Oakville Carousel of Nations
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Croatian Music
Month: October, 2005
Oakville Carousel of Nations
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Musicians and Dancers from Ghana
Oakville Carousel of Nations
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Steel drums in the Oakville Town Hall
Oakville Carousel of Nations
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Multicultural Festival in Oakville
good morning
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It’s cold, but the sky looks very nice this morning.
A different Business model for release of .EU
.EU is coming – Let the money-making begin: I was just checking the list of accredited registrars on the EURid website, when I noticed several applications from one Austrian city. All of those also have the same address details:
eu-artemis.at web invest gmbh & co KEG
eu-eos.at web invest gmbh & co KEG
eu-hera.at web invest gmbh & co KEG
eu-nemesis.at web invest gmbh & co KEG
eu-asteria.at web invest gmbh & co KEG
eu-iris.at web invest gmbh & co KEG
eu-kybele.at web invest gmbh & co KEG
eu-maia.at web invest gmbh & co KEG
eu-poena.at web invest gmbh & co KEG
eu-rhea.at web invest gmbh & co KEG
Why would you need multiple registrars?
Each registrar has an assigned amount of to the connections to the
registry. Each connection can accept one command (i.e. register,
transfer, delete, renew or modify a domain) at a time. The more
connections you have, the more likely the registrar is to be able to
register certain domains first. So this works similar to trying
to catch dropping names in other registries.
So when the registry opens, they will start trying to register a list
of domains on all of their registrar connections. Since they own a pool
of those, they have a higher chance of getting certain names than
registrars that share their connections across all of their customers.
Now if you go to any of the websites of the above listed companies, you
will be told, that all of their registrations are handled by “realtime.at“. According to a search there also has been plenty of web/pr and press coverage in German on this company.
So what’s the business model?
Charge the registrants a higher than normal fee, which
determines the order of the registrations. Their price list currently states
the information for ranks 1-15 for each of the phases. The pricing
ranges from 385 Euro for rank 15 in the Landrush (general registration)
phase to 4,500 Euro for the first rank in the first Sunrise (trademark
etc.) phase. All prices are before tax. If I got the math right,
selling all of those spots would add up to 70,310 Euro. It looks like
they will not charge the users if the registration is not successful. I
did not see any terms and conditions on the English site.
According to their site, they are also planning to add even more registrars to the list in order to increase their amount of connections.
So far their investment would mainly be the 10,000 Euro * 10 for each of
the EURid registrar applications. This money is used as a pre-payment
in order to fund registrations. Landrush registrations will cost the
registrar 10 Euro per Domain Name Year (DNY), Sunrise registrations
range from 35 to 85 Euros.
I wonder why they did not take the extra step to make this an auction.
Interesting changed in the ccTLD space: AU does not like PPC
Domain registration rules face change amid protests: ZDNet Australia: News: Communications
In 2002, auDA — .au Domain Administration — introduced the “close and
substantial connection rule”, which allowed companies to register
domain names that, although not derived from their own company or
business name, are connected to their business in some way. For
example, it would be acceptable for a real estate directory service to
register names such as houses.com.au, apartments.com.au, land.com.au,
estateagent.com.au.
However, on Friday, auDA issued a
statement saying it is considering changing the rule after some
companies were found to be “using this interpretation of the close and
substantial connection rule to register large numbers of domain names
apparently for the primary purpose of capturing Web traffic and/or
selling click-through advertising”.
substantial connection rule”, which allowed companies to register
domain names that, although not derived from their own company or
business name, are connected to their business in some way. For
example, it would be acceptable for a real estate directory service to
register names such as houses.com.au, apartments.com.au, land.com.au,
estateagent.com.au.
However, on Friday, auDA issued a
statement saying it is considering changing the rule after some
companies were found to be “using this interpretation of the close and
substantial connection rule to register large numbers of domain names
apparently for the primary purpose of capturing Web traffic and/or
selling click-through advertising”.
Interesting – they are going in the opposite direction, compared to the gTLDs and wanna-be gTLDs.
[via ZDNet]
Flock, the New Browser on the Block
Business Week reports:
Flock, the New Browser on the Block
On
Oct. 5, the Palo Alto-based startup takes the wraps off what it’s
calling a “social browser.” Unlike plain-vanilla browsers such as
Microsoft’s (MSFT ) Internet Explorer, Flock’s browser is built
specifically for a new, emerging generation of Web users, one that
isn’t satisfied passively browsing media online.
Oct. 5, the Palo Alto-based startup takes the wraps off what it’s
calling a “social browser.” Unlike plain-vanilla browsers such as
Microsoft’s (MSFT ) Internet Explorer, Flock’s browser is built
specifically for a new, emerging generation of Web users, one that
isn’t satisfied passively browsing media online.
Now apparently, according to their website,
it was not yet released, we we have to remain patient a little longer.
I guess this gives us time to find out a little more details.
Let’s look at the features.
For one, it makes blogging a snap by eliminating the need to do arcane coding in order to post, change fonts or add photos.
[...]
Visit a Web site and
click a “+” button on one of the browser’s toolbars, and that site is
saved to a personalized list on the social bookmarks Web site
http://del.icio.us./.
Sounds like bookmarklets, a rich text editor and the metaweblog
API. So it’s combining all the good things in one interface. Good 
The experts love it:
Even in raw test mode, Flock and its blogging tools in particular are
drawing rave reviews from tech-savvy users. “Pure magic,” says J.
Michael Arrington, general partner at Archimedes Ventures, who
co-writes the blog TechCrunch. “It’s a beautiful application, and
they’re a bunch of smart guys.” Even Robert Scoble, Microsoft’s most
famous blogger, has called the Flock browser “awesome.”
Now how is this going to be financed?
So how will it
generate sales? Decrem expects to make money from running Google ads,
as well as getting so-called affiliate fees for referring users to
commercial sites such as Amazon.com (AMZN
). Moreover, he envisions getting money from other Web services, such
as blogging or photo-sharing services, that might pay Flock for
sign-ups sent their way from the Flock software.
generate sales? Decrem expects to make money from running Google ads,
as well as getting so-called affiliate fees for referring users to
commercial sites such as Amazon.com (AMZN
). Moreover, he envisions getting money from other Web services, such
as blogging or photo-sharing services, that might pay Flock for
sign-ups sent their way from the Flock software.
Interesting. Especially since one of the creators says the following on his own blog:
What’s Flock? Flock is the social browser, open source, cross platform
and based on Mozilla technologies. We use social software (Flickr,
Delicious, blogs…) all day long and wanted to build a browser that lets
us work better and faster. And we hate ads and spyware as much as you
do. No Google Ads, or ads of any kind, in our browser. Chris has put up
some screenshots on Flickr to give you a taste for what we’re all about
and based on Mozilla technologies. We use social software (Flickr,
Delicious, blogs…) all day long and wanted to build a browser that lets
us work better and faster. And we hate ads and spyware as much as you
do. No Google Ads, or ads of any kind, in our browser. Chris has put up
some screenshots on Flickr to give you a taste for what we’re all about
So no ads or ads? And will they be changing the HTML in the pages we view to point to their affiliate URLs?
Wired also had an article about it back in September:
Killer Buzz Flocks to New Browser
Btw: I love the name.
Re: The new rules of naming
Seth’s Blog: The new rules of naming
If I had a choice between a killer domain with a generic word in it or
a great word that led to a less than perfect domain, I’d take the
first, every time.
a great word that led to a less than perfect domain, I’d take the
first, every time.
I think he actually meant to say ‘the second‘ judging from the rest of his text and the name “Squidoo” that he mentions.
There are new rules of naming, but they always depend on where the name
is going to be used. So the biggest challenge lies with the names that
are meant to be used online and offline.
MSN to launch PPC search ad service
Looks like they are finally ready.
Investor’s Business Daily: MSN Ready To Rumble In Search
The most interesting part:
But
Microsoft’s demographic targeting is a step ahead of other services.
MoreVisability’s Leitch says Google and Yahoo don’t have this feature.
“This is new,” she said.
If an advertiser wants to run ads just for women ages 25 to 35,
adCenter can comply.
If an advertiser wants to exclude men 50 to 70, adCenter can comply.
And adCenter will let advertisers target groups of customers during
certain times of the day, a tactic called day-parting.
Microsoft’s demographic targeting is a step ahead of other services.
MoreVisability’s Leitch says Google and Yahoo don’t have this feature.
“This is new,” she said.
If an advertiser wants to run ads just for women ages 25 to 35,
adCenter can comply.
If an advertiser wants to exclude men 50 to 70, adCenter can comply.
And adCenter will let advertisers target groups of customers during
certain times of the day, a tactic called day-parting.
Wonder if they are also going to have an AdSense like program?