http://www.domainersgazette.com/the-dot-what-tld-deathmatch/ 

***FS*** Domainer’s Gazette runs a refreshing poll ..  Should serve as excellent guidance to newbies.

Parking Transparency 

Whizzbang sets out a roadmap for Standards and Transparency for parking companies.

***FS*** I think true transparency is a pipedream absent some kind of leverage on the upstreams.  Nothing begets nothing tho,  so kudos to MG for writing.http://www.whizzbangsblog.com/content/view/333/1/

Elliot Silver interviews Jeremy Padawer.

***FS*** Jeremy is a legacy domainer I remember Chernoff mentioning the guy in the “way early” days ..  today Padawer has a very full time job in the toy industry, and also is quite serious about domain names. He’s been investing in geo names over the last six months. memphis.org, scottsdale.org, rye.com, abilene.org, tempe.org, and others. Josh says: Jeremy is sometimes very funny and outrageous. http://www.elliotsblog.com/index.php/2007/12/03/5-with-jeremy-padawer/

Madison Avenue’s Fear Of Domain Names.

By Stephen Douglas. “The truth of it is that Madison Avenue doesn’t want domains to compete with their abilities as an ad agency and undercut their client’s ad budget. pure and simple.” http://www.successclick.com/madison-avenues-fear-of-domain-names_2007_12_02/

***FS***  I personally think it’s less fear and more ambivalence or lack of understanding..  Most individual names get very little upfront traffic.  We live in an immediate gratification society.. One name 100 visits a day, nothing to get excited about ..  One name plus 12 months building to 10,000 visits a day..  that’s exciting, but it’s also uncertain and far off. Hence,  nothing to get fired-up about on Madison Ave.

Why some early stage startups fail.

***FS***  Valuable lessons here .. Written by someone at UnionSquareVentures.com. Excerpt: “”So it’s pretty clear to me that most venture backed investments don’t fail because the business plan was flawed. In my experience at least 2/3 of all business plans we back are flawed. Most venture backed investments fail because the venture capital is used to scale the business before the correct business plan is discovered. That scale/burn rate becomes the cancer that kills the business…. Regardless of whether you have taken venture capital or not, capital efficiency and bootstrapping are critical values. You must keep your burn rate low until you can show without a shadow of a doubt that you have a business model that works, can be operated profitably and is ready to be scaled. Then and only then should you step on the gas.”" http://www.unionsquareventures.com/2007/11/why_early_stage.html 

.NL Dutch Sedo Auction results.

Prices in Euros:
veiling.nl   ? 46.000
gezondheidszorg.nl   ? 16.500
luik.be   ? 3.500
kerstdagen.nl ? 3.250
hotelgids.nl ? 2.250
(not sure what currency that symbol is.) http://www.domainnews.com/aftermarket/2007120100/sedo-dutch-domain-auction-first-results/

Typo patrol

Someone is doing some pretty comprehensive research in the typo realm. http://www.domaindetectives.net/

Geo Leverage

Stu Maloff uses Geo targetted domains to help build his basketball camp business.  e.g. NewYorkBasketball.com http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2007/dailyposts/12-01-07.htm 

Sport.biz goes for $14,000.

http://insidedomaining.blogspot.com/2007/12/sportbiz-trades-for-10000-euro.html  Josh says: In my opinion, the value of certain strong or very strong single keyword domain names in some of the less popular extensions will continue to rise in value in the long run. One of the obvious reasons is that these kinds of words in .com are simply entirely out of reach for the vast majority of domain investors and people planning to build websites. Some will say that one should go for a two word .com with Sport or Sports in it.  Makes sense.  Some will say that the one word major keyword in a less popular extension is more important to their branding approach.  Makes sense. Personally, i’m not a fan of the way .biz looks or the meaning it has.  Sports.biz would have been much stronger than Sport.biz.The new owner of this domain should also get SportBiz.com, if they haven’t already.

***FS***  I much prefer names like these..  sportsworld.com sportsweb.com ..  certain think names plus ‘world’, ‘web’, ‘net’, ‘biz’ have a generic value and resonance simply because they make sense as generics but have a brandable quality about them. Would rather own those as a .com than own a further afield ext.

Microsoft buys Webfives:

Excerpt: “”The move comes just days after Microsoft took part in a panel discussion on the types of companies it would look to acquire. Managing Director Mark Wolfram had indicated that the Entertainment and Devices area might be ripe for an acquisition.”" http://www.news.com/beyond-binary/8301-13860_3-9827802-56.html?tag=nefd.top

QR Codes. (Quick Response)

QR codes were originally developed by Tokyo-based Denso Wave Inc. and are common in Japan. When published in print form – on billboards, transit ads, vehicles or other media – consumers can then take pictures of the images and have them converted to links, phone numbers or other advertising messages. “The basic function is to eliminate typing and allow you to take a code off paper media and any media that’s printable and transfer it to an electronic form,” said Greg Hayden, chief technology officer for Toronto-based Luna, which is in talks with Canadian carriers – which it will not name – in hopes of making the technology available to Canadian businesses. http://www.itworldcanada.com/a/Departmental-and-End-User-Computing/de822e9f-d9c7-49d1-97d2-be7f4d946767.html If i understand this correctly, one could use a symbol or image for one’s domain name, and this could be converted into the actual URL, when a cell phone or PDA user takes a photo of it.  If true, some very interesting possibilities could transpire around this!  This is whatcha call a good idea.

Six Apart sells Live Journal to Sup, a Russian media company.

Be careful how you treat your content contributers. http://valleywag.com/tech/livejournal/six-apart-exiles-its-troublesome-child-to-russia-329031.php

WIPO coming to Canada?

*** From October 17, 2007
http://www.domainnews.com/general/2007113022/the-wipo-is-coming-to-canada/#more-1828
http://www.slyck.com/story1601_Canada_to_Strengthen_Intellectual_Property_Throne_Speech

***FS***  .ca registrants take warning.. WIPO proceedings in general favor the complainant. In no other business do you loose the rights to your property for running afoul of a civil reglation..  it’s par for the course in the domain biz…  for now. 

Sahar gets it on with cars.

http://www.conceptualist.com/2007/12/01/weekend-getway-with-south-florida-toys/

***FS***  Nice to see you enjoying life bro..  It’s short

Tia Gives Some Tips/Tools

http://www.tiawood.com/news/internet-news/free-411-and-other-handy-google-experiments-for-doma.html

***FS***  Some neat tools and assorted domaining good-stuff  ..  Thanks Tia!~

  Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has filed a trademark infringement suit against a California dentist who has registered more than 40 Internet domains with names similar to the software maker’s products or brands. The domains registered by Dr. Saed Said are “identical or confusingly similar” to Microsoft’s trademarks, the company claims in court papers filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California. The domain names registered by Said include aMicrosoftShop.com, aMicrosoftStore.com, XboxOutlet.info, and XboxMarket.mobi.

***FS*** I predict a price increase at this dentist office and(or) extended hours soon.  In my view these are just terrible domain names,  they would get no natural traffic..  They aren’t typos and many folks like this dentist gent truly don’t understand the line of acceptibility relating to trademark style domain names.  I’ve met Microsoft’s IP counsel and he struck me as a pretty fair, decent guy..  so if they’re going after this dentist,  there must be more to the story, resistance to reason, a patern of intentional abuse or something more to have Microsoft go to court over it..

Longtime readers of this blog will know my view that Microsoft’s policy of taking over trademark intent search strings and unresolving domains in it’s browser do not help our space, because it highlights an incredibly hypocritical double-standard relating to what is correct and acceptable behavior.  Forbidding cybersquatters from registering domain names like aMicrosoftShop.com while permiting Microsoft to take over aGoogleshop.xom, .dom or .cpm in its browser is just not reasoned or balanced..  It’s bad form and glares of unfairness..  I am not condoning cybersquatting, but would be a much bigger Microsoft supporter if they stopped stealing obvious domain extension mistypes in their browser’s address-bar while attacking those who they view as stealing from it. A little fairness balance and equity goes a long way to building good-will.  Esp. since this inequity is so bold faced, glaring obvious.. (insert your adjective here) to any fair minded person.

  Summary:  A guy who could have bought billions of dollars worth of domain real estate by applying his foresight (but didn’t) now declares “domain names dead” and hypothesizes that we will abandon domain names in favor of Rube Goldberg inspired Universal Search Locators (USLs) which will take over as the foundational elements of the web.. 

While I could actually see some variant of this trying to marginalize domains in the next 50 years,  in the end I think the obstacles are so many and the challenges so daunting that nothing could actually “do away” with the usefulness of domain names.  Consider:

—You would need to have Google agree on a global standard with Microsoft, Yahoo, Sina, Baidu and all other competing search services so that the experience of USL’s is uniform. You wouldn’t want to type Snipperoo at Baidu and get to Widgettown instead.

 —Even if you got everybody to agree on a standard you wouldn’t have mail because email runs on domain names.  This chap would surely argue that we could all abandon our email in favor of search engine messengers.. but those would have to run on a globally universal standard too.

— After clearing the initial hurdles above, you’d just have to convince every existing site owner to adopt your new platform and abandon their trillions on global collective branding in domains (think of every business card, bus bench, billboard, TV commercial, directory you’d have to change)

— You’d have to persuade governments of the world to cast away their national heritage embodied in (CCtlds)

— You’d have to convince Verisign to roll over and play dead.. or just buy them.. ditto with PIR (.org) and Affilias..

— Microsoft, Mozilla, Opera, and Safari would have to give up their browsers because we wouldn’t need them.

It’s funny to read posts like this because search engines actually search for domain names.. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Without a name there is nothing to search for  

In fact it would be easier to just buy all the available domain names from large name holders around the world..  a few billion would roll up 60% of the most visited sites on the net.

Quote: “”The idea here is that as your content is broken up and thown out into the four corners of the web, that is where you come to reside. You no longer have a central address, you only exist where you end up. If you are good, you end up in some very powerful places. If you are bad – well, we all know what happens on the web if you are bad.”"

Those “Places” will need to have a unique location of course..  There is no such thing as a “place” without a unique location..  and on the Internet you need a Domain name to have a unique location – unless you want to start typing-in IP numbers that is.

This guy needs to lay of the over the counter cold medication.  Sahar calls bullshit too..  Next.