I was watching a show on tv yesterday, and a commercial came on. It was a Utah commercial promoting their site Utah.travel.  It is a well developed site that has great content for a visitor traveling to Utah in my opinion. The group behind the site is the state of Utah. While there are a variety of issues that .travel has had up to this point, this is an amazing break through for the registry. This once again reinforces how powerful geo domains are to media companies trying to recruit consumers to their destinations. It will be interesting to see if the .travel registry can rebound after so many set backs.

While it more than likely means nothing for .travel, it is still great to see our industry in the spot light, on national tv channels. The future of traveling/moving to destinations will all start with an online search. Those who embrace the geo domain industry with quality investments, will reap large rewards once the full power of geo domains is unleashed.

“Out of The Box”

(via reuters) 

While a plan for local advertising on the site is in the works, YouTube is touring the country with mobile kiosks where staffers show users how to upload videos, Garcia says. “Before we think about the monetization aspect, we need to make sure the community finds the site interesting.

YouTube.com is very smart with this “out of the box” initiative to teach individuals how to use their video platform in a foreign country.  This is going to be a small trend in the future, mobile internet learning kiosks.  With so many baby boomers now coming online, it is imperative for services to teach them how to use the internet, as well as their computers.  Most have never been on a computer, to include senior citizens.  Have you ever seen an older person struggle trying to figure out the basics of a computer?  What about with definitions of internet terms and the importance of traffic to a business website?  It is not easy for a person with an oldschool mindset to embrace technology.  They have programmed themselves to operate in the traditional ways and need assistance to break out of that mindset and embrace technology.

In my career, there are many old school leaders that do not have a clue about the power of the internet or advance functions of email.  I am always teaching Senior leaders different things when it comes to computers and the internet.  Most small business owners are baby boomers in the same position and are stuck in traditional media thinking.  When you discuss advertising options on your targeted geodomain to small business owners, probally 90% are turning you away because they simply don’t  get it/understand it and keeps them from signing up with your service.  No one will commit hard earned money to a game plan that sounds confusing or that they do not understand.  Would you? 

I think it would be a great idea for city.com owners and prime georealestate.com owners to explore the possibility of establishing a Geo.com mobile kiosk platform to promote your geodomain and teach these uninformed business owners how you can increase their profits.  Additionally, you can network with other geo owners in the area and reenforce it thru Geo Seminars in your area.

In the end, it is not about you that future advertisers care about.  They care about their business and maximizing their ROI on advertising dollars spent.  Make them the center of attention and meet their needs, not yours.  If you focus on them, these same small business owners will do free word or mouth advertising and your customer base will increase 10 fold.  We have to collectively find ways to break them out of the traditional mold in order for the geodomain industry to reach it maximum potential. A Geo Mobile Kiosk just might be one of those of tools. 

Places they could be set up, Walmart, Tradeshows, Staples, Home Depot, and of course on demand  

What are your thoughts?

 Today was a slow day all around in the domain industry.  I often visit namepros.com forum to see topics of interest to domainers.  There you will find the next hot trends domainers are ready to invest in.  The domain extention .travel seems to be that next hot trend in domain extentions.  The .travel extention is reserved for travel agencies and until recently, government agencies(cities, counties, etc).  These types of domains can become power houses in the geo domain niche if the right companies promote them accordingly to consumers.  Interesting concept on what Tralliance Corportation has in store for this extention. You can visit the webiste travel.travel for more information on the full game plan for this extention.

The top-level .travel Internet domain is part of the next generation of restructuring and reorganization of the Internet along industry verticals. .travel gives travel and tourism businesses and organizations the opportunity to be www.company.travel instead of www.company.com.

Unlike “.com”, “.org”, “.co.uk” or the other top-level domains available on the Internet today, .travel is an industry-sponsored, industry-exclusive top-level domain, which means that only travel organizatons who go through an authentication process can get a .travel name insuring that all .travel web sites are held by legitimate travel organizations.

Only valid travel and tourism entities are represented in the dedicated .travel web space, which supports small and large tourism companies alike. The .travel domain ensures that companies with .travel Internet addresses are bona fide and, through its vetting and authentication system, eliminates “cyber squatters” and domain name speculators

I am interested in hearing your opinions on this subject.  Please keep in mind that it is not being compared to dot com, but as an alternative to be apart of the geo domain niche.  Will we see Geo empires built with .travel?

Steve