GeoDomainer.com continues to grow daily and has reached 210 members. We launched the site in early May and it appears that many users are starting to use the site as part of their daily routines. There is action on the site every few hours, which is outstanding. One major issue we have with the site is the failure of members updating their photo and profiles. Although, the last 2 days, we have seen several of new photos uploaded.

It is going to take some time before we can help members understand how important it is to show who they are and to update their profiles accordingly. The members who have done everything in accordance with the guidelines, have received 10 times more interaction from other members. Perhaps a group should be started by members to discuss the impact of having a professional profile on GeoDomainer.com.

I am really interested in hearing some opinions on how we can educate members on the importance of social communication on GeoDomainer.com.

Chicago is a beautiful city to visit. If you have not visited Chicago, you must! I really enjoyed the city nightlife and the beautiful skyscrapers, sculptures, Lake Michigan Views, and the atmosphere. I went on a great boat tour of the city with Tom Nguyen (Owner of Bellevue.com) on Sunday and had a great lunch at Bennigan’s. It was the perfect way to end the hectic week.

So, I am back to the grind and blogging again. I have several of articles to come on the Expo and perspectives of many who attended. The GeoDomain Expo painted a clear picture how important the Geo Network we are building is going to be for geodomainers, past, present and future. It was very exciting to see how many people support what we are doing for the geo domain industry. In the end, it is all about building platforms that assist users with reaching new levels of success. Most importantly, the Geo Network will continue to build a unified front of professionals that does not currently exist in the domain industry for the most part. When this game plan started evolving over 7 months ago, it was all based off of a strong gut feeling and analyzing market trends on the internet.  I am definitely glad that we were right about the gamble.

There have been a variety of blog posts about the events that took place at the GeoDomain Expo. All of them are outstanding with great perspective. I will outline a few things soon enough. The bottom line upfront is that the GeoDomain Expo was a great event that delivered quality content, a non-hostile environment, a wealth of knowledge, and an abundance of inspiration/motivation and new friendships. The Folks at AC did a great job putting it together on short notice.  I have no doubt that the next GeoDomain Expo will see exponential growth.

I would like to say that I had the pleasure of meeting many readers of the blog. It was quite funny how things turned out on the first day at the cocktail party. Everyone was coming up to me and saying Hi Steve, you don’t know me, but I know you. A little overwhelming at times, but very much appreciated to be accepted and respected by so many professionals. I am thankful for having the opportunity to meet so many wonderful people. I am very honored that so many of you enjoy reading my thoughts on this blog. We are working on several of projects behind the scenes that will surely be welcomed to the market.  Stay tuned!

Thank you for your continued support.

(Source:DNJournal.com)

Ron Jackson from DNJournal.com has just released this month’s cover story, Skip Hoagland. The interview is an outstanding read and full of great information. If you truly want to understand how to manage your time and build your empire efficiently, then this is a must read.

Skip covers his secret strategies to his success. Along the way, he mentions key people who have assisted him in this journey. It not very often you find a successful person who is willing to put the spot light on others, rather than themselves. Skip is an all around sound businessman and a great friend that few have had the pleasure of calling a friend.

Ron has done a great job with this story and I hope that all of you enjoy reading the article and are able to apply a few strategies to building your domaining empires.

On a different note, I have been out of the loop for the past week. I have an enormous family emergency going on and it will last for the next couple of months. Please understand that I will not be posting as often as I would like. My priorities are to take care of the home front, then move forward. Look forward to seeing everyone at the Geo Expo this week. It is going to be a welcomed break for me, with the current stress level.

Thank you for your continued support.

Tim Davids from GeoOwners.com, has taken the time to put together this very informative Guest Post for those traveling to Chicago for the AssociatedCities.com GeoDomain Expo.

Here’s a few tips for those attending the Geo Expo 2008 Chicago from someone thats been within 50 miles of the city all my life…

This in no way covers the city of Chicago but since most of you will be on limited time and possibly limited money these tips will get you a decent impression of downtown Chicago:

Dont miss Navy Pier. (navypier.com) If you only go 1 place outside of the hotel Navy pier gives you the best street-level view of the city especially at night. Make sure to go all the way out to the end where you’ll find some city/pier trivia and some great props for picture taking like old achors from large ships and such. Navy pier also has some boat trips that begin there, there are others on the river at Michigan avenue…be sure to take one that includes the river, this gives some great alongside views of the skyscrapers.

If you have the need for speed there is a high speed racing boat ride at the pier too http://www.seadogcruises.com. Never did it but looks cool.

Also at navy pier is the east most point of the river-taxi boats…yes Chicago has “boat taxis” that go from the pier down the river to Sears tower…where else in the States can you get a water taxi? Last I checked it was about $7 to go the whole distance (about the same as a “real” taxi.) This also goes right past many skyscraper landmark buildings and is a steal for the money.

Speaking of sears tower, if you’ve never been up in a tall building thats were you want to go…the skydeck is also a Chicago history museum on the inner walls…

Here’s my favorite tip…if your going out for drinks at night away from the hotel go to the 96th floor of the John Hancock building http://www.signatureroom.com/. Just ask anyone and they can point you there. For the price of drinks, which you’d be spending anyway, you get an all around view of the city from 96 floors up…prolly the best deal in town to be honest. There is also a great restaurant 1 floor down but the lounge on the 96th has views from every chair.

If money is no object, Donald Trumps new building is open on the lower levels and is easy walking distance from the W hotel. The lounge there http://www.trumpchicagohotel.com/Food_Wine/rebar.asp also has a great view which focuses on the river.

The other must do is a walk down Michigan avenue. It’s the defining area of the center of the city known as the “loop”. The high end shops are there and some nice cafe’s and restaurants…TIP, if you’ve never been inside an Apple computer store there is one on Michigan ave. It’s very cool and is a business lesson in itself…and the staircase is so unique Steve Jobs has a patent on it! Warning: July 11 the new iphone comes out so I’d stay away that day:)

Last but not least Grant park is due East of the W hotel and is worth a walk into…Buckingham fountain at the center is awesome especially at night with the lights on…this also puts you a few yards away from the lake which you’d like to see if you dont live near water.

That is a very small but inexpensive way to get a quick idea what Chicago is all about…enjoy and I’ll see you there!

Scott Roberts has won the GeoDomainer.com contest that concluded today. He won a $695 conference ticket to the GeoDomain Expo in Chicago 10-12 July. There were many participants in this contest and I would like to thank each of them for their participation. Additionally, I hope to see all of you at the expo in 10 days.

This was not the standard contest you see held in the domain industry. In order to have a chance at winning the ticket, participants had to submit an essay on their goals in the domain industry and how they feel the AssociatedCities.com GeoDomain Expo would help them in accomplishing their goals. Even though only 1 person won the $695 ticket, I think several participants ended up winning by outlining their goals and now having a map to accomplish them.

Again, Congratulations Scott Roberts! GeoDomainer.com and team are happy to help others in attaining their goals. This is Scott’s winning essay.

2008 GeoDomain Expo Contest Essay ? Sponsored by GeoDomainer.com
Scott Roberts

Trading time for money. As a business model, it has limitations. I’m an IT consultant, so I can increase rates or add staff, but those are essentially the only options I have to grow my business. I’m not complaining; servers, workstations, switches and routers have been a great career for over ten years. But I want more. I want a business that will generate revenue without requiring someone’s physical presence. I want a business that can be leveraged into ever larger projects. I want a business that excites me again.

A little history is probably in order. I bought a few domain names as far back as 1997. Unfortunately, I didn’t see the massive potential of geographic and generic domains. Then around 2005 I became aware of the hidden industry known as domaining. I made up my mind to get into this business and began to read and learn. I started buying names I thought had potential. It took time for plans to come together, but on July 1, 2007 I started my own IT consulting business with flexibility as a primary goal. Now nearly a year later, I can devote two to three days a week to domaining and web development.

I’ve never wanted to rely on parking revenue, so my immediate goal is to develop and launch one website. It’s a modest but very achievable goal. I learn best by doing, so it’s important to get this first project completed. One operational site will create a kind of human inertia, paving the way for future goals.

Over the medium term I want to develop additional websites, while continuing to learn about the industry. For long?term success, I think it’s important to have a firm grasp of advertising sales, web analytics/testing and industry trends just to name a few topics. Ultimately my goal is to own a true media company, with a diversified portfolio of web properties.

The 2008 GeoDomain Expo can help me achieve these goals in several ways. By meeting and talking with industry veterans I can gain valuable insight about which domain to launch first. Making a wise choice at this stage will jump?start my development efforts. Also, from my background as an IT consultant I can attest to the value of knowing colleagues who can provide advice when needed. These connections can be priceless at times, and I enjoy the give and take of people helping people.

The speakers and sessions at the GeoDomain Expo look great for learning a tremendous amount about the industry, including details that may not be easily found online. I’m especially interested in the sessions on local advertising sales, technology and GeoDomains in the news. Beyond that, I’m sure I would learn answers to questions I didn’t even know enough to ask!

Finally, I think just being at the GeoDomain Expo would be a tremendous motivation to me. Meeting industry leaders, listening to speakers and watching a live domain auction would be the best way I can imagine to start a new career as a domain developer.

This is going to be an interesting show to watch during the application process of gTLDs/vTLDs. After reading a current article posted on thedomains.com, I decided to make this post here on the blog. A while back, Kevin Ham was featured in Business 2.0, titiled, “The Man Who Owns The Internet”.

In that article, Paul Sloan discussed how Kevin had negotiated a deal with Cameroon for management of the countries .CM extension to earn PPC revenue. Here is a clip from the article:

And what few people know is that he’s also the man behind the domain world’s latest scheme: profiting from traffic generated by the millions of people who mistakenly type “.cm” instead of “.com” at the end of a domain name.

Try it with almost any name you can think of — Beer.cm, Newyorktimes.cm, even Anyname.cm — and you’ll land on a page called Agoga.com, a site filled with ads served up by Yahoo (Charts, Fortune 500).

Ham makes money every time someone clicks on an ad — as does his partner in this venture, the West African country of Cameroon. Why Cameroon? It has the unforeseen good fortune of owning .cm as its country code — just as Germany runs all names that end with .de.

The difference is that hardly any .cm names are registered, and the letters are just one keyboard slip away from .com, the mother lode of all domains. Ham landed connections to the Cameroon government and flew in his people to reroute the traffic. And if he gets his way, Colombia (.co), Oman (.om), Niger (.ne), and Ethiopia (.et) will be his as well.

So now a new opportunity exists for domainers or savvy business owners to apply for the .CIM or .CPM vTLDs. These domains will generate millions of typos for internet users searching for content online using a web address with a .com at the end. As we all know, if .CM gets millions of hits of typos monthly, it can be calculated that these two extensions .CIM or CPM, will generate millions of typos as well. This means big money for PPC payouts. It is going to be interesting what domainers/parking companies make the move on these two extensions. I am more than sure that domainers are working in stealth mode for this savvy investment.

You can bet that many of the companies that do apply for these, will be made up domainer business companies. There is alot of money on the table for these two extensions. I am making a prediction that there will be a bidding war to acquire management for the extensions .CIM and .CPM and people will be confused as to why, when other extensions are available as well. Anyone up to applying for these in a factional domaining group?

This is going to be a fun one to watch and see who comes out on top of these. I can assure you, it will more than likely be one of our all star players in the domain industry. Unless we form a group!

Since I started reporting the geo tracker in December 2007, never has there been such a large amount of ccTLDs in the top 20. This past week, 13 claimed positions. This is was a great week for ccTLD geo domain sales. Of course, many of these sales were because of the recent .ca auction MyID.ca held. However, this goes to show you what happens when you launch a targeted auction. Many of these names may have never sold if a targeted auction was never presented. We are very excited about GeoAuction.com and GeoDomain.com coming to market. We will have to sit and wait and see if this trend is something that will continue in the months to come or if it is just a fluke.

That is the great thing about the Geo Tracker. It enables us to view what is moving and current trends in the market place that are reported. Additionally, it serves as a historical tracker for future valuations.

ccTLD geo domain sales totaled $514,321 for a grand total of $542,416 in geo domain sales.

Nepal.de $59,153 Sedo.com
Austria-Trend.com $15,565 Sedo.com
NewportMedical.com $2,888 AfternicDLS
AsiaInvestors.com $2,888 AfternicDLS
IceUK.com $2,950 AfternicDLS
CaliforniaAttorney.net $2,000 AfternicDLS
Russland.com $1,804 AfternicDLS
LoansCanada.ca $3,112 MyID.ca
VancouverTravel.ca $1,816 MyID.ca
MontrealMortgages.ca $2,624 MyID.ca
QuebecHomes.ca $1,556 MyID.ca
QuebecHome.ca $1,574 MyID.ca
Paris.biz $3,533 NameJet.com
Norwegian.info $3,191 Moniker.com