree that meaningful word combination DOT COMs are quickly becoming an increasingly scarce resource, correct?)
I mean, if everyone has a facebook or myspace page, why do we not all have our own domain name to go with it (think of the potential market here… think of this niche!!!)?
For example, the next time a girl tells me that I’m crazy or unreliable or whatever, I can quickly retort with: “Baby, I *OWN* EMOTIONALLYSTABLE.COM” – come on now, who’s with me? heh. I could use a similar trick to bring up my domain name FairyTaleLove.com , which I am about to begin developing by the way 
What do ya’ll think???
Domain ideas from news articles March 17, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains, Society.1 comment so far
The guys over at “Predictive Domaining” wrote a great read on catching on to rising trends by perusing recent press releases, as they reflect what is or may become popular and often have underlying commercial motivations. They give quite a few pointers and tips to get started.
Full post here: http://www.predictivedomaining.com/2008/03/17/press-releases/
I totally agree with this method. This is exactly how I scooped up some medical related names such as “TransplantScience.com” and growing trend names like “CarSharingReviews.com” I do hope my investment pays off in the future.
