Pedro Sttau

I’m sure this isn’t news for most of you, but it was for me.

Yesterday afternoon, the internet governing body ICANN announced changes to the top level domain system that could have profound implications for the online sector.

In a nutshell, the new policy opens up the internet so that from 2009, anyone can apply buy a top level domain (TLD) such as .card, .hotel or .airline. A move that took much of the industry by surprise, it has prompted a rash of speculation that marketers could be facing a fresh new attack on the integrity of their brands.

While predictions are difficult to make at this early stage, we do not expect to see a sudden surge of cyber-squatting cases. Buying a TLD will be very different to securing a standard domain name, and is unlikely to prove attractive to the casual opportunist.

Every top level domain will cost a minimum of $100,000, a strategy conceived to prevent a registration free-for-all. ICANN is deliberately keeping demand low by strictly limiting purchases to companies and entrepreneurs, a policy designed to recoup the cost of necessary changes to the internet’s infrastructure.

While a repeat of the first internet land-grab is not expected, the change will undoubtedly attract a great deal of interest from online marketers.

What’s so attractive about the prospect of top level domains is that once you purchase one, you can then sell an infinite array of web addresses that fit within it. For example if an entrepreneur bought .shoes, they could then sell www.mens.shoes, www.big.shoes, www.elevator.shoes or any number of useful online locations.

With such obvious potential, the demand for generic domains is likely to be enormous, so snapping up .creditcard, .jobs or .loans isn’t likely to be straightforward. All the hotel groups will be competing for the .hotel domain, for example, and in such cases competed domains will enter into an auction system for sale to the highest bidder.

In the longer term, some of the new TLDs could lead to a shift in the search marketing landscape.

Google has patent applications which note that some domains are hard to get links from - like .gov - and that therefore links from them could be worth more. For example: If someone sets up .globaldigital and only sells domains (at a large cost) to digital marketing agencies that have to pass thorough testing procedures, then when the search engine notices that the TLD’s sites tend to be high quality it should, in theory, add that new domain to its list of “respected” domains.

In many respects, the ICANN announcement leaves us in untested waters. It is possible that domains like .shop or .deals might improve click through rates in adverts, and while Google doesn’t allow superlatives in PPC ads, what happens if someone has a domain on .best?

As ever, the devil will be in the detail, and the facts will become clearer when applications for the new domains open in April 2009. Rest assured that we will continue to monitor the situation closely, and will be in touch to keep you informed of any developments.

You can read more about the ICANN announcement here: http://www.bigmouthmedia.com/live/articles/icann-votes-yes-to-new-toplevel-domains.asp/4887/

Due to several rightful complaints, I removed the embedded videos that were making the Blog very slow to load.

SES San Jose Interview: Steven Marder Eurekster
Channel: toprankresults
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdSQoAj9LBU

SES San Jose 2007 Andy Atkins Kruger -
Channel: toprankresults
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niqX-ZQv63c

SES San Jose Tim Mayer Yahoo -
Channel: toprankresults
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucxd3NNS5kg

SES San Jose 2007 Greg Jarboe and David Dalka
Channel: ackmnmn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtgSo0Xr6Sc

John Marshall Discusses His New Company Market Motives
Channel: ackmnmn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQZsH2Y247E

Looked like real fun, although some of those Googler’s clearly need to get out more often.

Google Dance 2007 - Channel: piutus

Google Dance 2007 - Karaoke Channel: courtrye Proceed at your own rish!

AuctionAds users are reporting severe downtime as well as a drastic drop in revenue.

My client’s to whome I have referenced Actionads are also reporting the same problems. It’s too early to have this sort of problems, if the application wasn’t scalable, why not just postpone the activation of the accounts like a sensible company would? (Ex. Google & analytics accounts)

For those of us who couldn’t be there, I decided to do a coverage of all the video content that I can find from the San Jose Search Engine Strategies conference. Since the content is not mine, I will naturally give all of the credit to the content owners who went through the trouble of documenting the conference and post it on their respective youtube channels.

In case you have any footage you would like to share with me, please feel free to contact me, all the material you send me will be credited to you.

Lets begin with a fantastic footage of the exposition itself, it’s a bit long but worth it. I don’t know the exact date that the video was recorded, so if anyone has any info feel free to post it.

SES San Jose 2007 Exposition - Youtube Channel: ackmnmn

Was just checking out David Naylor’s Aftervote and I must say it’s very impressive.

For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, Aftervote formerly know as Younanimous, is a Search Engine that bases it’s Search results on a voting system similar to the ones we see on most of the Social Networks.

However, the interesting bit is that rather then attempting to fetch it’s own search results (and trying to compete with Google, Yahoo and MSN) it’s using the Search results from these engines and then proceeds to sort them out through a social voting system.

The Ajax back-end makes it really east to get where you want, and the overall design is absolutely impeccable.

I have serious doubts about the scalability of this, but nevertheless it’s a great idea.

A deffinate thumbs up!

According to a poll conducted by the University of Michigan, for the first time Google has been left behind in a Costumer Satisfaction survey. Although the margin is very Small, an interesting pattern seems to be emerging, as Google is belonging to show signs of discontent, specially among IT professionals.

It is also very interesting to see this happen in a crucial turning point for Yahoo, as the new CEO Jerry Yang is about to unfold the companies strategy for the next years.

Note: Big thanks to Rui for bringing this to my attention.

Seems that Google is taking down the paid video rentals and downloads in a couple of days. This of course means that all of the rented videos will no longer be playable.

An email was sent to the Google Video purchasers informing them that they would be credited a fantastic sum of $2 in their Google Checkout accounts, that’s right bonus and gals, not $0.50, not $1, but a total sum of $2 for your troubles!

For god’s sake, why doesn’t this multi million dollar company just reimburse the money people spent with the videos they rented and were expecting to have access too?

Not really knews I know, but I’m posting a followup on this subject and decided to post the orininal post for furture refence.

SEOMOZ: Whiteboard Friday - “You’re Not On The List”

Now this really surprised me. Media Wiz reached an agreement with Shoemoney and his business partner Dillsmack to sell the recently launched AuctionAds platform.

Full Story: Media Whiz Aquires AuctionAds

I’m not really surprised by the sale itself but by the fact that the product hadn’t reached it’s adolescence let alone maturity.

One of the things I really like about Jeremy is that he is a Man that is not afraid of publicly stating his weaknesses. It’s not a very common trait to find these days, and only people who are truly confident on their abilities are able to do this without a twitch.

I never saw Shoe as a “Project maintenance” kind of guy, so when first talked about the Auction Ads project I always wondered how he would do in the support side of things. Just as I thought, not only was it something that he hated doing, but it was also something that he wasn’t particularly happy to do either.

All in all I think it was a good deal for both parties (although I am yet to confirm the figures of the deal) since it’s a product with great potential, and also it’s something that Shoe wouldn’t be too happy to be involved in with the passing of time.

I know this isn’t new, but I just read the story on the NYTimes regarding he lawsuit against Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg for allegedly having stolen the design, concept and even the Business Plan from a University based Social Network - Connectu.com - while he worked there as a programmer.

Now here is where the story starts to piss me off. I have heard countless times of stories of people accusing others of stealing ideas after those ideas are put into practice and have proven to be successful.

The way I see it, there is no property over ideas that are not patented. Even if he did base Facebook on something that was mainly thought by Connectu, why didn’t Connectu act on the idea on the first place?

This World is packed with thinkers and Sayers that don’t really contribute to progress in any way because they spend the entire day thinking, chatting and whining.

An idea is worthless if no one acts on it.

Thank god there are still action orientated people out there who make use of other peoples ideas.

Looks like sony is getting another bite on the social Networking cake having announced the purchase of Gouper for $65 million.

In all honesty I had never heard of the website before, so decided to check it out after my friend Rui Avelar mailed me the news item.
So do you want to see how a 65 Million website looks like?

Here you go boys and gals…

Very disappointing to see Threadwatch close down. The owner Aaron Wall posted some of the reasons that lead to this decision, but I can’t help it feel that regardless of the valid points he makes, there is a place in the industry for ThreadWatch.

I’m curious to see what it going to happen with it. I can see many names lining up to take over the project, so it’s going to be an interesting couple of days.

Thread watch was part of my daily reading routine, congrats to Aaron to keep it going for as long has he did.

http://www.threadwatch.org/node/15907

Shoemoney raises great points regarding Goggles supposed pursuit of Arbitrage sites.
To sum it up, according to Jeremy Google recognizes arbitrage has a valid Business model, hence it’s very unlikely Google is going after these sites, at least int he way thart way described by Jennifer Slegg.