Great Google Lab Features

I was on Gmail today and saw the Google Labs button was red, indicating that Google has some neat new products and features under development they want to show off.

Here are my favorite experimental Gmail features, although I haven’t used all of them yet:

Muzzle
Conserves screen real estate by hiding your friends’ status messages.

Mail Goggles
Google strives to make the world’s information useful. Mail you send late night on the weekends may be useful but you may regret it the next morning. Solve some simple math problems and you’re good to go. Otherwise, get a good night’s sleep and try again in the morning. After enabling this feature, you can adjust the schedule in the “General” settings page.

Forgotten Attachment Detector
Prevents you from accidentally sending messages without the relevant attachments. Prompts you if you mention attaching a file, but forgot to do so.

Undo Send
Oops, hit “Send” too soon? Stop messages from being sent for a few seconds after hitting the send button.

Charity Party in During NYC SES

SES is coming to New York in a little over a week, and if you are in town for it, you should know about a charity party that is being held on March 23.   The event is organized by an Internet marketing networking group in New York.   Below is some information about the event from their website:

Who: All Internet Marketers are invited
What: $50 Charity Donation For Open Bar Party
Where: Heartland Brewery in Union Square, New York, NY
When: Monday March 23, 2009 from 8pm-12am
Why: Because this is the hottest networking party for internet marketers. It is being held at Heartland Brewery, NYC’s very own microbrewey which has won many awards for their craft beers. Most of the conference speakers and top internet marketers will be there. Did we mention that all raised money is going to charity! Go ahead make business connections, have fun and help save the life of someone with cancer.

Tracking Your Financials

What software or system does your company use to track domain investments, sales, expenses and other financial information?   I’ve got a pretty good system set up using Excel, but I am sure there are better accounting programs to use.

I think my Excel system is a bit confusing for my accountant (before I explain things to him) but he doesn’t complain.   Can anyone recommend an easy to use, inexpensive software solution that doesn’t take up too much hard drive space?

Tax time is fun for domain investors!

Newsletter Ideas and Thoughts

My first newsletter will be coming out tomorrow (sign up if interested) and I started to put it together.   While doing so, I was thinking about features that would be of interest to me if I were to sign up, and I would like to hear back from you, too. Here are some things I plan to add into the newsletter, and I am open to more suggestions.

Domain registration coupons – I will reach out to some of the registrars to see if anyone is willing to provide special coupon codes for discounts to newsletter readers. If any registrars are reading this and are interested, drop me a note and I will be in touch.

News & notes – With so much information out there, I don’t always have time to read everything, and there are times when I do read something that I think is very important.   I will list my 3 most read/commented articles from the week, and I will also send one or two outside reads that I believe are important.

Tips and tricks – I’ve given lots of tips in a variety of posts on my blog, but I will add a tip about domaining or development each week.   Some might be obvious and some might be things I’ve learned along the way, but I am not a rocket scientist inventing a new patentable product, so I am happy to share.

Dropping domains – I like searching for good dropping names, some of which are available to buy right away, some are going to auction, and some are on auction.   If I had a larger staff, endless money, and/or more time to develop, I wouldn’t give these away, but I can’t buy them all.   I actually don’t buy very many at all, but enjoy the search, so I might as well share what I find.

Domains for sale – This is the biggest conflict I have.   I don’t want to open up and accept domain listings from others, and I don’t want this to be a self serving newsletter.   From time to time I might show a domain name I have for sale or I might provide a link to a good domain name I saw for sale.   I will try to limit this because I think there are enough sales outlets available.

Upcoming events – There’s a ton of conferences, auctions, get togethers…etc that it’s hard to keep up.   If I hear about an event, I will post a link to more information.

So… after reading the above features, what else would you like to see that’s not already included on my blog?

As I said before, I am not going to allow sponsors yet because I want to see how things go for a few weeks.   I appreciate the inqueries, but at this time, I am going to keep it private label without a sponsor.

February Traffic – Highest Ever

I want to take a moment to thank everyone for visiting my blog.   I saw the highest amount of traffic ever in February and I really appreciate your taking the time out of your day to visit.   With all the other domain blogs and news outlets available, I know there are plenty of places to read about the domain industry.

I thank you for your continued patronage and support.

Elliot’s Blog Newsletter

I recently exchanged emails with the director of my grad school program (MS in Direct & Interactive Marketing – now the Integrated Marketing Program) at NYU, and I let her know about some of the things happening in my business and personal life.   Among other things, I mentioned that I am using my direct marketing skills just about every day.

After thinking about how I am using them and how I could be using them better, I decided that I should add a newsletter to my blog.   I figure I can send out weekly or bi-weekly emails to let people know what the most read and most commented articles I posted have been, and I can provide other updates.

A newsletter is one of the best ways to communicate with interested parties, so I might as well start one up and see how it goes.   I know someone will ask, but I am not looking for sponsors – especially because I don’t know how regularly I will send the newsletter, nor do I know how many people will eventually sign up.

So… feel free to sign up for my newsletter.   I will probably send the emails out on a Saturday or a Sunday and they will probably not be regularly sent at first.   Also, in the comment section here, please let me know what you would like included in the newsletter.   Here is what I am thinking right now, but I would like suggestions:

  • Links to most read articles of the week
  • Links to most commented articles of the week
  • My top ten dropping domain picks of the coming week
  • Links to articles of interest off site