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John Galliano is a Winner (with Video)

Elliot Silver
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9

As you can see from the CBS News video embedded above, (Former) Dior designer John Galliano made news this past week for allegedly making anti-semitic remarks. There was also another video in which he allegedly said something about Hitler.

All of that aside, John Galliano was actually a winner this week. He may not have gained many fans, but he and his legal team did win a UDRP case for a ccTLD domain name: Galliano.fr (the decision is written in French).

According to my handy Google Translate tool, one argument Galliano and his legal team made was that “John Galliano is well known for being one of fashion’s most gifted of our time.” I am not that much into fashion so I can’t make a judgment about that, but I can say that Galliano is likely more well known this week than ever before, and that’s probably not a good thing.

The domain owner in this case did not submit a response to the UDRP, and the single panelist found in favor of Galliano.

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Go Daddy Looking to Hire: Plans to Grow Workforce by More than 10%

Elliot Silver
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5

Godaddy LogoAlready the largest domain registrar, and likely the largest employer in the domain space, Go Daddy has announced a new hiring initiative in which it hopes to hire an additional 350 employees. The company currently has about 3,000 employees operating in various roles within the company.

In recent months, Go Daddy has expanded its call center operations both in Arizona and in Iowa. In addition, the company has opened offices outside of the United States, including an office in Canada, Singapore, and The Netherlands.

One thing I didn’t realize was that “Go Daddy holds a more than 53 percent market-share of the world’s new domain names.” I am sure many domain owners need quite a bit of support to get their websites operational, and I have found the customer service to be exceptional. I do have an Account Representative, but I’ve also called in on the main line a number of times for support.

Go Daddy notoriously treats its employees very well. The annual Christmas party always makes the news because of its  extravagance  and generosity to its employees, no matter what the economic situation is.

Congrats to Bob Parsons and his company. It’s always nice to hear when a company is hiring rather than having layoffs.

Below is today’s press release from the company:

Go Daddy, the world’s top Web hosting provider and domain name registrar, now employs more than 3,000 people and is looking to hire at least 350 more in the weeks ahead.

A majority of Go Daddy’s employees work in the legendary Customer Care centers, all based in the U.S. These are the people standing by the phones to help any of Go Daddy’s nearly nine million customers.

The company has doubled in size in fewer than four years, even as the world economy sputtered.

What is the key to Go Daddy’s fast-paced growth?   “We know people like to use the Internet to communicate, shop, research, play games and more,” said Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons. “But when it comes to solving a problem or figuring out how to improve their website … people want to talk to people!”

Go Daddy’s round the clock, personalized brand of customer service is considered industry-best. The company provides extensive training for its recruits and looks to hire people passionate about the Internet.

Not all of Go Daddy’s open positions are in the Customer Care. Go Daddy is hiring in a wide range of disciplines, including Linux and .NET engineers, I-T development, marketing, accounting and facilities.

Recognized as one of the Best Places to Work, Healthiest Employers and top Workplaces for Women, Go Daddy provides a variety of generous employee benefits including three-week paid vacations starting in the first year of employment and 100 percent company-paid medical and dental plans. There are also team building initiatives, financial incentives, bonuses and prizes for top performers that range from cars, parties, all expense-paid vacations and trips inside the Go Daddy “cash machine.”

“It pays to treat your people well,” Parsons said. “A happy employee is a productive employee. I like knowing when a customer calls us for help, they are going to get an enthusiastic person excited to help.”

Parsons founded Go Daddy and became a domain name registrar in 2000 after recognizing a need for better service and lower prices. Parsons’ formula of low-priced, feature-rich products and customer support, along with aggressive marketing, has proven very successful. Currently, Go Daddy holds a more than 53 percent market-share of the world’s new domain names and registers more than one domain name every second of every day.

The Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company has facilities in Phoenix, Tempe, Gilbert, as well as offices in Hiawatha, Iowa; Denver and Washington, D.C.   In recent years, Go Daddy has expanded with a facility in Toronto, Canada and state-of-the-art data centers in The Netherlands and Singapore.

To join the Go Daddy team, apply online at GoDaddy.com/Jobs.

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Please help me raise funds for the  Ronald McDonald House

FaceTime.com Now Owned By Apple Ahead of Wednesday’s Event

Elliot Silver
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1

Apple FaceTime

Many technology blogs and Apple fans are looking forward to the Apple event scheduled for tomorrow in San Francisco. It is widely speculated that the event will be the venue for an  announcement  about the newest version of the Ipad.

Some people have speculated that the IPad 2 may have a camera, which would likely enable Apple’s “FaceTime.” FaceTime is a popular application that allows video calls on the iPhone 4, the newest version of the iPod touch, and Mac computer to Mac computer using a wifi connection.

I just received a tip that in the last couple of days, it appears that Apple has taken possession of the FaceTime.com domain name. According to a Whois lookup as recently as February 20, 2011, FaceTime.com was owned by a company called FaceTime Communications, Inc.

As of this afternoon, the Whois information now shows Apple, Inc. as the current domain registrant for FaceTime.com. The domain name does not yet resolve to Apple’s website, so if you want to learn about FaceTime, you need to visit www.apple.com/mac/facetime.

I don’t have any idea if FaceTime.com will be a part of tomorrow’s Apple announcement, but the timing of the Whois change is interesting.

Thanks for this tip goes to to Mark over at SpreadOffense.com.

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Please help me raise funds for the  Ronald McDonald House

Legionella Not Yet Confirmed as The Source of The Illness

Elliot Silver
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11

Despite a couple of mainstream media articles written today that appear to indicate legionella (the bacteria that causes Legionnaires Disease and Pontiac Fever) as the cause of the illness that may have impacted DomainFest attendees, there has been no confirmation from the Health Department or the CDC.

I know Shane received his test results, and they indicated that he was infected with Pontiac Fever. However, the health department still has not made any determination about what the cause of this illness was, nor how people may have become infected.

I was very sick for a few days after returning from DomainFest, and I was even mentioned in an Associated Press article that was distributed widely. The running joke was that the AP said I “succumbed” to the illness, and a number of comments were made on various sites (like the Boston Globe) asking how I was quoted if I had died.

Anyway, I had some bloodwork done a little over a week ago, and I need to go back in a couple of weeks for more blood work to see if I have antibodies built up, which may indicate what caused me to become sick.

Here’s today’s press release from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health:

As reported previously, on February 11, the Department of Public Health was notified of a suspected respiratory infection outbreak among attendees of the DOMAINfest Global Conference held in Santa Monica on February 1-3, 2011. To date, approximately 200 individuals associated with this conference have reported illness with symptoms mostly consisting of fever, chills, general discomfort (malaise) and some cough.

In the course of its ongoing investigation, Public Health has identified Legionella bacteria in a sample taken from a water source at the Playboy Mansion, where a social event connected with the conference occurred. This does not however confirm Legionella as the source of the illness, as Legionella bacteria are commonly found in moist or wet environments. “We are still considering several possible causes of illness,” said Jonathan E. Fielding, MD, MPH, Director of Public Health and Health Officer.

Public Health is continuing to work with surrounding county health departments, the California Department of Public Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to investigate this suspected outbreak.

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Please help me raise funds for the  Ronald McDonald House

Direct Ad Sales is The Way to Go

Elliot Silver
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4

I read an interesting article in the New York Times a couple of days ago, and I want to share it with you. It seems that many large websites are creating their own ad “networks” to sell remnant space on their websites.  Instead of the teeth  whitening  and belly  flattening  ads you are accustomed to seeing on large websites, you may actually begin to see some better targeted advertising.

The publishers  are able to accomplish a few things when starting their own advertising networks. First, they are able to eliminate the middle man from their ad sales. Instead of paying an outside ad network to aggregate advertising, the websites are able to work directly with their advertisers.

Secondly, the publishers are able to offer more targeted (and more relevant) advertisements to their visitors. This should encourage higher click throughs and better conversion rates for advertisers. Again, this will help increase the CPM for publishers who find that advertisers are able to offer more money for their remnant positions.

Finally, publishers can keep all of the valuable consumer and visitor data that is usually taken by the advertising networks.  This information is valuable for the publishers, and it prevents third party networks from doing funky things with it.

To me, the most surprising thing is that it seems that these publishers are just starting to do this. I am sure selling advertising across a huge network is a big challenge, but smaller websites (like this blog) have been successfully selling direct ads. I don’t have to generally worry about receiving payments and there’s no middle man to take a big cut.

The NYT article is an interesting read if you have a few moments.

Two Nice Newsletter Domain Names

Elliot Silver
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1

I want to pass along two domain names I saw for sale this morning on two different domain sales newsletters.

Luxury Names is currently offering CarInsurers.com for $7,500. Insurance-related domain names are pretty popular these days, and many are used for lead generation websites. According to the newsletter:

“CarInsurers.com is a 2002 registration and the seller is also including the website. There are no revenue or traffic stats provided but this is an opportunity to get in the car insurance industry with a premium domain name.”

Andrew Rosener’s Media Options newsletter is offering IRAPlan.com for $4,900. According to the newsletter: “Appraises for $96,000!!! – $12 CPC – Priced for fast sale!”

If either name excites you, be in touch with the newsletter sellers.

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