The internet continues to change everyday life as we know it. New opportunities are arising monthly with many new industries, that did not exist in the past due to the advancement of technology and the recession. There have been a variety of people in the domain industry that have blogged (Sahar, Andrew, Rick) on a few opportunities that have evolved/evolving at the present time and who I feel have great insight as transformation is taking place.

As the internet continues to transform, it is becoming apparent that the revenue streams with prime domains and geo domains are endless. Last year at the Geo Domain Expo, I sat on a panel and stated many owners of prime geo domains sitting in the audience would become the new generation of media, as traditional media fades. This is slowly starting to become a reality for a few owners of city.coms that have remained proactive to achieve this goal.

A multi-million/billion dollar opportunity that I found interesting on DNW.com is the opportunity to replace traditional media news with new media news via the internet. This is an exploding industry on the internet, and we are starting to see this transformation take place for a few owners of city.coms in the Geo Domain Industry. These owners are hiring professional journalists to provide daily news content in exchange for profit sharing revenue for their section of the site. This is smart business and motivates journalists to deliver great content to earn great revenue for their hard work.

This is a very unique way to deliver fresh content for your website and to increase traffic/site loyalty that was non existent before. News is a red hot industry that no one can live without. It is how many traditional media companies became the titans they are. Unfortunately, for many of these titans, complacency has stunted their growth and is the cause for popular news print publications coming to an end. It may even become the end for some media titans, R.I.P.

Today, I came across an interesting article on NYTimes.com, that once again shows another potential revenue stream for those who own quality geo domains. The new industry is called HyperLocal News that a handful of companies are gambling on. It is the compilation of a variety of news sources (Mainly blogs), that delivers news to consumers via the internet based on their preference of a city, state, region, and even neighborhood.

Completely customized news that I think will become very popular among internet users. The article is a must read for anyone interested in the transformation of the news industry and who are seeking additional revenue streams/ideas.

One major problem I see at this time, is there is no system in place to validate the news stories found on these blogs and sites for accuracy. However, once a system is implemented to validate articles, this may become the preferred method of news consumers demand. Could this new industry be the end to traditional media?

(NYTimes.com)

On June 26, 2008, Dr Paul Twomey President and CEO of ICANN, announced that ICANN had approved the expansion of new gTLDs to be offered after a final implementation plan is completed in early 2009. “The potential here is huge. It represents a whole new way for people to express themselves on the Net,” said Dr Twomey. “It’s a massive increase in the ‘real estate’ of the Internet.”

This was big news in the domain industry and for CADNA as well. Many blogs started publishing articles how this would effect the industry and the internet. The common theme amongst many of these industry blogs was that these new gTLDs would create mass confusion for consumers surfing the internet and devalue the current system that has been operating for years.

Additionally, CADNA went on the defense saying that this would be a nightmare for brand and trademark holders. CADNA has continued to lobby against these new gTLDs, and doing everything in their power to prevent this move from ICANN taking effect. CADNA’s major concern is companies profiting from generic domain extensions that describe their products and take advantage(Abuse) of their online brands and approved trademark registrations.

However, CADNA has no legal grounds for slowing down DotCity and GeoTLD extensions. Already, ICANN has received a variety of interest and applications from government agencies and private investors from across the globe for these type of extensions. Many believe the demand will be strong for targeted dotcity and geotlds. Afterall, the internet has been transforming into targeted communities and networks the past 5 years or so, and recently gone from a global concept to a Local one.

The land rush for these dotcity and GeoTLDs will occur in 2009 if (.nyc) and others launch successfully with high demand from consumers and businesses IMO. Branding power, networks, and advertising revenue are going to play huge factors in the success of these extensions when they are launched. One thing is certain, government agencies have an unlimited source of all of the above. I will talk more on the rise of DotCity and GeoTLDs in Part 2. In the meantime, I have listed some information for you to digest. Interesting times ahead.

Approved GeoTLDs
.CAT - The Catalan cultural and language community (2005)
.ASIA - The Asian community (2006)
.EU - The European community (2005)

City Prospects
.NYC – New York City community
.BERLIN – Berlin community
Other cities in which communities already think of establishing their own TLD are London, Hamburg and Lima

Country, Language, and Cultural Prospects
.SCO – The Scots culture and language community
.CYM – The Welsh culture and language community
.BZH – The Brittany culture and language community
.GAL – The Galician Community
.LAC – The Latin American Community
.AFRICA - The Arican Community

(Sources) CityTLD, DotCity, GeoTLD

What do you think are key fundamentals for a new DotCity or GeoTLD to launch successfully and be accepted by consumers?

Domainers are some of the most interesting entrepreneurs in the World.  They come from all walks of life, with different levels of education and business/marketing experience. There have been a myriad of individuals who have become successful in the domain industry, with a small, but growing number becoming millionaires due to domain names.  The glamor and success stories to obtain wealth and success with no prior experience leads thousands of new entrepreneurs to enter the domain industry each year. With the current state of the economy and so many getting laid off from Corporate America, I envision the domain industry growing 10 fold with new entrepreneurs seeking opportunity to become successful in this industry. The good news is there is still lots of opportunity to become another success story in the domain industry, however, it will not necessarily be done the same way as it was done traditionally.

The domain industry is undergoing a major transformation. This transformation is occurring to cater to the demand for domain development. The tools, services, and platforms that made so many successful are no longer producing the same the results for those old school domainers and those new to the industry. Complacency from those companies that provide services to domainers has resulted in this transformation to generate the same amount of revenue as past performance.

Additionally, Old school domainers can also be held accountable for this transformation, as most have remained stagnant with the streams of revenue that their domains generate. Very little have gone above and beyond to increase the maximum amount of revenue each of their domains can generate.  Domain development has been the task that so many have avoided, yet it is proving to be the best answer to generating larger revenue streams based off of announcements from many companies in the industry. When we look back years from now, 2008 is going to be the historical year that changed the future of domaining.

So what has changed? PPC is longer generating the same revenue due to major publishers (Google.com and Yahoo.com) trying to keep as much of the advertising revenue as possible. Domain values have dropped this year and the amount of end users/investors have decreased, due to most tightening their budgets during this recession. Additionally, the amount of advertisers and attendees to industry conferences has dropped and remained stagnant.

So where is everything headed in the domain industry to generate revenue for domains? Based off many of the popular PPC companies and domainer service provider announcements, it seems we are headed to the delvelopment of domains into miniwebsites and full blown websites to generate this revenue.  Many of these companies are going to offer this type of development platform with the option to sign-on direct advertisers preventing owners from relying only on PPC revenue. Of course, you do not have to depend on these companies to help you generate revenue for your domain(s), after all they get a large percentage of your revenue for using their platforms. They will always remain an option however.

My question to domainers and readers today is, What’s holding you back from development? Even if you are already successful, in order to sustain that success you have to consistently adapt to the transformation of the industry.  What is keeping you from developing a domain name(s)?

Most of the common excuses for failing to develop a domain name into a functional website are listed here:

-Procrastination
-I don’t have time
-I do not know anything about running an online business
-Too hard, I do not know how to build a website
-Its too expensive to develop
-I do not know where to start
-I own too many domains
-I have no clue about SEO
-Where do I get content from

Well the list goes on. However, if you could have it your way, what would help you reach this goal of domain development? Would information products “How To” be helpful? Affordable services to develop domains for you? Webinars? Tutorials? How to hire offshore talent? etc.

What would be useful that companies could provide to assist you in accomplishing getting your domain(s) developed?

What other products or services do you need to assist you with reaching your goals to become successful or sustain success besides domain development?

The future of the industry is transforming to domain development. Now is your chance to express/share your thoughts to service providers, domainers, and PPC companies what you need and/or what is holding you back.

I am interested in your feedback.

The Power of the Internet and a Blog.

President Elect Barack Obama is not only the first African-American to become President of the United States, but he is also the first Political candidate to use all popular resources available on the internet to promote his campaign that led to his win over Senator John McCain.

Some of the major platforms that his staff, family, and he embraced/are embracing are:
http://www.facebook.com/barackobama
http://www.myspace.com/barackobama
http://www.youtube.com/barackobama
http://www.flickr.com/photos/barackobamadotcom
http://twitter.com/barackobama
http://www.blackplanet.com/barack_Obama
http://www.migente.com/barack_Obama
http://www.linkedin.com/in/barackobama
http://digg.com/users/ObamaforAmerica
Email NewsLetters
Call To Action Domain Names (VoteForChange.com, Change.gov, )
Internet Surveys from Visitors
Blogging
Internet Storefronts
Social Sharing

And of course the list goes on and on. I believe his staff will continue to use all resources while he remains in office to stay connected. He was also the first politician to connect with the young generation because of the popular platforms he chose to embrace on the internet. This affected their behavior and they flocked in record numbers to register and vote.

My statement that Obama’s actions will advance internet behavior and technology might be a bit broad and unrealistic to some readers. However, Obama is not done using the internet to connect globally with Americans just because his campaign is over. He launched Change.gov immediately after his victory, which was highly publicized in the media. He chose a call-to-action domain name that reflected his future actions while in office. Brilliant Move, so long as he delivers what he has promised.

If you have never been to Change.gov, you have got to go and visit and see the resources available on that site. You will be able to see everything the President of the United States is using to get his message out. For those in the domain industry, you should notice almost instantly that everything is contained on a blog platform. Yes, you read that right, Change.gov is nothing more than a popular blog. The President plans on using this blog (Change.gov) as the center of the American empire to communicate with Americans and for Americans to communicate with his staff and himself. A blog……I find this remarkable……

Amazingly, I blogged about this months ago that blogs would become the center for many corporations and businesses to conduct business as the internet continued to grow. I also stated that most traditional sites that provided one way communication would become obsolete as consumers demanded to share their opinions on topics of interest. The wheels have been set in motion for this prediction to occur. Who would of thought that the President of the United States would lead from the top and make my statements a slam dunk. Anyway, no one cares about my past statements, so let’s continue.

Yesterday, President Obama announced that Change.gov would be setup as a “Creative Commons” legal framework. This is unheard of, as historically, all content remained US Copyrighted that any politician published on their websites or any government agency. This legal framework announced by the media yesterday is set up to make sharing and reuse as easy as possible.

This means that anyone can use the photos, content and comments that are located on Change.gov for whatever purposes so long as they give credit to the originating source/publisher/photographer.

“The license on Change.gov also states that anyone who posts anything to Change.gov (like comments) must accept that their content will be under Creative Commons as well.”

This may not be big news to domainers, but this is huge news for Corporate America and international Corporations. The leader of our nation will not only make change in Washington DC, and our Country, but he will also make change on the internet and advance internet technology/behavior as the whole World watches how he builds relationships with Americans, and gives them an option to be heard as the “Voice of America” by using a blog, the internet, and Creative Commons law.

Corporate America is going to embrace Obama’s actions and follow suit IMO. In almost any organization, the top leaders are emulated by those who are under them. The strive for excellence is going to continue for internet technology and new business practices launched all because of our internet savvy President who has the people of this great Country as his number one priority.

In closing, I will end this blog post with this quote from the article:

“This act of support for progressive intellectual property policy is big news, but it also makes us wonder - what’s next? That’s exciting to think about.”

(Source: NYTimes.com)

This past month has flown by as I was away on military business.  I received tons of emails that will take me about a week to get answered.  Unfortunately, I did not have dedicated access to the internet due to us using only secret lan lines where I was at.  I can tell you that the secret side to the internet is boring compared to the unsecured side!

During this time, our social network GeoDomainer.com went down and disrupted service to those members who frequented the site.  We are resolving the tech issue and all should be back to normal soon.  I want to apologize to our members for this inconvenience.  Members can still access the site at www.Geodomainer.ning.com.

I am back at the wheel and will be pumping out long awaited articles, as well as the new stuff.  I would like to thank all visitors for their continued support as we continue to make our vision a reality. It all takes time.

On a different note: While I was gone, it appears the domain industry has exploded with new blogs.   It is great to come back to this type of growth and I look forward to reading the different opinions and perspectives of their writers.  I can not stress enough how much of a value added service Domaining.com provides to the industry. All great for the industry and new comers.

Once again, thank you for your continued support.

National advertisers want to target local communities online according to a new study conducted by Sterling Market Intelligence and commissioned by Marchex, Inc. The down side to this new trend is National advertisers are confused on the best tactics and best traffic sources to use and how to measure their ROIs.

The study, conducted between September 11 and September 21, 2008, surveyed 150 national advertisers or agencies that offer products and/or services through local outlets, dealers, franchises or branded stores across more than one state. The study examined advertising budget allocations, local online advertising strategies and tactics, and ROI perspectives on national advertisers’ local online advertising efforts

Marchex is the largest owner of geo targeted domains in the world with a portfolio of over 400,000 geo domains.  I imagine we will see many more of these commissioned studies by Marchex to help educate main stream media.

Sterling Market Intelligence has launched a webinar titled “Local Online Advertising: Strategies and Tactics Every Company Should Know,” if you want to further your education on local advertising.

(Via MarketWatch.com)

As reported across the industry blogs, Moniker.com’s silent auction concluded yesterday.   Among the names that sold for top dollar was the geo domain/geo targeted domain NewYorkRestaurants.com for $30,240.  It took the number 5 position on high sales for the silent auction.  One year ago, no one would have expected a domain like this to sell for $30k.  More than likely, this geo domain was purchased by a reseller and not an end user, which means the domain will be sold for more in the future.

Here are other geo domains that sold for 4 figures in the auction:

Orlando.mobi  $6,030
MarylandAccidentLawyer.com  $4,900
NewYorkAccounting.com  $4,710
WashingonDUILawyer.com $2,360
NewJerseyNews.com  $1,400 (Great Buy)
NewYorkGym.com $1,180

We continue to see descriptive geo domains go up in value even when the economy and domain industry is in a rut.  Many generic domains have gone down in value and under performed in this recent market as Geo Domains have continued to gain value and do very well.

The RickLatona.com auction sold Lisbon.net for $32,000 during the traffic show.  This once again validated the demand and value for geo domains that make sense and are targeted.

Congrats to the Moniker.com team for doing another outstanding job!