Domain Owl

The domain sandbox always has new opportunities on foreign shores. The explosion of foreign country codes has new and existing domainers watching the auctions and the forums to see where profit taking could happen.

Right now the geo market in the space between Fiji and Samoa looks hot. The collective of Wallis and Futuna is ready to launch its ccTLD.  Two island geographies encompass three French Polynesian tropical island kingdoms.   These three kingdoms of domain entity are oriented under a potentially lucky domain star.

It came to my attention today that the Polynesian island realm of Wallis and Futuna was launching the registry for its country code .wf.  One of my blog colleagues details this release at Domaingang.com.  While the chief impact of the dynamic is the underwater nature of most of the country, the monetary value of the domain possibilities are more than seaworthy. Perhaps the dot-wf tag has meaning for some.

I then started thinking that if they added one island, one tiny dot to the barely sea level Paradise, and named it “Tahlia”, for example, they could have the registry dot-wtf.  The meaning of the name Tahlia is ‘Dew of God; female lamb’. But the noun “Terra” could serve just as well. But any number of Futanan terms could work too. Perhaps a name to commemorate one of the kingdoms.

The wonder of words, of language, is infinite. Just by supplying one more entity the capital letter T could deliver a tidal wave of value crashing over this landing strip of a country. A banana republic of names might sprout up. Right now there is mostly white sands, churches and pigs crowding Wallis and Futuna.

Wallis, Tahlia and Futana as a nation could grow their export sales by 15% of the current monetary level. The current GDP per capita is about $12,000 US.  The “underwater” appellation is indeed more than a jest, the highest point in the territory is Mont Singavi at 765 meters above sea level.  But additions to the land mass could happen if an Internet boom rushed more CPC French currency into the island enclave.

Is anybody letting the Polynesians sitting on the beach of this fact? The island territory nation could have a gold mine on its hands if the ccTLD is manipulated correctly. Somebody smart should get a charter plane to the Futana airport and check out the local business men, possibly at Lake Lalolalo. Cannibals and Catholic churches stud the colorful island past.

No other opportunities will be cropping up for Wallis Futana soon. Current Wallis Futana tourism bemoans the lack of fresh water. The tour guide features churches and discos, but it read something like the description of Marlon Brando’s personal island, with logistics and supply problems that make habitability an “adventure”.

I believe the sales for domains ending in .wtf are endless.  WTF is instant slang loosely translated as “what is this and why? (emphasis)”. This may be one of the most easily recognizable and easily translatable phrases in the English language worldwide. Put any word in front of “wtf” and you have an idea, and a reaction.

The obvious keywords or any video tag instantly becomes a domain, a brand, a trademark, and a destination. The type-in traffic possibilities are astounding. Everybody could entertain themselves incessantly looking up the clever workings of ‘noun’ or “verb”. wtf. It translates into any language. Image tags could leverage search traffic infinitely and repeatedly.

Ironically the correct term  for the island state is (French) Collectivite d’outre-mer (COM) or French overseas collectivity.  technically, Wallis Futana is already a “COM”. That’s domain karma like I’ve never seen it. The online land grab for .wtf names might tilt the axis of the earth. The potential for video based sites with Youtube or other video clips is limitless.

Such names and sites would be inordinately discoverable. But is geographic manipulation of nations really legal for online real estate name development? The online domain name population is ready to buy. Presales could bring the land mass of Wallis and Futuna above sea level. So, how many Polynesian speaking domainers are now occupying office space on Wallis and Fortuna?

The only bank in Wallis and Futana is a division of BNP Paribas. The merchant marine furnishes fishing rights to other countries as export sales,  and the .wf development supposedly is suspended in favor of the .fr and .nc (Nouvelle Calédonie) data codes. Nicholas Sarkozy is titular head of state.

If the business men of Wallis and Futana might implement the renaming of the region or the locals might vote it into place, the communication costs, transportation facilities, and other civil resources  of Wallisian and Futanan life could skyrocket. The real estate land grab for .wtf might build (another paved) airport, a health system, schools, and jobs.

Does anyone have the guts to make it happen?

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I was discussing the recent headlines regarding Google and typo names and for me the dominant term was PPC and typo, for him the dominant phrase was “$500 million”. That’s a planet full of money Google is raking in. What are they doing with it, exactly?

Typo traffic used to be a sideline for domain namers. Typos were names that sound like big names and popular online destinations. Domainers took a risk buying the names because you never knew when the dreaded C & D letter might arrive. But the sites would accrue traffic because humans have a tendency to misspell when working the address bar.

But $500 million is a lot of money to be changing hands without some whistles being blown. if the big money in domains has putatively transferred to an all-typo model, then get crackin’ regging those typos. Hand reg, main reg with your hosting company, or buy the typo from another domainer. See if typo domain markets are your domaining bag.

Kick the tires on a typo today and see what happens.

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Manly man on the scene! Actor Isaiah has ignited the Web with his Old Spice tongue in cheek commercial. Easily the funniest viral video to come down the internet pike in some time, this internet clip shows what one funny (and modestly produced) video can do for a brand.

Manly Man got a ton of Google detritus, but Old Spice manly (commercial) was a Google fill-in. On-target marketing from a brand formerly associated with staggering sailors with knotty muscles wearing striped jerseys and sandals.

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If you’re wondering why so much development is happening in video portals these days, take this down. Video websites feed via upload on video portals like Guba, Hulu, and Youtube. The networks have taken steps to protect their content by encapsulating it inside proprietary software environments.

ABC has had live video feeds via thin client of some of its shows for years now, as well as CBS and NBC. Yet all three of these networks have struggling applications, overloaded websites, and flattened error prone blank white screens on any event. Wherefore no hosting robustness, alphabets?

The day after the premiere of LOST’s episode, the abc main website struggles to load. The saturation black screen is almost 95% blank, and any click gets a white screen with a few html plain wrap links. Does the architecture really by video really kill these sites, or are they poorly designed for their bandwidth?

NBC has wrapped its Olympics coverage in Silverlight, which I was informed yesterday by many system messages could not be downloaded or installed. Yesterday I was informed by ABC’s site I was in another country, not the United States and could not view the video. And CBS stalls every day after a Survivor episode airs.

Frankly, only Fox TV can get it right. Gordon Ramsey wouldn’t have it any other way. But it seems end users can support video portals as well as mega media corps. So buy the video name, launch the portal, and greet your viewers. Because the lines at the source are long.

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Are you a domain hunter or a domain gatherer? The domain name premium name and aftermarket and resales market has settled all domainers into a hunting and gathering type platform.

The available market is ready to tap for both new and used domain names of varying types.

Do you specialize in identifying great names or inventing new names which will build in value, or do you excel rather at acquiring a broad spectrum of domain names and hope to capitalize on value through piecemeal marketing and promotion and eventual resale?

Hunters in the domain world stalk the droplists and auctions, scanning the globe for that big game name that will set their world on fire. Gatherers patiently embroider traffic and content value on names of specious value with breadcrumb benefit. But a lot of breadcrumbs can make a Google Adsense check.

Gatherers tend to pick up the bargains and unwanted stepchildren of the domain aftermarket, but can also rescue a stray dog and polish it into a mid $XXX to low $XXXX resale. Gatherers may also be sitting on grouped domains of value for enterprise commencement down the line.

Taking the caveman approach to domaining, the hunter or gatherer philosophy can work to establish a portfolio of domains and brush up on those sales skills. Just make sure your domaining activities are not the neanderthal habits of the get-rich-quick -with-no-work domainer.

But the domain name buy does not a domainer make. Every domainer should be developing some of their domains. With development today being the attendant effort to define value for any domain name, the no-development approach to domaining is as irrelevant and extinct as the dinosaur.

Don’t be a domaining dinosaur. Get developing, now!

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Got hyphen names? Once the ugly stepchild of domain names, the hyphen market has been heating up. This is especially true of the international market, where the hyphen is more tolerated and favored by less typing-averse cultures. Should you have a hyphenate in your domain bucket?

Hyphen names can be derived form great slogans or phrases yet joined so the all-important message gets through. Don’t think browsers will type in all those characters? Use a small or short domain to do the heavy linking. Forward all your traffic to the hyphenate domain url while getting the sweet SEO keywords you want.

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Submitted By: Halstatt Pires

When you first start promoting Adsense on your site, the potential is obvious. After a few months, however, you need to move to the next level to maximize revenues.

When it comes to Adsense optimization, most will talk about different ad sizes and colors. These can make a difference, but the biggest and best enhancement has everything to do with placement.

Assume you are reading the sports page or some other part of the paper one morning. The page is full of images, text and advertisements. What do you see? Typically, you first read the headlines and look at the images. After that, you either read a story of interest or turn the page.

You will note that I didn’t mention looking at advertisements. This is because you will have developed a filter over time that causes you to ignore the ads on the pages. In practical terms, this is the equivalent of Pavlov’s dogs, but backwards. You know the ads are in certain areas and you just tend to avoid them naturally so you can focus on why your team is losing, you stock bombed or the latest scandal. This concept applies to the web as well.

People inherently avoid advertisements on web pages including Adsense ads. The number one Adsense improvement you can make is to move your ads. Should you place your ads at the top? The bottom? The side columns? The answer to all of these questions is absolutely not. Here comes the secret [drum roll].

The best location for your ads is in the middle of the page. For most sites, this means between the paragraphs of text on a page. Few sites take this approach, so readers are not conditioned to skip over the ads. Since Adsense ads track with the keywords on the page, this position is a gold mine because the ads are read by the visitor as the naturally move down the page. If they naturally read it, a higher percentage of them will click through and that is good news for your revenues.

There are a lot of tips on how to generate more revenue with Adsense. When you cut through the riff raff, however, the placement of your ads is everything. Try it and see.

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