What is Google Wave?

Google Wave is “a personal communication and collaboration tool” announced by Google at the Google I/O conference on May 27, 2009. It is a web-based service, computing platform, and communications protocol designed to merge e-mail, instant messaging, wikis, and social networking. This definition comes directly from Wikipedia.org.

The following video is long, but will answers any questions you may have about Wave.

I have been on Wave now for a couple weeks and personally don’t care for it. In all fairness it may be because I just don’t have a need for it right now. As more people join and business changes, so could my use of Google Wave. In the mean time, I am on Wave to build contacts and to make sure I don’t miss the next big thing.

With being a part of Google Wave I have been given invitations to invite others to try it. Since joining, I have received 38 invites, half are gone leaving me with 19 remaining.

Michael Sumner of MiniSites.com gave me 25 more invites for everyone. That means I have 44 in total to give away!

UPDATE – I’m out, no more invites!

Would you like to be a part of Google Wave?

If yes, post a message in the comments section with your accurate email address and how I we know each other. If I know you through Twitter please include your @address. At this time I am limiting the invitations to people I know, my Twitter/Facebook friends and ChefPatrick.com readers. As comments come in I will be sending out invitations.

I am inviting the people I know first.

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This is a little off topic for the domain industry, but one that I believe we can all benefit from.

A friend of mine, Wajed Salam, wrote an ebook titled “The Power Of Personal Notes”. The ebook in a nut shell is about personalizing business relationships by using thank you notes. I implemented this practice into my daily physical real estate business. I kept dozens of thank you cards in the office for employees to send out after any and all significant contacts. It was a simple thank you for your time and we look forward to working with you.

Now that I am in the online business world, I’ve noticed that for some reason I have gotten out of this practice. Sure, I’ll send an email saying thank you for your business or purchase but no physical note. The closest I’ve come since being in the business is sending out about 100 Christmas cards last year. It was a step in the right direction, but one I have not continued with. At least until now. I am going to make a conscious effort to thank everyone for their business and contacts whether it be big or small, it is all appreciated.

Believe me, showing the effort of a handwritten note will pay off tremendously. It shows your business relationships that you care. A line directly from the ebook that says it all reads: “One of the greatest human needs is the need to feel appreciated.” They will remember your note!

As a gift to all of my readers I would like to pass on this ebook. Below is a direct link to the ebook, nothing to fill in or subscribe for.

DOWNLOAD HERE

I would like to credit Owen Frager for this reminder. I received an email newsletter from him just the other day on this very topic. Thank you Owen.

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Last month I wrote is PayPal safe for domain name transactions. The short answer is no. Not to take anything away from PayPal, they are a great company and one that I use every day. Unfortunately they just don’t have the protections in place for intangible property transactions. As I wrote in my previous article intangible property is something you own but not a physical substance. Because it’s not a physical substance it creates a problem for delivery confirmation.

This is nothing new and something most domainers already know. But for the few of you out their that don’t, Escrow.com is the solution. Escrow.com reduces the potential risk of fraud by acting as a trusted third party that collects, holds and disburses funds according to Buyer and Seller instructions. Escrow services are provided by a  licensed and regulated escrow company.

Let me say this one sentence again, a trusted third party that collects, holds and disburses funds according to Buyer and Seller instructions.

How much does this service cost?

Here you can see the fee schedule below. One great feature of their service is fees can be paid by the buyer, seller or split between both. To find out exact costs Escrow.com has an easy to use fee calculator.

A couple fun facts about Escrow.com:

• Holds a $4,000,000 bond
• Audited monthly by an outside firm
• Recommended by eBay for transactions over $500 – link
• In business since 1999

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I’ve heard of a lot of horror stories from both domain owners and domain buyers having issues with PayPal. I personally have not had a negative experience using PayPal, knock on wood. With my readers in mind and my curiosity about their security measures, I spent a little time on the phone today with their customer service and dispute departments to find out who is protected.

Here are some examples of the PayPal issues I’ve heard from domainers:

• Buyer pays for the domain name and seller does not transfer. At the same time the seller withdraws any available money in their account making it impossible to recover those funds.
• Buyer pays for the domain name, seller transfers but then the buyer places a dispute. More often than not PayPal will side with buyers because there is no real way to provide proof of delivery for an intangible item.
• Buyer pays for domain name, seller transfers then buyer files a fraud complaint saying they did not authorize the use of their account.
• I’m sure there are plenty more examples.

I have to say, I really didn’t get a feeling of confidence after talking to PayPal. They have a lot of protection in place for their eBay transactions, but when it comes to domain name (intangible property) transactions they don’t have as much protection. Intangible property is something you own but not a physical substance. Because it’s not a physical substance it creates a problem for delivery confirmation. In the examples above PayPal states they have ways of determining false fraud reports and excellent dispute resolution. However, from the stories and experiences of other domainers, this does not hold true.

For myself, PayPal is an extremely important tool, one that I utilize on a daily basis. My advertisers, clients and buyers use the service to send me money. Although I’ve had thousands of successful transactions with zero issues I have not and will not use PayPal for any domain sale over $500 unless I personally know the buyer.

For transactions over $500 I strongly suggest requesting a bank wire or using a bonded escrow agency such as Escrow.com. Escrow.com has been the industry standard for a very long time.

Now if after reading this you still decide to use PayPal to purchase domain names make sure to use a credit card giving yourself an extra level of protection. Set it so PayPal does not pull funds from your account but instead from your credit card which has purchase protection. This will allow you to not only file a dispute with PayPal but with your credit card company.

As I’ve said before, thieves work harder to steal our money then we do to protect it.

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This is not directed to just the domaining industry but business in general.

Over the past few months I have noticed a few domainer feuds going on. They seem to have gone public through blogs. It leaves me pondering one question: Can’t we all just get along?!

I’m leaving the discussion about feuds like that alone for this moment. I’ll get to a point later about that. The feuds are just something that drew me to write about this topic.

What I wanted to say first is, earlier in the year I was talking to a fellow domainer, someone respected and successful. Part of the conversation was about my commenting on domain values and how I didn’t feel certain domains were worth X amount of dollars. After our conversation I thought about it and this person was right. Although I am a very opinionated person by nature, I decided to take the advice and leave certain commentary out. Who am I to judge if a buyer wants to pay $50,000 for a domain name. It may be a poor purchase to me, but it obviously holds a value to that buyer. Instead of me saying something like, “They were crazy to buy that!” or “What were they thinking?!” I could focus on the positive and say, “What a great sale the owner made!”. Keeping it positive like that shows that we want each other to be successful in the domaining realm.

Do we have to love each other? No, but what possible good can come out of me bashing a value or saying no way would I pay that? The answer is none. For all I know, I could have domain buyers watching my videos or reading my articles just to gauge the domain industry so they can make an educated offer on a domain name they are looking at. So now I have discredited a domain name and it’s value, possibly hurting any future sales of that domain and others like it. In the end that helps no one. I’ve tried hard since then to not be so negative with certain things.

My lesson after the conversation, which brings me back to the mention of feuding earlier, was that we are in this together to a certain extent. We do not necessarily have to like everyone and we do not have to be best friends or even friends at all. What we should be doing is not hurting each other, especially not publicly. There are places for feuds like private forums, email or even the phone.

I know that some will react to this saying a blog is an individual’s private forum and they can say whatever they like. This is very true and I get it. Believe me, there are days I want to just go off on certain topics, but I refrain from the negativity. Again, no possible good can come from bashing someone. When I feel strongly about someone I have been known to email them directly and even call them personally.

As with many things in life, there are exceptions to this. A perfect example would be a product or service review. I do feel it necessary to write an honest opinion about such a topic. Readers do need honest feedback on using a particular service or product. Another exception would be scams. If one of us falls victim to some sort of scam, giving everyone a heads up is different than just trying to be mean and vindictive towards someone else because they aggravated you.

The point of all this is to say we need to support one another to help propel the domain industry further. I am not perfect and am the first to admit that even with trying to be more positive with certain things, I still let stuff slip. I am a work in progress, working towards progression in general. How much better would things be if we all tried to be a work in progress?

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