This is a pretty amazing transformation that the WB network is making.  This year, we have already seen several traditional media companies make major moves to embrace the internet, in much the same ways they embraced television back in the days from radio.

Is the media revolution around the corner for all these companies?  Based on historical facts, signs are pointing to a media revolution.  The internet will continue to change the way consumers do business and daily activities.  Media companies are following the pack. 

As I read this article, I though it would be pretty clever to have locals develop miniseries for geo owner sites.  This would definitely generate return visitors and bring overall value to the geo domain.  This would work for any quality geo domain.  Imagine, DallasHomes.com doing a miniseries of each quality neighborhood with some residents promoting the neighborhood.  Do you think a consumer would find value in a miniseries like this?  The possibilities are endless really.

The downfall to this, is additional bandwidth costs.  However, this can be compensated by the advertisers that will follow the local crowd.  I enjoy reading articles like this that define historic actions to transformation.

In trying to compete for consumers’ time, Warner and other media companies have sought new outlets for content, sometimes bypassing the traditional network structure and creating broadband Internet channels.

“My 20-year-old daughter and her friends are watching ‘One Tree Hill’ and ‘Pushing Daisies,’ but not on television,” Bruce Rosenblum, the president of the Warner television group, said. “They’re watching on laptops and cellphones. Here’s the interesting part — to them, that is television.”

(Via NYTimes.com)

It is time to open your mind up and forget about how things used to be done on the internet for a business front.  In the last post, I discussed the power of a blog.  A blog can launch your geo domain rankings and success thru the roof.  I am sure there are a few readers right now thinking to themselves that things are going great with the current system they have going.  

I will tell you that you are failing to deliver consumers/visitors a positive experience if your geo domain does not contain a blog and you are leaving alot on the table.  A blog gives you the opportunity to connect with your visitors and lets them interact with you and the services you deliver.  This in turn can lead to loyal consumers for your services and keep them coming back for more.  Of course this all depends on the blogger delivering content.

Targeted content that is useful to a visitor will outperform any other traditional strategy that has been used up till now.  I am not talking about the bland targeted content that is found on all sites that does not get updated but once a month and is delivered in a one way conversation.  I am talking about interactive content that can become addicting with effective writing and lead to higher revenue earnings.  

Geo domains are the perfect domain asset to reach consumers on the local front thru a blog.  Most of the sites that locals use, contain a blog that delivers targeted content of their area.  I know the local sites I use definitely have a blog.  You should reconsider redesigning your current site to implement a blog, if you have not already done so.  I would go as far to say to redesign your whole site around your blog.  If you make the blog the focal point of your site, everything else on the site will be used, and very often.  I know it is a stretch to picture this concept, but it is being proven with the SimplyGeo.com network.  This is starting to be proven on many online fronts and is becoming the standard in order to stay competitive. 

Blogging is not easy, and it takes a lot of time to perfect this new concept that is taking the online business world by storm.  However, once you figure it out and what your consumers want, it becomes second nature.  Your visitors will let you know what they are interested in and will empower you to deliver effective targeted content.       

When you connect with your visitors in a positive manner thru an interactive platform, solid growth and revenue earnings will soar thru the roof.  It is not a maybe, it is a for sure thing.  The secret is writing effective targeted content that consumers find useful.  If you can not do this, find someone who can deliver this for your geo domain.

I will publish another article on partnering with established blogs to deliver content for your geo domain, if you do not have the time to do one on your own.  Local takes alot of work if your truely want to build your asset in to a local media business that will grow exponentially.  You have to be better than the competing sites aiming at the same consumers in your area. 

Today, I placed the new SimplyGeo.com logo on the blog after months of deliberation.  When I first launched the blog, I knew one of the top priorities was to develop an effective logo that would communicate the Geo domain industry as a whole.  The blogs purpose was to cover this niche, and it was imperative to make a wise decision on the right logo that would communicate this.  

We all understand the importance of a logo and the success an effective logo can deliver.  There are many people who rush to put a logo on their site and this can be costly if you plan on growing your site into a business.   

Anyway, I thought about all the types of logos available, flash, fancy, plain, and busy.  After 2 months of brainstorming on many different ideas for the blog logo (Very Frustrating), the right concept presented itself in my eyes.  It was a simple plain logo that said so much if you understand logos and this industry.

The logo is located on the left hand side of the header.  It does not include the buildings and has a blue backdrop.  Every logo has a story to tell, so here is SimplyGeo.com’s story.  

This is what the logo was developed to communicate:

-The circle signifies the World and it’s many destinations
-The bold GEO signifies the importance of geo domains as new media of the world
-The white signifies the purity of traffic geo domains deliver
-The blue signifies the unity of professionals in this industry throughout the world connected by oceans

So this is the new logo.  Please let me know your thoughts, The good, the bad and the ugly.  I do not take offense to constructive critisism.  A plain and simple logo is sometimes the most effective logo.       

In an effort to keep readers and visitors updated on the Geo domain industry, I have installed the SimplyGeo.com weekly newsletter for your convienence.  The newsletter will include industry announcements from Geopreneurs who are making things happen behind the curtains.  Some of these announcements do not reach the public as they should and SimplyGeo will do its part in promoting the success and acquistions of Geopreneurs. 

Additionally, it will feature SimplyGeo’s announcements and will include key articles posted in the blog and forum that are must reads, just in case you have missed them.  With so many people in this industry mobile, it is sometimes hard to read the blog while on the “Go”.  This is another tool made available to keep you connected to the blog.   

I recommend all bloggers offer this service to your readers.  If you would like to know the plugin I am using, send me an email or message thru the forum.

Please feel free to sign-up to receive this information as it becomes available to the blog.  It’s easy and quick.  The sign-up is located on the right hand side and you will have to validate your email address.  Once you have done this, you are good to go. 

The Miami Herald has finally started to develop the elite destination, Miami.com.  They have put up the beta version at this time.  Thank you Patrick for sending this our way.  This is another outstanding sign that tradional media is getting the picture of the power a great city.com name can deliver.  I envision Miami.com becoming an instant success for the Herald.  They will be amazed of the performance it produces for them. 

One key element they have not added yet, is an option for consumers to subscribe to a newsletter.  This is one of the biggest money makers that most developed sites fail to capitalize on.  More on this to come.

Over all, they have done a great job making the site presentable.  I really do not care for the logo they have selected, as it does not make me think of miami by looking at it(Besides reading it of course  :-).  It will be interesting to watch it evolve to meet consumer demand in the coming months.  This is a great opportunity for all us to watch this moth blossom into a butterfly, so take notes to how big media develops their Geo domain.  This is a rare opportunity!

Found a good topic to write about in the forum today.  There are always great starter topics published in the forum that make for good main stream conversation.  Michael Castello published the importance of developing your destination geo domains a week or so ago in reply to a post.  This is what he had to say:   

We are stronger in numbers. If we all took the time to build out geodomains with the flavor and look of the destination there is no way a Google could touch us. Most people want to feel like they are virtually visiting a place. Would you rather get a hotel room from hotels.com which is basically a database or go directly to the virtual city hotel in that town? Information is one thing but passion and emotion are another.

Google is making it easier for people to find what they want because many generic sites have yet to get online and give the visitor what they want. The visitor wants to virtually travel to that destination and interact with the people and businesses and plan their vacations or buy their products. That is the optimum need but visitors will settle for a Google, Hotels.com, Travelocity etc. if that is all that is available. It is time to take market share from these giants. Answer this question. Do the inhabitants of Laguna Beach have local passion and emotion with Google.com or LagunaBeach.com? They will choose LagunaBeach.com because that is virtually where they live, do business and socialize. You just have to make the connection and build it out.

Additionally, Skip Hoagland stated the following:

Like any product, the more you develop it, the better it becomes. Parking domains is a business for people who do not want to work or do not have the ability to build a real company. Honestly, Parking domains to me helps to destroy the Internet, not build it. It helps send more traffic to Google.com and other sources of information for what people are looking for.If people want to build real value for their brand and company they have to run it like a real business, with real offices, people, phones, sales, marketing etc etc etc. Isn’t it funny the harder you work the luckier you get. Don’t get me wrong, I also do some parking and consider myself a Google monetizer at times. I don’t like it, but with almost 2000 names to develop we have no choice. Unlike many others however, we have about 400 websites launched and 5 making a nice profit for us. I see this getting much better for us this year as we launch 30 more mostly Geo names.

It is no coincidence that these two smart professionals think alike.  Their bottom line upfront is to develop your online destinations.  While parking domains is profitable, it does nothing to bring value to the domain name over time or to the consumer visiting.  As PPC continues to drop in payouts, many domain portfolio owners are realizing that the only way to generate consistent revenue is to develop domains into sites that consumers will use daily.  Michael and Skip speak from experience and have proven it over and over again that development is the key to unleashing multiple streams of revenue.  I think the time has come to LISTEN to what the experts have been saying all these years.  Here is an article from Ricksblog written last month that covers why development is essential for building online revenue steams titled “PPC or development? Kevin Leto has an interesting viewpoint”. 

A couple of weeks ago I posted how cool it would be to use videos as content to attract targeted consumers/visitors using the .tv extention to your geo domain.  This strategy is now going mainsteam on the dot com side of the house with the announcement of Yahoo! and Belo teaming up to provide targeted news video clips.  In another announcement today, RealPeopleRealStuff.com, a classified and advertisement video site, was voted as one of the most promising new business concepts by springwise.com.  According to Borrell Associates, the nation’s leading online advertising research firm, the nascent online video market is poised to grow more than tenfold over the next five years, comprising 33% of all online local advertising by 2012.

Consumer, Advertising and Classified Videos are going to be the new modes of delivering targeted content to consumers.  Each year consumers are getting lazier on the internet and they will embrace video content to keep from having to read content.  Additionally, voice search is going to explode for the same reason, why type when you can talk it out.  New internet trends spread rapidly into every industry.  Soon, video PPC ads will be delivered on parked domains generating larger amounts of revenue.  Domain platforms will follow and be an excellent tool for geopreneurs to consider implementing onto their geo site developments.

Do you think video content will be more effective than text content?          

(via NYTimes.com) 

“NEW YORK (Reuters) - Belo Corp. <BLC.N> plans to designate 13 of its television stations as the exclusive provider of local news video to Yahoo <YHOO.O> in those markets, the companies said on Wednesday.

With the deal, Yahoo plans to host dozens of local news video clips each day, provided by Belo’s TV stations. The clips will run in the local section of Yahoo News.
The companies will share advertising revenue generated from the video clips.

(via businesswire.com)

YouTube made it easy to post funny videos,” explains Alan Jacobson, one of the site’s creators. “People have responded enthusiastically just for the chance to become famous – without a financial incentive. Craigslist made it easy to make money by selling goods and services online, but has no video capability. RealPeopleRealStuff.com offers both.”

Since its launch, RealPeopleRealStuff.com has established strategic partnerships with newspapers in the U.S. and Canada to bring their new advertising model to local markets.

Janet DeGeorge, a leading expert in classified advertising, says “While some people do post video ads on YouTube – which is free – it’s really not set up for advertising. You’ve got video ads from all over the world for homes and restaurants next to videos of cats playing piano. At RealPeopleRealStuff.com and its partner sites, you’ve got ads in a commercial environment, with consumers actively seeking your product or service, in your area.”

At a time when newspapers are seeing steadily declining revenues from classified advertising in their print product, video advertising may allow them to recoup some of the business they’ve lost to sites like eBay and Craigslist.