SkyDomains

Good day people. Have you received your Indeed.com check for the qauter yet? When I got home yesterday, waiting for me was an envelope from Indeed.com. Yes it is finally here, my very first check from Indeed. I thought it will never come, for most of the time until recently I had ignored the revenue since it was just so little. However recently I added the required tax information which made me eligible for the next round of payments.

Now lets not get carried away. This is not a big check especially when you consider the fact that Indeed only pays quarterly. Somehow my biggest excitement is that I have seen a progressive revenue increment from the site that generated the Indeed cheque over the past few months. It is possible that the state of the economy might have helped my earnings somewhat.

So how much was the check ? Two hundred ninety-nine dollars and eighty eight cents. ($299.88) Not bad but I am hoping for more and better revenue in the near future.

Revenue is from September 2009 to June 2010. The bright side is that my Indeed revenue for the month of July only is currently at $56 as of the time of this writing.

How far would you go to sell a domain? How far have you ever gone to sell one? How much would you spend to sell a domain? These are all the questions that came to mind as I opened my mail box yesterday and saw these two postcards amongst other mail from Google and Yahoo telling me to come and advertise with them. These two postcards were not from Yahoo or Google. As a matter of fact, I have never had any previous dealings with its sender/s to the best of my knowledge.

I will not string you along any longer, here are the pictures of the postcards. After you have gone through them, consider the fact that one of them has 28 cents postage on it. If the sender sent out 100,000 pieces of mail, that will bring the cost of this mailing to $28,000 USD. What if they just sent a misery 5,000 pieces? the cost will be $1400.

I am not knocking this mailing by any means. In-fact I give the people or person responsible an “A” for effort. I encourage anything that brings domaining to mainstream but my problem is that neither my wife nor any of my friends got this postcard. Just wondering if the domaining community was these peoples target, wouldn’t a simple ad on Domaining.com or DnForum  or even a featured listing on Sedo been cheaper? Please share your thoughts.

Good day people. It is probably months now since my last post. Initially it was due to school but recently it has also been due to a medical condition. I am alright . Approximately one month ago I had a hip resurfacing surgery. Over 4 years ago, I sustained what at the time seamed like a sprain while running at the beach. This later developed to pain so unbearable I had no other choices but to choose between a hip replacement surgery and a hip resurfacing surgery. At this very moment, I am somewhat off crutches and can move around almost freely. All that remains of my old pain is a six inch incision scar.

I have always been a prolific web shopper but when  you are home and cannot move much, Internet shopping takes a whole new meaning. There is one thing Amazon does that I still do not understand how they pull it off and still make a profit. For $79 a year you get to join the exclusive “Amazon prime” this means that whatever Amazon sells with the Prime symbol on it gets shipped to you for free with 2 day shipping and for an extra $3.99 you get it next day. Amazon has become my number one shopping site especially around birthdays and holidays. No matter how late I procrastinate, I can always surprise my nephews and nieces with presents that arrive just on time. Last fathers day, I ordered a wrist watch on Friday 7 PM EST and it was delivered on Saturday 11 AM  and I wore it to church on Sunday at 10.30 Am. How do they do they do it? I don’t know. Sure there is FedEx next day but how does a big company like Amazon manage to cut to the chase and package and ship products with such efficiency? I believe  this singular factor will help pioneer Amazon to a level its rivals will not dare dream of.

I have one or two websites that deal with consumers directly or that have in the past. I am always thinking, how and when do my sites get to the Amazon shipping status. First and foremost, I have tried to ensure that no product stays with me longer than it needs to once it is paid for. This is a start. If you are concerned about speed, note that FedEx ground will beat UPS ground in speed almost all the time and for about the same price.

Was this post really necessary? Well we are all domainers, some of us are webmasters, yet all of us should study and master the secret of the Amazon success because I believe it can be applied in almost any web business.

The Friday edition of  The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Bob Parson, the founder and CEO of GoDaddy.com has just paid a whooping $8.72 million for a Balinese -style house on Hawaii’s Big Island that was built by Singer-actress, Cher. The property went to auction last month. “Located at the Four Seasons’ Hualalai resort, the property includes a main house and four one-bedroom bungalows. Cher bought the property in December 2004 for $2.9 million and last year began building the house but never lived in it” WSJ (2010).

Talking about Cher, is she still on her never ending final tour? It appears so.

Who owns Cher.com ? The site looks like it should belong to her and is devoted to her but who-is points to :

Registrant:
   Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP
   11355 W. Olympic Blvd
   Los Angeles, CA  90064
   US

This is probably her production company that registered the name for her. Awesome mini site!

OK people, I am back to studying for a test tonight. It was nice chatting with you guys again even if it was for a short trivial fact.

Happy new year everyone.  Over the last few days of last year, I worked tirelessly trying to bring a deal to a close. It was not easy having to balance between work, school and a rather demanding customer. Over a period of two weeks we went from a decent offer (I have refused better for the same domain) to negotiating an advertising deal with the domain. This was particularly challenging because I was also writing my end of term exams at the time and this buyer turned advertiser wanted all kinds of stats. Well in the end the deal never panned out. However an ex US Marine recruiter once told me, “if they keep coming back, they want something”  This customer did come back a couple of time so I am almost certain that we will write a deal one day. It is not unlike one of my current advertisers (more…)

Jessica Dicker of CNN Money wrote today that Gourmet Magazine after 70 years of publication will be shut down despite over 1 million subscribers. In addition to Gourmet, parenting magazine Cookie and two wedding magazines, Elegant Bride and Modern Bride will also  be getting  the axe. 

“The magazine industry is in a difficult position generally speaking, it’s losing revenue to online advertising and it’s a tough business right now,” said Richard Dorfman, managing director of Richard Alan Inc., a financial advisory and investment company focusing on the media industry.

This is futher evidence that online advertising is indeed hiting conventional media hard where it hurts.

Have you ever wondered how long it will take you to make it to the number one spot for your most coveted search term in Google? More importantly when you get there, have you ever wondered how long it will take you to climb back to the first page of search for your desired keyword much less your esteemed position at the number one spot. It happened to me and I am about to tell you a tale that is so resent, I am still recovering from the aftermath effects.

When I build a site, my ultimate goal is that one day it ranks on the first page for one or two search terms I choose from the beginning. If the domain name makes up this search term, then I can not accept anything short of the top 3 spot as satisfactory.
(more…)

Hello people. I am proud to be a domainer and my guess is that you are too, however the present and persistent happenings in the industry has given me cause to sit back and ponder. Every week great sales are announced. We all enjoy reading about those, don’t we? While theyare great news of hope, fact remains that the very cancer (Heaven forbids) that will destroy this industry continues to grow. Myself like the rest of the domaining industry look the other way, each of us concerned only of our own piece of virtual real estate(s). I am going to focus on the resent issue of Ad.com, AOL , Overseas and Skenzo.

Here is a brief recap of the issue: Skenzo commits to buy Ad.com from Overseas, AOL raises dust and claims that Ad.com infringes on their Adverstise.com mark. Skenzo panics (more…)

Hello people. My disdain for 1&1 domain registrar is not new. I have often tagged them as the worst registrar in the world and rightly so.  They have one of the worst interface in my own opinion. They are also second only to GoDaddy in “bait and switch”. This is where a registrar  attracts you with nice initial low registration fees  and then sticks it to you real hard the next year with super inflated renewal fees. 

 I had two domains in 1&1, I tried to stop the renewal of these domains but failed because I just could not navigate there interface (I later learned that you need to do it in writing – go figure!), so  I simply declined to update the credit card I had on file with them. To make a long story short,  they still went ahead and billed me anyway. When they sent me the bill I complained and was told to cancel the account in writing which I did.  Four months later, I am faced with a letter from a collection agency plus added collection fees.

(more…)

Hello people. Some of you might have been wondering what’s up with me. Some pals even sent me emails and direct messages from twitter to make sure that all is well with me. Well I will update you on what has been happening since my sabbatical. First and foremost, I went back to school. I am going for a  degree in Business with an emphasis on Marketing this time. How this fits my bachelors in  Chemistry, I have no clue but I believe along with the times, my dreams  and where I have found myself in life, this was a necessary move. This is what I have always wanted to do anyway.  Though my true passion is actually Business with emphasis in Advertising but the college I choose for certain reasons does not offer this program. I think Marketing is close enough and probably a case of semantics. It is never too late to teach an old dog new tricks and now is always a good time to start that dream you have been procrastinating  on.

In this period I sold what I believe is my first .org sale ever.  I own very little .org. Most where regged because I own the other two primary extensions. An example will be SkyDomains.org. Not that I do not believe in .org’s but most of the time, the return on investment is slim.

Well now you know why I have not been very active. I do have a few juicy stories to share with you guys in the next couple of days. Stay tuned