Moniker.com will be hosting a geo domain auction in Paris in June.  They recently sent out an auction alert thru their newsletter.  The geo domain industry is maturing and the international market is exactly where the fire needs to be ignited.  Moniker.com continues to educate business owners and investors on the importance of a great web address.  It will be interesting to see the results of this auction. 

Even if the results are not good, it is a great indicator that the domain industry is understanding exactly how powerful geo domains are becoming as countries from across the world embrace the internet.  Things can only get better if the auction fails.  I have a feeling if great names are submitted, we will be surprized of the auction results.

Auction Alert  Make sure your marquis names are among the premier international inventory in the Live Domain Auction at DomainerMeeting in Paris, June 19-20. The deadline for bulk domain submissions is tomorrow! If you’re looking to cash in some of your domain assets, now is the time to consider an auction if you have these types of domains among your holdings:
   
   Top notch foreign language (not English) dot coms 
   Premium ccTLDs 
   High-quality Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)

In addition to bulk submissions, Moniker will continue accepting limited auction submissions (max of 10 names) through April 30. After April 30, only single-word premium domains (one per person) will be accepted through May 14.
» Submit domains for consideration now
» Find out more about DomainerMeeting
» Visit Moniker’s main auction page for DomainerMeeting

(Via Moniker.com)

Evolution is great, it enables the once impossible strategies to come to fruition.  .TV owners may soon move into mainstream faster than expected if the Open Mobile Video Coalition is succesful streaming TV to mobile devices.  The great thing about the internet is that it is always changing.  What is not popular today, may become the next hot thing tomorrow all based on new technology.  It will be interesting to see how this transforms consumers behaviors both online and offline if successful.

.TV owners are in a great position as the internet continues to manifest.  Patience is a very hard virtue to embrace.  My advice to all who invest in domains is to stay the course and embrace your beliefs without allowing individuals to manipulate them.  Listen and learn from individuals, but do not allow yourself to abandon your “gut feeling” or what you believe in, unless it is just plain foolish.  In the end, those who stay the course will reap the biggest rewards.

The Open Mobile Video Coalition said at the National Association of Broadcasters meeting in Las Vegas that it will push for an open standard by next year that would allow members to bypass cell phone companies and tap into what they think will be a $2 billion market for mobile advertising.

The station owners say transmitting directly to mobile devices would give them a third means of delivering local programming — and capturing revenue — along with broadcasting to TVs and streaming it on station-owned Web sites.

(Via AP.org)

There are those who have doubted that PPC is not going to die anytime soon and development was overrated and not neccessary.  Well the writing has been on the wall and so many have failed to acknowledge it.  Now this news of Google.com being able to be sued on trademark violations thru their adsense and PPC is released.  It will have a major impact on domainer’s revenue streams if the judgement holds up. Domainer’s parade may be rained on soon. 

When will people learn, nothing good last forever. As I said on a blog post recently, Lifes lessons are never free! If this holds up, Corporate America is not going to stop there, they will also go after those domains that are very similiar to the TMs as well thru google.com. This just gave the big guys big ammo to overtake domainers, if this ruling holds.

Remember, it has been said many times, “Never place all your eggs in one basket”. It will be interesting to see the sell off of domains and domain drops occur in large volumes in the coming months. The geo domain industry doesn’t look so bad after all as Bob said. I concur.

A FEDERAL COURT HAS RULED that Google can be sued for trademark infringement and cybersquatting for serving ads on sites with domain names that are similar to registered trademarks.

In the case, golf club manufacturer Vulcan Golf takes aim at Google for its “AdSense for Domains” program, which populates otherwise empty sites with AdSense ads. Vulcan Golf also sued other companies involved in creating and registering the sites, which have names like wwwVulcanGolf.com (without a period between www and Vulcan) and vulcanogolf.com.

As with “typosquatting” lawsuits, Vulcan Golf complains that Google and the other companies are unfairly harnessing its trademark. The theory is that these sites will be visited by people who are trying to reach Vulcan Golf, but err when typing the domain name into their address bars.

Google had asked for the case to be dismissed, arguing that it wasn’t responsible for any alleged trademark infringement or cybersquatting. “Google neither owns nor operates any of the domain names of which Vulcan complains,” Google argued. “Neither does Google (or its advertisers, for that matter) use Vulcan’s claimed marks (or anything similar) in the text of any advertisements.” The search company also said in its court filing that it has already removed the AdSense ads that Vulcan Golf objected to, and would have done so earlier had Vulcan Golf asked it to remove them before bringing the lawsuit.

Judge Blanche Manning of the Northern District in Illinois dismissed some portions of the case, but ruled that some charges relating to cybersquatting and trademark infringement could go forward. She wrote that Vulcan Golf’s allegations that Google “pays registrants for its use of the purportedly deceptive domain names … uses semantics technology to analyze the meaning of domain names and select revenue maximizing advertisements and controls and maintains that advertising” was sufficient to warrant further proceedings.

(Via MediaPost.com)

This week the geo market picked up momentum with a variety of small sales taking place.  This is an indicator that many endusers/investors are looking to acquire geo domains on a budget with a median of $3k this week.  I am curious if this trend will continue with the slow down of the American economy. 

I know there are some great deals on the market that investors are taking advantage of that never get reported.  This is the time to shop around and buy some really good geo domains for bargain prices.  Polish up those negotiating skills, there are deals all over. Remember, never settle for asking price unless the name is just that good.  This weeks total geo sales amounted to $74,532.

The Domain Roundtable conference is around the corner and is scheduled to be held in San Francisco from 18 April-21 April.  There will be a wealth of information shared and it will be a great opportunity to network with industry professionals.  Two of our very own, Michael and David Castello have been asked to participate as speakers on Marketing and Advertising strategies they used to generate revenue streams on their Geo domains.    

This should be an outstanding session and I am sure the Castello Brothers would love to interact with fellow geopreneurs/geodomainers during the conference.  There is so much going on in the domain industry, and geo domains are taking center stage. 

Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend this event.  For those who do attend, please keep us updated here on the blog.

The Drilling Down on Local conference is around the corner.  It will be held from 30 April-2 May 08 in Seattle, Washington.  Geo domains will be a topic of discussion on day 2.  This is a great event to attend if you find time in your busy schedules.  As the internet continues to evolve, ”local” will become a mainstream term in the domain industry.  It is only a matter of time before local platform experts are placed on panels in all of the major domain conferences in the industry.

One of our own, Dan Pulcrano, will be sitting on a panel labeled “Leveraging Geodomains” during the Drill Down Conference.  I am sure Dan will do an outstanding job communicating the importance and power of geo domains to online media.  This is a great opportunity to explain geo domains, as he will have the attention of many industry professionals.   

Day 2   5:00 pm - 5:30 pm 
Leveraging Geodomains
The geodomain industry has opportunistically bought up every city name it could to bring “type in” traffic to advertisers. But major geodomain companies are now rethinking their options, and are building local franchises for the long haul. Dan Pulcrano of Boulevards, which has 67 U.S. and 30 international city guides, will discuss the opportunity and the efforts his company is making.  Dan Pulcrano, CEO and Executive Editor, Boulevards/Metro Newspapers

DNJournal.com released their cover story this month, Rob Grant.  What I find interesting is that Rob built his domain empire with Geo domains, yet the term was never mentioned in the interview.  Overall, this was another great cover story Ron Jackson executed flawlessly. 

There are a variety of streams in the Geo domain industry that one can embrace to build their online empire.  I am also an investor in realestate geo domains and believe these will become some of the most valuable domains as the realestate industry evolves and moves to online platforms.  The realestate industry remains behind the power curve when it comes to using the internet to meet consumer needs.  This is definitely an under estimated stream in the geo domain industry. 

The domain industry has never had so much targeted emphasis on Geo domains and successful stories of those who embrace them until 2008.  Geo domains are center stage in the domain industry, just as I predicted would happen in December.  This is only the beginning, as the true value of Geo domains will be unlocked in the years to come.   

However, there are plenty of people who still doubt the power of geo domains and state they are overrated, even though success stories continue to unfold.  There will be more stories as those come forward to discuss how they built their online empires with Geo domains.  The geo domain industry is evolving.  The proof is always in the pudding!