Happy Holidays
Happy Holidays to you and all your loved ones.
(picture by me)
Year: 2005
Summary of the debate for the Canadian Elections
Trina: I am going to play/ask a
question now, but don’t worry, your answer does not have to be related
to the question at all. As long as you stick to your time limit,
anything goes.
Jack: The question does not
really matter, and I am not going to spend any time on telling you what
we will be doing. What matters is what the liberals did wrong.
Steve: We are going to do
everything better and everyone is going to get more money and have to
pay less taxes. How? I am not telling.
Paul: We were just about to
take care of everything we promised and we were also mending what we
broke, but the other parties are not letting us finish!
Gilles: The only thing what
matters is what Quebec wants. And just so you know, we know exactly
what Quebec wants, because we are Quebec. And don’t forget, everything
is a provincial issue. C’est la faut du federal!
(And I didn’t even need to watch all of it to write this summary 
)
Face recognition for everyone?
I recently came across Riya, a new online photo service.
Basically this is a service where you upload your pictures and identify
people in the pictures. The system will then also be able to identify
the same people on other pictures. Sounds like something Flickr should
be adding.
The part that I am not so sure about here is the privacy. Making all of
this information publicly available is certainly a concern – just think
about all the places that would love to license and have access to this
information in order to identify people.
Response from Blinds to Go.
So Open Letters on Blog actually do get a response. Here the one I got a while back with regards to my Open Letter to Blinds to Go. Your Open letter to us is brought to our attention by a Blinds To Go employee today. We apologize for your not getting the information the first time you asked for it. But here is the link (https://www.blindstogo.com/blindstogo/customerservice/privacypolicy.asp) to our Privacy Policy - it is applicable to customers purchased from our stores as well as online. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We have already made sure to inform our stores about our Privacy Policy. As per your request, we will remove your information from our future mailings. Meanwhile, we will be investigating why you have been receiving our offers. Response to a follow-up email: Yes, the same policy applies to both US and Canadian stores. We have now informed all our stores about it and will remind them regularly so that new employees will be aware of it as well. Thank you for your suggestion Please feel free to post our response to your website. Meanwhile, we hope you will continue to enjoy our products and services and share your experience with us and the online community.
Domain Editorial – a new blog
I have recently started a new blog, which I would still consider in
Beta Status. You will see fewer posts on domain name related issues
here, since those are being moved to the “Domain Editorial“, which is located at http://www.domaineditorial.com/ .
First time inTerminal 1
.jpg)
Terminal 1 in Toronto.
Evening Sky
3.jpg)
Evening Sky at the Exhibition in Toronto.
If I ran a newspaper, it’s website would be a blog
If I had a newspaper, my website would be a blog. And since some people
still like to get the printed word, my printed paper would be generated
from the blog at a certain time and then go to the presses. If I had a
magazine, it would be the same – just that it gets printed once a month.
I would probably have more content, and more interaction with my
readers. This would mean a shift in the way the authors work, but it
would also enrich my publication and probably make it more objective.
My publication would attract more readers from all over the world, and
different types of advertisers. There would be advertising on the site,
related to the articles it surrounds where possible. My advertisers
could better track the results of their advertising, and since the ads
are better target, they would achieve better results.
If I had a certain size of online readership, I could even consider
charging for subscriptions to some of the sections of the site.
But then again, if I was a publisher of a newspaper or a magazine I
would probably not be able to relate to any of this. I might be out of
business before putting any of this into action, but in any case it
will take me years to realize that I should focus on the online
presence of my paper.
If I ran a radio station, my website would have a blog. I would offer
PodCasts of my shows. I would offer songs for download against a small
fee.
If I ran a TV station, my website would have a blog. Where legally
possible I would offer VideoCasts of my shows. Where possible I would
charge a small fee for those downloads.
(This is something I have thought about before, but this specific post was inspired by Bucko. Thanks!)
economy.com sells for $27 million
Moody’s Corporation Acquires Economy.com not just the domain though:
Moody’s
Corporation (NYSE: MCO) today announced that it has acquired
Economy.com, a leading independent provider of economic research and
data services, for US$27 million. The acquisition will deepen Moody’s
analytical capabilities to broader areas of economic and demographic
research, expand the range of products and services offered to
institutional customers and introduce new customers to Moody’s. It will
provide Economy.com with access to Moody’s extensive client base, deep
product marketing capabilities, and other resources needed to expand
its business. The transaction was funded by cash on hand and closed
today. Additional terms of the transaction will not be disclosed and
the financial impact to Moody’s is not expected to be material.
Corporation (NYSE: MCO) today announced that it has acquired
Economy.com, a leading independent provider of economic research and
data services, for US$27 million. The acquisition will deepen Moody’s
analytical capabilities to broader areas of economic and demographic
research, expand the range of products and services offered to
institutional customers and introduce new customers to Moody’s. It will
provide Economy.com with access to Moody’s extensive client base, deep
product marketing capabilities, and other resources needed to expand
its business. The transaction was funded by cash on hand and closed
today. Additional terms of the transaction will not be disclosed and
the financial impact to Moody’s is not expected to be material.
Business 2.0 on Domainers and Domains as an investment strategy
Quote:
But considering that Schilling’s traffic generated more than 1 percent of Yahoo’s $3.6 billion [...]
The December issue of Business 2.0 features an article about the Master$ of their Domain$ by Paul Sloan. A great piece and well worth the read. As Peter Ejtel already hinted in his blog, the publicity of recent sales was only the start. There also was an article in the Wall Street Journal, entitled “Thanks to web ads, some find new money in Domain Names“.
The article overall is written in an entertaining and positive style,
so it should help to promote the industry. However we probably don’t
have to wait a long time to see more articles, some of them probably
not this positive. All in all a great start for the big wave of
publicity that this industry is going to receive. Maybe even I can find
the time to write an article.
Some exerpts:
Today,
Schwartz owns about 5,000 names, with less than a third falling into
the “adult” category. [...] he claims, that[’s] are earning him $2
million a year.
Schwartz owns about 5,000 names, with less than a third falling into
the “adult” category. [...] he claims, that[’s] are earning him $2
million a year.
[...]
The secret? It has to do with what’s known as type-in traffic, or, in
Wall Street jargon, direct navigation. Though it may seem odd in the
era of powerful search engines, it turns out that millions of Internet
surfers don’t use search at all. Instead, they type what they’re
looking for right into the top of their Web browser. Looking to buy
candy? Type in Candy.com, a name Schwartz bought in May 2002 for
$108,000. A page filled with links to candy-related products comes up.
Click on one of the ads and the advertiser pays Google, which in turn
sends a share to Schwartz and the company that runs Candy.com. Some
days Candy.com makes Schwartz $300 in profits; the site paid for itself
in a year and a half.
Wall Street jargon, direct navigation. Though it may seem odd in the
era of powerful search engines, it turns out that millions of Internet
surfers don’t use search at all. Instead, they type what they’re
looking for right into the top of their Web browser. Looking to buy
candy? Type in Candy.com, a name Schwartz bought in May 2002 for
$108,000. A page filled with links to candy-related products comes up.
Click on one of the ads and the advertiser pays Google, which in turn
sends a share to Schwartz and the company that runs Candy.com. Some
days Candy.com makes Schwartz $300 in profits; the site paid for itself
in a year and a half.
[...]
Besides some of the more or less well known domainers, the UltSearch
portfolio sale, the “factcheck.com” story, the article also features an
investor in this industry, one of the founders of Internet REIT (Internet Real Estate), also featured in the Wall Street Journal article.
Rabin teamed up a year ago with a Harvard-trained finance whiz named
Bob Martin and domain speculator Marc Ostrofsky. They named their
company Internet REIT and, according to Ostrofsky, are spending $250
million, probably far more, buying out domain owners as fast as they
can find good names. (Ostrofsky, for the record, was the man who pulled
off the much-publicized sale of Business.com for a reported $7.5
million in December 1999.)
Bob Martin and domain speculator Marc Ostrofsky. They named their
company Internet REIT and, according to Ostrofsky, are spending $250
million, probably far more, buying out domain owners as fast as they
can find good names. (Ostrofsky, for the record, was the man who pulled
off the much-publicized sale of Business.com for a reported $7.5
million in December 1999.)
[...]
Ostrofsky pulls aside Bahlitzanakis, the Ye worshiper. Bahlitzanakis,
who works from his apartment in Queens, N.Y., owns fewer than 100
names, but at least one is a gem: Cellphones.com. The site — a plain
page with relevant links —
makes an average of $1,300 a day.
[...]
He returns to his hotel room in the early morning to find a contract
under his door. Total price: $4.2 million. He paid $90 for the name in
1996.
who works from his apartment in Queens, N.Y., owns fewer than 100
names, but at least one is a gem: Cellphones.com. The site — a plain
page with relevant links —
makes an average of $1,300 a day.
[...]
He returns to his hotel room in the early morning to find a contract
under his door. Total price: $4.2 million. He paid $90 for the name in
1996.
Very good timing, considering Rick Schwartz has just announced his preliminary schedule for the Silicon Valley TRAFFIC conference.