Like many domain investors, I’ve never developed a complete website. I know I should develop all of my names, but development is difficult and it takes quite a bit of time and money. For the past few weeks, I’ve been working on the development of Lowell.com off line. After careful consideration, I have decided to blog about my ongoing experiences to give other domain investors insight into this development project.
While I hope this will give others the opportunity to witness a successful (or unsuccessful) development undertaking, selfishly, I want to document my progress so I can emulate and/or make improvements on my next project. I hope to be able to provide full details about various aspects of the development process, and I welcome any comments or advice.
So begins the journey into “The Lowell Project.”
***UPDATED BY ELLIOT***
Just as an FYI, the current site looks absolutely nothing like how the final website will look. I am keeping the current site up (which came along with the domain name) in order to avoid delisting in search engines that could possibly occur if I take it down.
Developing Domain Names: The Lowell Project
End of Year Checklist: Buy Your Office Supplies
As the year winds down, and the final hours of 2007 are upon us, there aren’t many things that can be done that will be impactful on 2008. One fairly small (buy often overlooked) thing that can still be done is purchasing your office supplies for the new year.
I don’t know about you, but most of my trips to Staples ended in small purchases of random things for the business. I needed printers, pens, folders, binders, ink…etc. Lots of various office supplies were needed throughout the year. Well, this year I am going to do things a bit differently. I have a list of the office supplies I used throughout the year as well as a list of supplies I currently have “in stock.” I am going to Staples this afternoon and will buy everything I can possibly use for next year that I can fit into my apartment. While this isn’t going to be thousands of dollars worth of supplies by any stretch, it will be save me a few dollars come tax time.
There have been a couple of accounting programs I wanted to try out in lieu of my Excel workbook accounting, and this is the perfect time to buy them!
Wired Magazine: Vote on Tech Trends
Wired magazine discusses tech trends for 2008, and they are running an editor and user-submitted vote on predictions for the new year. One vote of interest to people in the domain investment community is the poll question related to the .mobi extension:
“Get ready for a new internet extention (sic): .mobi for mobile devices and cell phones”
Will corporate America and independent web developers make 2008 a boom year for .mobi, or will issues like the voided .mobi auction lead investors to publicly air their grievances about the situation?
Legal Ramifications of Breaking a Deal
On Thursday, I discussed the business ramifications of backing out of a domain deal, and how doing so can potentially cause major damage to a person’s reputation. Both publicly and privately, I’ve heard from a few people about this type of issue, and it really seems to be a big problem in the industry. For whatever reason, some people believe that just because an official contract created by attorney was not signed by both parties, the agreement is not legally binding.
Yesterday, my friend Mike Berkens discussed the legal aspect of a buyer reneging on a deal. There are many variables that come into play with a situation like this, so it isn’t always cut and dry.
While most domain transactions probably wouldn’t be worth the expense and hassle of filing a lawsuit if an agreement was breeched, it might merit a call to an attorney to explore the options. In all cases, the buyer should take some time to decide whether its really worth fighting, as legal action isn’t usual a simple process. A business case/cost benefit analysis should be made to determine whether the outcome would benefit the business based on the potential costs.
Whatever the case may be, I think everyone can agree that backing out of an agreement is in poor form.
Smart (Domain) Thinking in Indianapolis
Compliments to the folks who run the city of Indianapolis official website. They recently changed their domain name from IndyGov.org to Indy.gov. According to their press release:
“The Mayor’s administration and ISA have been working for more than a year to obtain permission from the federal government to use the new, shorter domain name which will make the site easier to promote and make local services more accessible to Indianapolis residents.“
Indy.gov is easier for visitors to remember, and there is no confusion as to whether the city runs the site or not, as .gov domain names are only run by governmental entities. Smart thinking! I would have recommended trying to obtain Indianapolis.gov as well, but maybe that can be done later.
One free piece of advice I would like to offer (even as a Patriots fan!) is to make sure the original IndyGov.org domain name doesn’t expire!! Keep this domain name and forward it to the new website to ensure visitors to the old domain name do not get lost. This domain name should be kept forever, as people may have linked to it, bookmarked it, and city promotional materials may have this old domain name listed.
There have been many cases where organizations neglect to renew an old domain name, and it can cause major problems!