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Adapting to the Changing Internet Landscape

Elliot Silver
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Back from a short trip to the beach. I’ve been reading quite a bit on the new vanity TLDs, and the best conclusion I can come to is that nobody really knows for certain how things will play out. Neither the people who are vociferously stating that .com will always be king (myself included), nor those who are saying that new extensions will cause major sweeping changes to the Internet, really know for sure whether their opinions will be accurate.
What is for sure is that some people will take a big financial risk with these new extensions and some people will remain on the sidelines. In five years, there will be some obvious winners and there will be some obvious losers, but the answers will not be seen over night. I am eagerly observing from the sidelines for now, observing what my friends are doing, getting ready to make changes to my business model if they are necessary. Change is essential to growth, and being able to adapt to industry changes is fundamental.
The domain industry has changed quite a bit, even in the five years that I’ve been involved in the industry. The one constant thing is that the people who are able to adapt to the changes and work within the new parameters are those who are successful. While my thinking about .com may be inaccurate, I (and others) will still manage to do well if we are able to notice changes quickly, and are able to adapt to these changes rapidly. Just because I didn’t buy my first domain names in 1995 doesn’t mean that I wasn’t able to be successful. I found the industry later than many, but I learned as much as I could, took some risks and the rest is history.
It is great to see all the dialog about the new extensions on domain forums, blogs, and other news outlets. We are at a time of major change in the domain industry and in the history of the Internet. If you are reading this blog and other domain resources, it is likely that you realize how important this time is for all of us. Pay attention to the things going on in the industry, watch the industry veterans and media companies to learn about their plans, and invest wisely. You don’t have to be a trendsetter to make money, but you have to be able to adapt to the changes to avoid becoming obsolete.

Vanity TLDs (vTLD) Approved

Elliot Silver
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Much talk has been had about the new ‘top level’ domains that were approved by ICANN today in Paris. This ruling will allow companies, groups, and individuals to petition ICANN to create new “Vanity TLDs,” (term coined by David Castello) which in my opinion will end up creating considerable confusion among consumers and huge costs to companies who need to protect their trademarks. This is good news for people who have been working to pass this in an effort to launch new extensions (renewal fees), and it is also good news for .com owners, as the more extensions are created, the more consumers will navigate back to the familiar .com.

Over the past few years, many new extensions have been created – some of which I hadn’t heard of until reading up on this. Included in the list of “newer” but obviously less-used include .pro, .biz, .travel, .mobi, .asia, .jobs, .museum…etc. The entire list of current TLD can be found on ICANN’s website. In terms of usage by consumers, I don’t think there are any websites with these extensions currently in the top 20,000 websites according to Alexa (correct me if I am wrong).

With all the .com branding that’s been done by companies telling consumers to visit their .com website, I highly doubt many will jump at the opportunity to spend upwards of $100,000 to apply for a corporate Vanity TLD (vTLD), and then spend millions of dollars convincing consumers to use it. Sure, some will try it, but if nothing else, it will probably end up watering down their brand and confuse consumers.

Although ICANN is supposedly prohibiting TM-related extensions except for companies that own the TM, companies like Amazon and Apple are almost forced to spend the $100,000 application fee since one could argue that their company name is generic and not protected. Since ICANN plans to auction Vanity TLDs that have multiple bidders, Apple could conceivable pay much more to get .apple so Apple Bank or an apple grower can’t take it.

Here is an example of why using Vanity TLD will pose a problem for companies and even non-trademark related uses. Let’s use Ebay for a second. Sure, it would be cool if they had Art.Ebay, Autographs.Ebay, SportsMemorabilia.Ebay…etc. Great, right? Well, what happens when consumers confusingly type in SportsMemorabiliaEbay.com by mistake? This is going to create hundreds of thousands of additional typos, which will most certainly be grabbed by cybersquatters. While this sucks for Ebay, they are going to have to spend millions of dollars going after these cybersquatters to avoid the traffic run-off. Same thing with any other Vanity TLD. People will assume its .com.

The .com has worked for many years, and it won’t be negatively impacted. These new Vanity TLD will give people the opportunity to buy strong keywords in various extensions, but it won’t likely change web browsing habits. Companies who want to be serious will still use .com, and the values will increase as more people come online.

Affiliate Relationships on GeoWebsites

Elliot Silver
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I’ve been so busy developing some of my other sites, that I haven’t had time to focus on getting advertisers for Lowell.com. My plan is to launch three more sites before I get married and go on my honeymoon (early August), and focus on getting advertisers upon my return. That said, I certainly won’t turn advertisers down, and I have been receiving inquiries for advertising space on Lowell.com and already have a paying advertiser on TropicalBirds.com.
In the meantime, I’ve established a couple of affiliate relationships to help drive revenue, and I wanted to share this idea with you. I became a LegalZoom.com affiliate, and I am offering their services on the Lowell.com Legal Services section. Additionally, I have an entire page dedicated to them on the site to attract search traffic. While it has not been optimized yet, I plan to optimize it to capitalize on the long tail search traffic once it is optimized.
While income is not guaranteed with an affiliate, the sky is the limit for earning potential. Conceivably, I will need visitors to Lowell.com to complete 2-3 transactions a month to make it worthwhile. Additionally, since I don’t have paying advertisers yet, it isn’t bumping another advertiser. In fact, I think it might encourage an advertiser to sign up, lest he lose local business to this growing Internet company.
Only time will tell to see how this plays out, but the affiliate program at LZ seems top notch, and setting this up was a breeze. In between developing some of my sites, I am going to search for similar affiliate programs for Lowell.com and eventually Burbank.com. If you happen to know of any that are great, drop me a note.

TechCrunch: Amazon Acquires Fabric.com

Elliot Silver
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Adding to its growing stable of business units, Amazon.com recently acquired Fabric.com and its business assets. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but Fabric.com will continue to function as its own entity. Amazon’s acquisition of a somewhat unrelated company is an interesting move, in this era of corporate refocusing on core competency.
With a tough economy, now might be a great time for a large company like Amazon to pick up some great business assets at good prices. The question is, what can Amazon do to avoid the same fate as IAC?
Thanks to Brad for sending the story.

Domain Auction Acts of Impropriety

Elliot Silver
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An important discussion continues to be had at Mike Berken’s blog regarding companies who participate in their own drop auctions. The short summary is that Mike bid on (and won) 23 drop auctions at Tucows, only to be told later that the names were part of Tucows’ portfolio. Apparently these names were accidentally listed during Tucows’ transition from their auction platform to Afternic’s.
These domain names were taken out of Mike’s account, after he paid for them, and the only compensation he received was an apology and a refund. Nothing was given to Mike to compensate him for his time searching for these domain names and his time bidding on them. Mike is no spring chicken when it comes to the domain industry, and judging by the quality of names Mike has and continues to purchase, these were probably significantly valued domain names.
The conversation has turned into one about ethics, and the discussion moved to whether employees should be prohibited from bidding on their company’s auctions. While I think it is necessary that domain companies hire people who know the domain industry, I think employees should be prohibited from bidding on their own company’s auctions – or on domain names where their company could benefit from the results (ie: registrar who outsources domain drops but profits based on the final sales price).
Denying a company employee access to various stats or proxy bid information for a domain name isn’t the remedy. As long as there is the appearance of a possible conflict of interest, there is a problem. As domain investors, we could be getting screwed without even knowing it.
I think this is a conversation that needs to be had, and all domain auction houses and drop companies should pay attention. Check out the discussion on Mike’s Blog when you get a chance.

Great Blog of Interest With Focus on Hosting

Elliot Silver
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Richard Douglas of Secure Host has a great new blog appropriately named “Too Many Secrets” that domain investors and developers alike should read. For the past few months, Richard has been giving me great (unsolicited but much appreciated) advice regarding my development projects, and it has been really appreciated. For anyone that has developed websites, or if you are thinking about developing your websites, Richard’s Blog is one I recommend.
Hosting is often the last thing people think about when they are building a website, but it is a critical component to any successful website. There are different types of hosting plans, there are laws that could impact a business based on the location of a company’s servers, there are ways to enhance a website’s security…etc. There are many things that need to be considered that seasoned professionals may miss when launching a website. Richard is very familiar with all of this, and he is also familiar with the domain space. He has been offering me fantastic advice, and I think readers of my blog will benefit from reading Richard’s blog.
TooManySecrets.com is going to be a very popular blog, and I highly recommend you check it out.

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