I just had a great tour of the Whistler Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts led by the museum’s curator. As a history buff and art lover, the museum tour was great, and I saw some nice pieces of art, in addition to making a new friend and contact in the process. I am planning to do this type of thing quite a bit to meet people who live in Lowell and to learn about the city of Lowell so I can make the make Lowell.com a useful resource to residents and visitors.
In the process of the museum tour, I met the artist in residence, who is a very friendly lady and a talented painter. After I introduced myself and told her about my website, she let me know she would check it out when she had a chance. She also told me she planned to check out another city .com website for an upcoming visit to her daughter who lives in the midwest. Since she had never been to this city, she wanted to learn about the history and about some of the art related places in the area.
Incidentally, the city where her daughter lives is Nashville, Tennessee, and of course she plans to visit Nashville.com, owned by the Castello Brothers.   What a small world!

Thank you very much to those of you who voted for me in the 2008 Name Intelligence Users Choice Awards. I am very honored to share the award for Best Blog Community with Frank Schilling (SevenMile.com) and Frank Michlick and Adam Strong (DomainNameNews.com). I enjoy sharing my domain investment and development experiences with you, and I am glad you enjoy reading!
The list of 2008 Name Intelligence Users Choice award winners:
Registrar with the Largest Net Gain – GoDaddy
Best Registrar for Resellers – Enom
Outstanding Drop Catcher – NameJet
Outstanding Secondary Market – Sedo
Best Registrar – Moniker
Best Parking Company (tie): Sedo and Parked.com
Best Aftermarket – Afternic
Best Forum – DNForum.com
Best Blog Community (3-way tie): SevenMile.com (Frank Schilling), Elliot’s Blog (Elliot Silver) and Domain Name News (Adam Strong and Frank Michlick).
Best Industry Coverage – DNJournal.com

I know this is contrary to some things I’ve said in the past few weeks, but today I feel like registering a few new domain names. Lately, I’ve felt quite a bit of pressure due to a variety of factors (mainly the launch of a new website), and there’s nothing like finding some nice unregistered names to get me back in the domain spirit!
To find some hidden gold, I am going to start by doing some Google research on new technology trends. I am going to think about ways in which people might go online to search about the new technology, and perhaps buy a domain name or two. I do keyword research when buying domain names in the aftermarket, so why not do some hypothetical keyword research on my own. I will ask myself, “if this thing gets big, how will people search for it?” I don’t necessarily need to rely on what scientists or developers are calling it – more like how people will intuitively search for it.
I really enjoy this aspect of domain investing. In some respects, I felt like I went from a gold miner to a jeweler, as I decided I would be better off developing a few of my domain names rather than relying on the sale of my names to make a living. While some people have the luxury of earning passive PPC revenue, I am more interested in building a business.
Sure it’s difficult and unchartered territory for me, but I am working with a great developer, a few great SEO “advisors,” and I have been receiving amazing advice from people who are already very successful. With guidance from experienced veterans, the development process is much easier. Today, though, I am going back to my roots and going to search for some domain nuggets.

I was away for much of the weekend, so I didn’t have a chance to listen to Ed’s interview with David and Michael Castello until today. The Castellos are two of the smartest guys in the industry, and this is a great interview. As I’ve mentioned many times, David and Michael gave me tons of great advice along the way to developing Lowell.com, and I am grateful to them for their contributions.
I recommend that you take some time to listen to the interview when you have a chance.

On Sahar’s Blog today, Sean Stafford writes about how DNZoom came about and how the company is helping domain owners manage their portfolios. Sean discusses how his desire to build a management system for his own domain names led to the creation of an application that can now be used by other professionals in the industry.
DNZoom is now a part of the Bido portfolio, and Sean is at the forefront of the domain industry. Read the full article on Sahar’s Blog.

I have it on good authority that something neat is going to happen on NamePros at around 3pm today. Check it out if you get a chance…