Wednesday, here is your weekly domainer comic strip, enjoy.

OK guys, this one came from a readers suggestion about two weeks ago. Because of their suggestion they will win a free domain name. Knowing the person that submitted I’ll wind up giving them one of my LLLL domains

Click image to enlarge the comic strip.

Hmmm I have to say this is true. I specifically know a guy that is always like, well Estibot says its worth $xxx. It is nearly impossible for an automated system to put a value on a domain name within seconds. If Esa, owner of Estibot is reading this, sorry, think your a great guy. I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Esa back in October, to read more of that interview click here.

I also wanted to remind everyone that today is the LAST day for the three free WordPress themes. Buy one WordPress theme from WooThemes at $70 and get three more for free. I already purchased mine and am excited to put them to use.

Speak Your Mind (11)

You heard it here first, check your page rank!!!

I am pleased to say that DNKitchen.com is moving up in the ranks, now at a PR3

Thank you to my readers and everyone who has linked back to me.

Speak Your Mind (7)

Earlier this year ICANN rolled out its plan to allow new “generic” extensions (suffixes) to be created in association with niches, geographical locations, or even corporate names. For example instead of using a .com domain a business could apply to create its own extension like .furniture or .detroit and corporations could apply for TLD’s such as .dell or .ebay. The plans for this type of domain name system has many domain owners worried about the future of staple extensions like .com, .net and .org. Can a system like this really benefit the Internet addressing system, publishers and consumers? The U.S. government doesn’t think so. Earlier this week Meredith Baker, the head of the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) called for ICANN to rethink it’s plans to unveil this idea so quickly. The NTIA’s concerns are that by opening up this system it could jeopardize the balance of current Internet addressing system and thwart Internet commerce.

You may be asking yourself why anyone should care what the U.S. NTIA branch has to say about this. Although the U.S. government cannot mandate or manipulate ICANN’s policy, it’s management of the domain name system is under contract with the U.S. government and ultimately ICANN needs it’s approval to create new generic TLD’s.

I personally think that adding new generic TLD’s is a bit too much for the Internet addressing system. There are already loads of obscure ccTLD’s that are launched each year. It seems that the registrars and ICANN are the only people really benefiting from all of these obscure extensions. Take the .ME extension for example. Country code’s were created to serve specific countries domain name needs. .ME is Montenegro’s country code, however it was rolled out by registrars and touted as the great new brandable extension to use for your personal web pages (hey look at my .ME!). Honestly, I think this is ridiculous. Adding a generic TLD system would make web browsing even more confusing for most users. The average Joe surfing the internet barely even knows what a .info, .tv or a .biz extension is. Imagine having every business that could afford to launch their own TLD marketing their new domains: “Check out Homes.Denver the real estate portal…or was that Denver.Homes?” This just seems to me like a big scheme by ICANN to capitalize on eager businesses and organizations to plunk down their $100,000 application fee to secure their “.whatever” domains. Our current system seems very reasonable. Extensions like .com, .net and .org are the generic TLD’s and are complimented nicely by ccTLD’s (country code, top level domains). It will be interesting to see what decisions are made concerning the future of generic TLD’s. It will also be intriguing to see how the relationship of ICANN with the U.S. government evolves this year with Obama coming into office.

News story: USA Today
ICANN new generic TLD announcement: ICANN

Michael Law
NameTalent.com

Speak Your Mind (4)

Sorry I have not posted in a few days, after my son opened miniature golf for his Nintendo wii we haven’t been able to put that thing down. Hope everyone had a great holiday.

Now lets get everyone caught up from last weeks action.

Last week I ran a contest hosted by SiteGraduate.com to give away a free mini-site. Well, in the Christmas spirit we wound up giving away two free mini-sites. I announced the winners in my very first video blog which you can watch here. For everyone who has not watched, I received roughly 300+ entries spread across 110 comments. You did not make it easy for me to pick the winners but here they are…

BabyProof.org
EuropeanBeaches.com

Congrats to the TWO winners. Once the sites are up I will be sure to share the work.

We are now running a SECOND CONTEST with even more prizes.

Here is a list of the prizes.

• 2 Mini-sites provided by SiteGraduate.com at a $249 retail value each
• 2 $25 GoDaddy gift cards
• 2 HostGator hosting accounts with six months prepaid on each
• 1 Copy of The Domain Game book by David Kesmodel
• Domainer Comic Strip #8 framed and signed by yours truly

The HostGator accounts must be purchased through my affiliate link. Once the account is active for 60 days I can either pay HostGator directly six months hosting at $9.95 a month or send the equivalent monies to your paypal account.

How to win?

All you have to do is purchase a $189 $149 mini-site from SiteGraduate.com and you will automatically be entered into a raffle. For every mini-site purchase you will get one entry into the raffle. This means if you buy 5 mini-sites you will have 5 chances of winning.

CLICK HERE TO BUY A MINI-SITE AND ENTER THE NEW CONTEST

The contest will run until January 15th, the prize winners will be announced the following day on the 16th. Something else is going to end January 15th, the $189 $149 price. After the 15th the mini-site prices will be going back up to $249 each. I strongly encourage you to buy your mini-site(s) now before the price goes up.

Good luck everyone!!!

Speak Your Mind (5)