Non-Domain Related

It’s Memorial Day in the United States today. It’s a vacation day, and it’s also a day when Americans think about and remember the men and women who served in the various branches of the armed forces.

While you may or may not agree with the government and its policies, I think that the men and women who serve the country deserve to be thanked. We often forget about these men and women (and their families) and I want them to know they are appreciated.

I want to give a special thanks to my friends and colleagues Brian and Charlie Gilbert who served in the US Air Force and US Navy. I also want to thank Nadia Pessoa and my Dad for their US Army service.

I know there are other domain investors and friends who served, and I want to say thanks!

I want to share some nice news that isn’t exactly related to the domain industry, but it does involve someone within the business.  Lisa Bloom is an accomplished attorney and legal commentator, and she is well-known for her television appearances on her show Lisa Bloom: Open Court from 2001 to 2009, as well as guest appearances on shows such as Dr. Phil, Oprah, and Anderson Cooper 360. She is an award-winning journalist and earned a reputation as an attorney representing victim’s rights in several high profile cases.

Lisa is also the fiancee of Internet entrepreneur and domain investor, Braden Pollock, which is how many people know her in the domain industry. In fact, Lisa and Braden spent a week in Valencia at the Domaining Europe conference that just concluded.

Lisa is the critically acclaimed author of Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World, which promotes the idea that women should focus on thinking and reading rather than superficial celebrity culture. Think was published in May 2011 and was a call to action for parents of girls to encourage their daughters to read and use their minds instead of focusing on their looks. The book was a New York Times bestseller for many weeks.

Lisa Bloom has followed up the success of Think with a recently-released book called Swagger: 10 Urgent Rules for Raising Boys in an Era of Failing Schools, Mass Joblessness, and Thug Culture. This thought-provoking book encourages parents of boys to guide their sons to a fulfilling future of good education and contributions to their communities, rather than a culture of poverty, unemployment and violence. Boys are twice as likely as girls to drop out of school and have expulsion rates four times the rate of girls. They are more likely to go to prison or drop out of college and have higher unemployment rates.

Swagger examines some of the issues facing boys and their parents, such as lack of jobs for teenagers or media messages about violence and gang culture. Swagger offers practical solutions for identifying the cultural roadblocks to raising boys in today’s media-driven society and recommends proven steps to counteract negative pop-culture messages and raise healthy and productive sons.

Swagger is currently on Amazon’s Top 100 Books list, and ranks #1 in the category of Parenting Books.

To celebrate the new release, I am going to give 10 hardcover copies to readers of my blog for FREE (US residents only because of shipping). I will send a copy of Lisa’s book to the first ten people to reply “I want one!” in the comment section of this post. Be sure to leave an accurate email address so I can get in touch with you to get your mailing address – please don’t leave that personal information in the comment section.

Congratulations to Lisa and Braden on this exciting news!

In the “gutter” space of my blog, I have a light background with a light graphic overlay. It’s more or less just extra background space that hasn’t been utilized. The width of the gutter varies from visitor to visitor, depending on the size of the person’s browser window.

I haven’t offered gutter advertising space before, and I have no idea what the value of the space is. I am going to do a special auction in this post on my blog to raise money for the Ronald McDonald House, an organization that helps children with cancer and their families.

I am willing to sell the gutter space of my blog for 48 hours to the highest bidder. The full amount of the winning bid will be donated to my Ronald McDonald House fundraising effort. The company with the highest bid can have their tiled logo or another graphic in the space with the gutter linking to their website. The graphic has to be a static .jpg, and there can’t be any sound.

I have no idea if the space is worth $200 or $2,000 for 48 hours, so I am willing to let the market decide the value. Please post your bid in the comment section, and the highest bid received by 5pm eastern on May 2 will get the space for 48 hours.  There’s no sniping or anything like that, so the highest bid received will get the space.

The advertisement can be posted any time within the next 4 weeks, making it perfect if the winning bidder would like to coordinate it with a special offer, launch, or other campaign. I will also write a follow-up post to announce the winning bidder.

Thanks for helping me support a great organization that helps others.

I know this isn’t related to the domain business, but I want to share a couple of photos I just took from the roof of my building.

The NASA Space  Shuttle Enterprise is being flown on top of a specially customized 747 from Washington DC to New York City today, and it made a trip up the Hudson River past the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, where it will eventually be on display.

I took a few photos on its way up the Hudson with my iPhone, and they didn’t come out so well. I took these photos on its way back down the Hudson. It’s probably landing at JFK Airport as we speak.

What an awesome experience!

This is a guest post from my friend and domain industry colleague Dr. Jeffrey Reynolds, the President/CEO of Precision Marketing Solutions, a New York-based marketing and e-commerce company that operates websites in a wide variety of markets including the category-killing AmericanFlags.com.

So, Elliot was gracious enough to let me crash his blog for a minute while he grabs a few minutes with his new baby, and hopefully a power nap. I’ve been a domainer since the early days and was fortunate enough to be able to tell my story about AmericanFlags.com at TRAFFIC before all the cool kids were actually developing domains. I’m still pretty active and in the past couple months have purchased and developed FoamRollers.com and Nightlights.com.

Anyway, I writing today to see if I can muster some support from the domaining community for a charity I run here in New York. It’s called the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (LICADD) and working on a shoestring budget, the agency provides a wide variety of services to teens and families impacted by addiction. LICADD has become the “go-to” place in the midst of the current prescription drug crisis, most notably for parents desperate to save their kids’ lives.

The agency also conducts school-based educational programs starting in Kindergarten and a mentoring program for children of incarcerated parents. Those kids face a 70% greater chance than their peers of being locked-up themselves and with 100-plus kids coming through our program, to this day, not a single one has been arrested.

On Sunday, May 6th, I’m running the Long Island Marathon to raise funds in order to keep these programs going throughout 2012. Four times as many folks will come to LICADD this year as opposed to last year, which means that we need to raise more money. I’ve never run a marathon before – in fact, the longest race I’ve run was a 10 miler in January. But I’ve been training like hell and I’m ready to give back. I could really use your help and would love to have your support.

I know your time is precious so I thank you for taking the time to hear my plea and a big thanks to Elliot for letting me make the pitch.

Here’s a quick link to donate.

Have you ever wondered who the anonymous people are that write hateful comments on blogs and websites around the Internet? While I’ve been able to identify a few based on IP addresses and other sources, I’ve never really had the desire to actually track them down personally or even let them know I know who they are. I guess it’s better to know who my “enemies” are without them knowing I know… ya know?

There are plenty of people that seem to find enjoyment out of putting others down. I am lucky I don’t get many trolling comments, but it’s an issue that many websites face. I guess these people live miserable lives, and they feel the need to make someone else feel miserable, too. I don’t really know why they do it, but I will leave the “psychologizing” up to my psychologist wife!

Anyway, I saw this BBC video and it was interesting.They track down an alleged Internet “troll.”