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Twelpforce & FanWoody: How Best Buy & TGI Friday are Building Facebook & Twitter Brands on TV

Elliot Silver
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Picture 1A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about Best Buy’s television commercials advertising their Twelpforce, a group of Best Buy’s   technology experts who offer technical advice and support via Twitter. The most interesting thing about these commercials was that they weren’t directing visitors to their website, something which they control. Instead, they were directing people to the Twelpforce Twitter page, which is owned by Twitter.

While I don’t think there are going to be problems with Twitter, I just don’t think it’s a smart move to build the Twitter traffic rather than traffic to the main Best Buy site. They could conceivably redirect traffic from BestBuy.com/twelpforce to the Twitter page if they wanted to do so, allowing them to control the traffic and analytics rather than a third party.

Recently, I’ve been seeing commercials from TGI Fridays, encouraging people to go to a Facebook page they set up, Facebook.com/fanwoody. The commercial says that if 500,000 become Woody’s Fan, all will receive a coupon for a free burger at a TGI Fridays restaurant. The TGIF fan page has over 497,000 fans right now, and at the rate it seems to be going, they will hit the half a million mark in the next couple of hours.

Like Best Buy is doing with Twitter, TGI Fridays is driving traffic to Facebook rather than their home page. I still don’t understand or like the logic behind building another company’s brand.

Follow Domain Related Public Companies

Elliot Silver
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You can learn quite a bit of information from public companies who must disclose just about every thing that could have an implication on the value of the company. Because of this, it’s a smart idea to follow the filings of various domain companies so you can read up on company filings, rather than rely on blogs and other news outlets who may or may not report on certain events/filings.

Some publicly traded companies that are required to make public filings that are related to the domain industry include the following (please let me know if I missed any company):

Google
Yahoo
Microsoft
Marchex
Top Level Domain Holdings
Tucows
Dark Blue Sea
Verisign
Banks.com

In order to follow these companies, I set up a stock portfolio in Yahoo specifically with domain industry related stocks. This allows me to see where they are trading as well as news reports and SEC (or other) filings. Don’t simply rely on others’ interpretations of news – and don’t get delayed news reports that fly under the radar (domain sales for example).

Follow these and other related companies and be more informed as a result.

Use Caution When Buying Typo Drops

Elliot Silver
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I’ve been looking at dropping auctions more regularly on NameJet and SnapNames, and I frequently come across generic typo domain names that are enticing. They seem generic enough that they would avoid any type of trademark violation, and they could potentially get traffic based on some analytics I’ve done. These are typically misspelled words where one letter is replaced with a letter that’s next to the correct letter on the keyboard.

Today I found a typo domain name that I was considering, and I went to the website to see if I could find some analytic information – like Compete.com traffic. When I got there, I saw that it was a porn site, and it got me concerned. I know that a domain owner may not be liable for what a previous owner did, but that wouldn’t necessarily stop a company from filing suit under the assumption that you had something to do with its prior usage.

Now if you are sued for misuse on a high value domain name, that’s another story and a cost of doing business in most cases. However, if you are sued because of a cheap typo name you bought hoping to make enough PPC revenues to cover the drop price, you have to ask yourself if it’s really worth the effort.

Furthermore, you should ask if the domain name is really worth acquiring if it’s currently a porn site, as it wouldn’t make sense for the domain owner to monetize it this way if it received traffic (it’s unrelated to porn).

NY Domainer Get Together – 9/24

Elliot Silver
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If you live in the New York area, mark your calendars because we are getting together on September 24th at 6:30pm at the Boat Basin on West 79th Street and the Hudson River. There are no special requirements to attend, and there is no admission cost (although it’s a cash bar).

If you are interested in sponsoring the event via buying pitchers of drinks or appetizers, shoot me an email or simply show up. Past events have drawn around 40-50 people, and they are always relaxed. There’s no need to know anyone beforehand. If you live in the New York area, and you are a domain investor or work in the domain space, this is a great chance to meet like-minded people.

Please drop a comment if you can make it – and I will add your email address to the Evite I am going to send out shortly. See you there.

Protect Your WordPress Blog

Elliot Silver
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I was viewing a friend’s website on my Blackberry the other day, when I noticed a bunch of random unrelated links above his header. There were Viagra links, Honda links, Cialis links, Acai links…etc. You name the affiliate link, and it was probably there. When I visited his site on my laptop, those links were nowhere to be seen.

Several months ago, I had a similar problem, which my developer diagnosed as some sort of code injection. This was attributed to my not upgrading to the latest WordPress version (currently 2.8.4). Basically when security flaws are found, WordPress closes those holes in the next edition, and site owners need to upgrade ASAP. Because hackers and other malicious people can then learn what security flaws were found in the previous version, they can exploit those flaws in blogs and websites that aren’t running on the most recent version.

In any case, it can be a bit tricky to remove the cause of the malicious links, but it’s important to do so, otherwise your site is leaking “search engine link juice,” and those links can be harmful. This doesn’t even consider that other areas of your site may have been attacked, which can cause other problems. Simply upgrading to the newest version of WP may not help, as the malicious code will still be there.

One of my the best things for me is that the person who manages the technical side of my blog is knowledgeable about programming and WordPress, and he has been able to help me with errors (both human error and a malicious hacking attempt). If you don’t know of a capable person, it would be wise to find someone smart that you trust who can help you at a moment’s notice. There are also plenty of resources on the web that can help you, but sometimes the fixes are complicated.

Always be on the look out for strange things that happen with your blog’s performance and layout, and if you notice something funky, don’t just cast it aside. Search Google, Twitter, and WordPress to see if other people are facing the same issues. Stay on top of WordPress or other platform updates and security warnings, and you may help prevent damage to your website.

Re-Purchase Your Sold Domain Names

Elliot Silver
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There have been a few times where I sold domain names for less than I wanted to sell them. The majority were sold as parts of bulk deals that wouldn’t happen without those specific domain names, and I wanted to close the deals at the time, so I included them. I can’t say that I’ve regretted any deals done in the past, but there are a few domain names I’d love to have back in my portfolio.

With the economy performing poorly and many domain owners looking to raise capital (who isn’t?), now might be a good time to repurchase some of these domain names, perhaps at an even better price than you sold them.

The first thing to do is to check to see if the owner has spent time or money on developing a website on the domain name. If not, you may be in luck, especially since the domain name probably isn’t earning as much revenue as it once was. Send the domain owner an email asking if he would consider re-selling it, and make him an offer.

There will be a fine line between lowballing and trying to get your domain name back for its adjusted market value. Just be cautious, as you don’t want to lowball one of your former clients, as this might lead to future lowballing on his part. I’ve recently bought back a few names that I had sold within the last few years, and now might be a good time for you to do the same.

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