Two Friday Night Observations to Round out the Week

Danno writes:

Google Silent On Adsense Bug
http://valleywag.com/tech/online-advertising/google-silent-on-major-adsense-bug-315703.php

***FS*** “In other words, Google can’t say what’s wrong and won’t say when it will be fixed. And users don’t know if the data will be fixed retroactively”. How unGoogle-like!

Cnet looking to sell some domains/websites?
http://valleywag.com/tech/cnet/cnet-looking-to-shed-dead-weight-315655.php

***FS*** Comment from Valleywag: “When I worked there, it constantly pained me how little effort the company threw behind search.com. I think that was potentially a great domain name but they never spent the effort to figure out what to do with it.“ Don’t take my word for it folks.. When was the last time “you” visited a CNET site?.. How did you get there? The only thing that differentiates this site from other content noise on the web is it’s stable of incredibly valuable URL’s.. They can sell those names at their peril. It’s very easy to get lost in believing you’re an unstoppable “cult of personality” when you’re dating JLO or Britney.. nobody cares where you pump gas or eat breakfast when the relationship ends. Domains are similar. CNET is doomed without it’s core traffic driving URLs. Honorable mention to it’s terrific writers who are like speakers without a soapbox when the traffic-driving names go away.

Tags: JMO

This entry was posted by frankschilling on Saturday, October 27th, 2007 at 4:02 AM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

4 Comments

stephen douglas says:

October 28, 2007 at 10:53 AM

Excellent analogy, Frank. Does CNET understand the power of the domains it owns for bringing people to their site? Even the power of respecting their content BECAUSE of the domains they own? It’s an interesting aspect to add to domain value.

If a domain name not only brings in “name direction” or “direct navigation” traffic, does it also sell to the visitor the “prestige” of that company OWNING the category-killing domain? Just another viewpoint for businesses and the public to understand how valuable a domain name can be for branding, marketing and “enhancing respectibility” to one’s website based on that domain name. “Computers.com”? How many millions of people a year type in that domain for name direction? And what is their initial “impression” of the reputation of the company that owns that domain when they are pointed to CNET?

These are other aspects of domain values to consider.