You’re Going To Wind Up With A Dot Com

But don’t take my word for it. Here’s another Jason Calacanis audio clip from This Week In Startups, episode 29.

Jason on ‘Dot Com’

The context is a domain/brand a caller mentioned in a previous ‘Ask Jason’ segment.

Jason Calacanis: Isn’t it amazing though Tyler? The people with the naming.
Tyler Crowley: I just found out… I think lean.ly is available. With the dot L-Y which seems to be the hot new…
Jim Lanzone: Hmm!
Jason: Oh…
Tyler: Don’t get you started with that?
Jason: gov.ly? (refers to earlier in the conversation)
Tyler: gov.ly?
Jason: gov.ly
Tyler: lov.ly gov.ly
Jason: lov.ly gov.ly… I hate that nonsense.
Tyler: Yeah.. L-Y’s catchin’ on, so is dot F-M
Jason: (Sighs)
Tyler: But it gives people more of an option to come up with names… You use Bit.ly all day long!
Jason: You know what, De.licio.us did this as well, and then when they were successful they wound up buying Delicious dot com.
You’re going to wind up with a dot com anyway, You might as well make the effort and spend the money to get it early. So you don’t have to re-brand it!

Domains Are Brands – Square Squareup.com Fever Feedafever.com

I wasn’t the only one scratching his head when I read the TechCrunch story announcing Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s new, very cool, credit card reading startup. It’s called ‘Square’. But the domain is squareup.com. Here’s Elliot Silver’s take (links to full post)

TechCrunch reported today that Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter, has launched a mobile payment service called Square. While the actual product/service looks pretty cool, I am surprised that someone with the capital resources such as Dorsey would launch a new brand on a domain name that is different from the actual brand.The big problem for Square is that they are using the domain name SquareUp.com for their website. This really defies logic to me for a couple of big reasons…

Exactly! Can’t afford it? Not worth it? It’s just a domain name? But it is difficult to supply the facts that support our side of the argument. The best evidence I’ve come across that supports, with data, the efficacy of a great (generic) domain name comes from Edwin Hayward at MemorableDomains.co.uk with a report entitled Improving PPC Search Engine Campaign Results Using Generic Domain Names (check out Ed Keay-Smith’s OzDomainer podcast interview with Edwin where he explains the report!) Still, that makes sense for PPC and generic domain names. But is branding any different? How? I’ll leave that for the comments and for another post. In the meantime I’d like to focus on this aspect alone: Why call your company one thing, Square, but have a different URL? If you can’t afford the domain name, at least call the company after the domain you do own!

Here’s another case. I may come back to this over time. When I first heard about ‘Fever’ it sounded interesting (I’m into feeds and feed readers). But I couldn’t find it! I’d heard about it on a podcast. It literally took minutes to find. Fever.com is a parked page with illness related ads popping up. Hmm, just curious, how expensive would Fever.com be? But maybe a lot. Because a domainer could be holding out for a play from a big pharmaceutical. So ‘Fever’ uses the domain feedafever.com. Not bad. Reasonably memorable. So why not call the product that? As/if Fever continues to gain momentum, I’ll update the Compete pics. but check it out. Don’t the numbers seem to be indicating, that as momentum for Fever grows, more traffic is being sent to the parked Fever.com page?

November 2, 2009

A month later.

Doesn’t it look like for whatever reason, Fever.com is getting more traffic?
What do you think? Is that extra traffic likely to be people looking for ‘Fever’?
What makes me nervous about all this is thinking about what will happen to the price of the domain over time if/when Fever becomes very popular.
Like I mention in a previous post, $75,000 for Poken.com?!!!
Acquire your startup domain names early!
If you’re starting a company I’m happy to help brainstorm an available domain name or help you connect with a great domain at a fair price.

How To Make Money Online. No… Really. My Interview With Eric Borgos of ImpulseCorp.com

As anyone who has stumbled upon his ImpulseCorp.com blog knows, Eric Borgos has a treasure trove
of domaining/webmastering experience dating back to the very early days of the internet. Since selling
his Bored.com site in 2008 for $4.5 million, Eric has found time to share some of his experiences. Eric
graciously accepted my request for an interview.
Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure… Eric Borgos.

Podcast Notes: Eric Borgos
http://www.impulsecorp.com/
http://www.nameshopping.com/
http://bored.com/ (Record created on: 1997-05-24) sold for $4.5 million.
Early entrepreneurial efforts (as a kid). Baseball cards, coins, silver, Penny Stocks.
College years.
Early domaining, (Ye Olde Drop Catch).
Webmastering directory type ‘mall’ sites.
What was working in the late 90s.
Affiliate links > ad networks.
Bored.com [links to 1998 screenshot] directory of sites with fun stuff to do.
Copying other sites- why send the traffic away?
CoolVideos.com   vs. bored.com/coolvideos
Link-network vs. brand.
Site plays audio backwards.
Type in a phone number and a text message and the site calls the number and announces the message.
How fun sites get built.
Freelancers, overseas programmers.
http://www.scriptlance.com/
http://www.guru.com/index.aspx
Traffic, costs, profit.
Selling Bored.com, the psychology of the sale.
Two bidders are better than 1.
Tax advantages to selling vs. salary.
Capital gains vs. income.
AdoptMe.com for kids. Free virtual pet. > Plush toys for sale in stores with unique code identifiers.
GetFlowers.com CheapFlowers.com + Running two brick and mortar flower stores!
SEO value of hub site approach?
Selling domains.
9000 domain names > parking.
TrafficZ.com DDC.com TrafficValet.com
To renew or not to renew?
Mini-sites vs. parking income.
Auto-content sites.
Domain sale process – negotiation.
http://estibot.com/ http://dnjournal.com/
Paypal vs. https://escrow.com/index.asp
Still registering domains?
Revenue, profit, expenses, sales.
http://www.nameshopping.com/
http://www.dumb.com/
Keeping it interesting.

What’d I miss? Help me build a list of   questions to ask Eric in a follow-up interview.
.com vs. .net
ppc to drive traffic to his sites?

Domains ARE Brands!

I’ve been listening to a LOT of startup related podcasts. Especially ThisWeekInStartups.com mentioned earlier and Andrew Warner’s Mixergy.com. I’ve pretty much spent the last month going over every one of Andrew’s podcasts. It’s surprising how many startups miss the boat on domains and how that can impact marketing efforts. I think this clip from an interview Andrew did with Grasshopper.com founder Siamak Taghaddos pretty much sums up what I hear over and over again.

Siamak Taghaddos

Seems pretty obvious, right? But here’s an example (from another excellent Mixergy interview) of what so often happens.
Noah Kagan

Matt (WordPress / www.Ma.tt) had to get it. Would like to know more about that story.
Matt Mullenweg

Otis (of Goodreads.com) definitely gets it. Exactly, “a good domain will give you a 30% extra chance of success”.
Otis Chandler

Sure, domain names can be expensive. But the trouble is, the larger you grow your company, the more you
run the risk that someone is going to hold that domain name hostage (and why shouldn’t they, really?)
I guess my point is that getting the right domain name upfront will save you a lot of money in the long run.
If you would like help finding or acquiring a domain name for your startup please drop me a line. I love to
brainstorm domains and can help broker a deal for a domain that’s already owned.

In The News.
From: DomainNameWire.com

Social gadget company upgrades its domain name.
Sedo has brokered the sale of Poken.com for $75,000 to a company that bills itself as a mobile social business card.

According to the web site, “poken is your ‘social business card.’ it’s an easy way to share your contact details and online social networks in the real world. just hold two poken palms together – high4! – and you’re connected.”

The web site makes it look like a product primarily for teenagers. This domain is a big upgrade, as it appears the company has been using DoYouPoken.com as its web site.

From: DotWeekly.com

Ad.ly Purchases Adly.com Domain Name
Ad.ly is becoming a very popular in-stream advertising platform for Twitter.com users and they just purchased what would be considered a typo of their domain name, Adly.com for $6,000 at Sedo.com .

Adly.com was first registered in late 2001 and changed hands to Adly Inc. on 10-31-2009.

This is a very wise purchase for Adly Inc. because not only could the domain name be considered a typo of it’s Ad.ly domain, but it also matches the company name exactly.

I think Adly Inc. got a Great Deal on the new domain purchase, as Adly is a nice 4 letter brandable domain name… Just like Ad.ly decided to name their company!

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One Off Records – OneOffRecords.com

OneOffRecords.com

A one-off thing is made or happens only once.

This is an idea I’ve had for a long time that I keep coming back to do more research on. Recently I was able to register a great domain for the business. Basically the idea, based on 30 years in music, is to gather musicians together in a studio for the purpose of creating 1 only, direct-to-vinyl recording. Then match the musical artist to an awesome paint/print artist for the 12″ cover and you have a one-of-a-kind record. There’s only one. The musicians all sign it. The artist signs it. Everybody participates in the sale. You can make the digital versions of it available for free- the free version generates buzz and interest and there’s still something of value to sell at the end of the day. And, there’s only 1.

Right now the pain point for me is the vinyl cutting hardware. I know a lot of great musicians. I have a close friend with a killer studio who really cares about getting great tone. But the last time I checked, vinyl cutting hardware was running around $10k. I also just discovered that the one I had my eye on, the Vestax VRX-2000,   has been discontinued.

One Off Records Vestax VRX-2000 discontinued!

What do you think? Do you know of anyone doing something like this already? How they’re doing? Also, if you stumble upon this post in your search for vinyl cutters,   please share your insights with me in the comments.

TWiST Angel Showdown – Things Got Interesting!

TWiST #23 – Angel Funding Showdown

I’m assuming that’s a Halloween AK-47 Jason Calacanis is holding. The other fellow is Steve Bell (links to his take on all this). Things got a little heated today on This Week In Startups around the issue of Jason’s current beef, “Why startups shouldn’t have to pay to pitch angel investors“. Mr. Bell likened Jason’s attack on companies like Keiretsu (who Mr. Bell, an angel investor who uses Keiretsu’s services called in to defend) to ‘Jihad’. The upshot? Jason stated he would start an OpenAngelForum if Keiretsu and their ilk refuse to drop their fees. He also made what I think is a very valuable offer (paraphrasing here) – that if Keiretsu does drop their fees, Jason will support them 100%. Hmm. Having the support of Jason with all his Tech Crunch 50 experience and connections, not to mention the Jason Nation -VS.- going head to head with one of the most savvy entrepreneurs on the planet? Watching this go down live was a lot of fun. The chat room was going off.

Entrepreneurship 101 – Name Your Company The Same As Your Domain Name

From Jason Calacanis of Mahalo and ThisWeekInStartups.com TWIST Episode 16.

Listen to the clip

Jason Calacanis –   … Number one, the name is terrible… If the name of the company is Aardvark you should own Aardvark dot com. They only own Vark dot com. I mean this is like 101 entrepreneurship stuff like name your company the same as your domain name.   I don’t know, what’s the domain name of Challenge Post?
Brandon Kessler –   It’s ChallengePost.
Jason Calacanis – (sarcastic) Oh is it? Really? Do you wanna know the domain name of Mahalo, by chance? It’s Mahalo.com. Do you know where to find This Week In Startups?   That dot com. You know where to find Aardvark? Drop the a-a-r and the d,   and then put a dot com.
Aaron Vohen – What if they were thinking people don’t know how to spell Aardvark? They would try A-r-d-v-a-r-k.
Jason Calacanis – It wasn’t available obviously, but I mean if you’re…

[Follow-up from TWIST 31]
Listen: Vark ll

Walking the walk.

Calacanis then laid out $11,000 for the domain name Mahalo.com, which, at one point, had been a nude-celebrity site.

Of course there are exceptions (when you’re a seed investor and on the board perhaps?).
TWiST #17 with Ryan Block and Peter Rojas 32:30

Listen to the clip

Jason Calacanis –   I love the logo to g-d-g-t… and you can call it gadget
Ryan Block / Peter Rojas – You can call it gadget,   yeah.
Jason – People can just call it gadget.
Peter Rojas – I say g-d-t-g just so people know how to spell the url.
Ryan Block – I’ve been saying gadget a little bit more lately, but…
Jason – Yeah, people will get it. Anyway… Great to get a four, was that four letter domain available?
Ryan Block / Peter Rojas – We had to buy it but we didn’t have to spend very much. We had to buy it but… surprisingly affordable.
Jason – Under a G?
Ryan – Yeah.
Jason – Oh perfect. I mean, it’s not even a rounding error.
Ryan – So what it actually was was they had like a catalog of just letters. You know, so like g-d-g-t, g-d-g-s, g-d-g-r…
Jason – Oh there just waiting for people to buy them. They’re like, (as in company receptionist), Hello, Domain Squatting Scumbags, how can we help you?   Which domain did we take of yours… bastards… that’s quite a business idea… I think I   ought to do that. Let’s do it with five letters. Probably didn’t get to five letters yet.

Little bit of a disconnect here considering Jason’s comments in TWIST 16. But certainly understandable considering what Gadget.com or Gadgets.com might cost (guessing $400k). Looks like Gadget.com is a real site, but Gadgets.com is parked. Perhaps Gadgets.com owners Domain Capital would consider some sort of equity/lease-to-own deal.
Jason is obviously kidding when he refers to the previous owners of GDGT.com as “Domain squatting scumbags”, but he’s been around the interwebs for a long time. A lot of people do see domain investors as squatters. But only be because someone else has registered a domain name they want. At least a domain investor (or ‘domainer’) is looking to sell the domain! Better a domainer than a competitor who has bought up all the keywords in your niche for the sole purpose of keeping them out of your hands!

Shoe Toss – ShoeToss.com

There’s a LOT of Shoe Toss content out there. Besides the original buzz, a lot of the meme can be traced back to a game called SockAndAwe that was created by Alex Tew.

From TechCrunch Europe Dec. 17, 2008

Alex Tew, the Uk entrepreneur most famous for creating the Million Dollar Home Page, has stumbled on another hit, almost by accident. Tew is currently working on PopJam, currently in stealth mode, but came up with a viral game to promote the site’s launch in the new year. The smartly named SockAndAwe lets you throw a shoe at President Bush, referring his recent escapade at a press conference in Iraq. However, the game itself is now proving to be a smash hit in its own right.

The site has now been featured on Reuters, AFP and many other mainstream sites.

Today the site got half a million unique users only two days after launch. Now Tew has put the game up for sale on eBay as a further promotion. Bidding starts at £100 GBP.

Of course, the eBay listing will simply add fuel to the PR fire. It’s certainly a novel way to raise financing for a startup.

Here is the information from the eBay listing:

SockandAwe.com has gone viral on a massive, global scale. Here are some visitor stats (at time of writing, 9:02pm UK time, 17th Dec)

– 1,161,825 Absolute Unique Visitors since launch on 15th Dec
– 1,680,465 Pageviews since launch on 15th Dec
– 823,906 Unique Visitors so far today alone (17th Dec)
– 9,533 sources and mediums of traffic (that’s a lot of inbound links!)

Oh, and in the game itself: over 21 million virtual shoes have successfully hit president Bush’s face so far!

UPDATE: Entrepreneur Brendan McLoughlin has bought the game for £5215 on ebay.

SockAndAwe.com is now owned by Fubra who seem to be a development company that builds niche product social sites. They have over a hundred sites and seem to be fairly evolved. They’re hiring for instance. Some pretty sophisticated flash stuff. Check out their FubraWorld site. SockAndAwe seems to be about collecting (optional) email addresses from players. I don’t know anything about online games but I suppose this is how a viral game has value- a percentage of the players will leave their email addresses.

So what am I going to do with ShoeToss? A little late to the party? Considering that throwing your show at someone is a common insult in the Arab world. We can expect there to be more incidents. Perhaps the next incident will inspire a new game. In the meantime I’ll use this page to build a little directory of everything Shoe Toss and see what kind of traffic it generates. I’ll also be brainstorming the ultimate Shoe Toss game. I’m looking for a talented Flash game/widget developer.


Bush Shoe game at Mind360.com

sockandawe.com game
SockAndAwe.com

Read the Wired.com articles:
Bush Shoe-Toss Immortalized in Games, Animations
Attack of the Bush Shoe-Toss Games Continues

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Cat Scanners – CatScanners.com

Domain name for sale. CatScanners.com.
Buy it now. Immediate transfer to your Godaddy account.
These things are expensive! Great deal for a vendor.
Google search: 607,000 for cat scanners, 66,500 for “cat scanners”.

cat scanner ct scanner

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