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‘Tis The Season – For Online Spending?

rick-schwartz.jpgEach year before the holidays, domain investors wonder whether the coming season will mark a breakthrough for interactive marketing campaigns. As online media continues to grow and thrive, we continue to wonder why companies still devote so much advertising spend on traditional media (print/tv) when statistics seem to indicate that people are spending more time online than reading the newspaper.

Will this be the year companies devote the appropriate advertising spend for online activities? Rick wonders aloud whether companies will finally “get it” and convert some of their traditional print and television advertising dollars into online spends. My gut says this won’t be the year, but I think things are beginning to change. Interactive marketing is fun, less inhibited, and better able to engage the viewer… I digress, but more on that in a future post!

From Rick’s Blog:

“So will THIS be the online Christmas many have always expected? Will the same sorry folks be marched out to tell you not to spend online? How dangerous it is? Marched out like a political attack machine because they know their days are numbered? These people who are funded by those with most to lose. Is this the year they get it? Can they figure out that Google is approaching $800/share for a reason? That they are the fastest growing, most valuable company in the world for a reason? Can they figure out that the newspapers are not only going down in circulation but in readerehip as well?? Same with other mediums. And talk about “Stickyness”…….Imagine how many MINUTES someone used to read a newspaper or magazine and how many minutes they read now?”

Read the rest of this post here.

Kudos to the USPS for “Getting It!”

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On October 3, I blogged about the United States Postal Service’s campaign to make consumers aware of threats posed by scammers. In that post, I said that the campaign was great, but “the USPS should never have used a .org domain name where the .com is taken. If they needed to have that specific .org, they should have bought the .com for whatever it cost.” Well, as it turns out, the USPS did buy FakeChecks.com the following day. According to the Whois History service, they utilized the services of Sedo on 10/4, and it now shows the USPS as current owners.

Congratulations to the USPS for “getting it” both figuratively, and for litterally getting it, by purchasing the name they needed much more than the previous owner. Now all they need to do is forward that URL to FakeChecks.org, as the .com currently shows a “Welcome to Your New Virtual Private Server!” message.

Not a Smart Start for Yahoo’s Kickstart

Yahoo recently announced the launch of Kickstart, a new social networking site.    I wanted to check it out, so I navigated to Kickstart.com, and I found a Network Solutions “Coming Soon” landing page.    Curious, I did a Whois search for Kickstart.com, and I learned that Yahoo doesn’t own this name.    It’s owned by a company called Toe-Food Chocolates, and has been owned by them since at least February of 2003.    Yahoo’s Kickstart website is actually located at kickstart.yahoo.com.    

Although this is in line with Yahoo’s other brands (http://finance.yahoo.com as an example), I think this is very shortsighted.    Perhaps Yahoo is looking in to acquiring this great generic name, but wouldn’t it have made more sense to acquire the name before launching the brand?    I can’t even imagine the amount of traffic that has been lost in the last few days. It would probably be better if Kickstart.com was a developed website so visitors would know to look elsewhere. Because of the landing page that is currently on the website, visitors may just assume the site hasn’t launched yet.

Search Bar – “What Can I Serve You?”

There have been plenty of times where I walked into a bar and asked for a beer that the bar doesn’t stock.    Of course, I ordered a different beer, but for the sake of this post, let’s say that I really wanted a particular kind of beer, and when the bartender informed me that he doesn’t have it, I walked out and went to the bar down the street.

If this scenario happens just once or twice, the lost business probably won’t cost the bar much money.    However, if this is a recurring situation, it would be in the bar’s best interest to begin carrying the requested beers to satisfy the needs of its customers and not miss out on a revenue generating idea.

Likewise on a website, the owner should do his best to provide content that is of interest to his visitors.    Oftentimes if a visitor doesn’t find what he needs, he will use the search bar to locate it.    A savvy website/domain owner will use the search log information to see what his visitors are looking for but can’t seem to find.    He will then make adjustments to his product/content selection to ensure the needs of his visitors are met.    

The lost revenue from one or two visitors may be small, but if you can learn about what your customers want and offer it to them, you are sure to satiate your visitors’ thirst for information.

(Special thanks to Jonathan for reminding me about how important the search bar can be to a domain owner!)

Barry Diller’s IAC Split into Five Units

This morning, Barry Diller’s Internet conglomerate IAC announced they will split into five separate publicly traded companies.   The break down is as follows:

IAC
Ask.com, Citysearch, IAC Advertising Solutions, Evite, iWon, My Way, Match.com, CollegeHumor, GarageGames, and  Gifts.com

HSN
HSN TV, hsn.com, and  Cornerstone Brands

Ticketmaster
Ticketmaster

Interval International
Interval International

LendingTree
LendingTree

By breaking IAC up into smaller operating units, investors will be able to focus on the individual businesses in each unit, and one poor performing website will have less of an impact on the value of the entire company. Personally, I like the unit that will retain the IAC brand.   More information about this can be found on Yahoo Finance.

Online Impact of Writers Guild Strike

When the Writers Guild of America held their first labor strike in 1988, television viewers turned to cable as an alternative to the regular shows they were missing, and they clearly embraced the programming.    That first strike lasted 22 weeks, and the impact of  it can still be seen today in America’s television viewing habits, which continue to rely on cable television as its main source of entertainment.

How will the Writers Guild strike of 2007 impact us in this day and age of the Internet?    If the first strike was indicative of what will happen,  people  will probably  spend more time entertaining themselves online rather than watching reruns on television.    User generated content, which is always  well stocked,  should be in high demand.   Sites such as YouTube will certainly benefit from the strike.

Unique content will be key to turning eyeballs into dollars.  People will be looking to satiate their viewing needs, and if they can get their fix on the Internet, they will certainly be back for more.  This could be a great opportunity for some websites to become more mainstream and capture a new audience of Internet savvy viewers.

I think  Doug Aamoth said it best on Crunch Gear,

“To those of you in the Writers Guild; whether or not I agree with the reason you’re striking, I wish you the best of luck and I hope you consider creating content for the web. And if you do, I hope you’ll realize that you don’t need the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to get that content onto the Internet.” — Source: Crunch Gear

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