via Peter Maxymych interview by Jeff Behrend’s of DomainBits

Peter spilled the beans on other interested topics that might interest or inspire you, including:

• How to go about choosing which domains to develop and the development process Emall.ca uses
• An insight into a new domain exchange project and sampling of eMalls’ domains under development
• The future of the dot CA market?

Examples?

• Pingdom shows 10 examples of using cctlds as domain hacks.
  1. Ma.tt – personal blog of one of the founders of Wordpress
  2. Blo.gs – weblogs via web
  3. Chi.mp – solution for managing your online identity
  4. TV.NU – very popular in Sweden
  5. MTV.tv – need we say more?
  6. Insure.me – FREE access to Health, Life, Auto insurance quotes
  7. Cr.yp.to – Personal Website
  8. Will.I.Am – Unofficial site of the Black Eyed Peas performer
  9. Last.fm – Based on what you listen to
  10. Monetize.it – Monetize Your Blog
  11. Dine.to – Toronto Restaurants and Dining Guide
• Rick Latona bet his farm on ccTLDS

The question is becoming clearer, are You going to wait until all the good ccTLD’s are gone?

Johnathan Vrozos has written an excellent review on his website about using the iPhone as an office. Initially I was very skeptical, but upon reading this article by Johnathan Vrozos, I am very close to going out and giving it a try. Here is the gist of Mr. Vrozos’s article.

Johnathan starts the article talking about how the iPhone receives a huge amount of press coverage, both its problems and its benefits, yet for some reason one of the aspects to get the least amount of media attention is its ability to act as a mobile office.

Mr. Vrozos goes on and talks with a number of other ‘gadgetphiles’ about this, and they all agree that the iPhone has a huge capacity to work as a functional mobile office. Johnathan says the iPhone is a powerful tool for anyone who spends most of their time away from the office.

Johnathan Vrozos on why the iPhone can make a great mobile office

Firstly there is the most used function of the iPhone, it’s email compatibility. Johnathan syncs his iPhone with Microsoft’s exchange servers and so can be set up to act as a very powerful email client, with all the mod cons you would expect – such as signature templates etc.
This means that no matter where Johnathan Vrozos was in the world, where ever he could get a reception, he was able to access the same emails that he could in the office.

CRM software is rather prolific on the iPhone, from huge companies offering CRM databases, such as Oracle, to small indie developers; there is a CRM database available for everyone. This means that Johnathan was able to keep in constant contact with updates to contacts files from anywhere in the world, rather than having to be in the office, another vital function for anyone looking to take their office ‘mobile’.

Johnathan found that the iPhone is also great for reading documents. Mr. Vrozos found that he was able to download quickly and easily from databases or online file sharing solutions. This means that reports, instructions and figures can be easily accessed from the phone, something that you had to be in the office for, or at least have contact with a laptop for, before.

The applications function adds a huge number of versatile business functions of the iPhone. It can be tailored to include anything from an up-to-date currency converter to keeping track of stocks on the stock exchange. This was huge for Johnathan.

It is this versatility that most impressed Johnathan Vrozos when he talked about the iPhone as an office. He found applications for almost any function that he needed from his phone. Databases, spreadsheets, video playback, reporting systems, pretty much the works.
When you combine this versatility with the full Internet access (as opposed to WAP access usually provided by mobile phones) which makes research and online work as easy as working from an office computer Johnathan realized just how powerful a tool the iPhone is.

Whilst it doesn’t quite replace the convenience and ease that an office can bring, it certainly allows someone to spend days at a time away from their desk without losing any functionality.

Johnathan Vrozos has a number of technical articles on his website, and I encourage all to view his reviews as they are very helpful.

For those who are new to domain names, a ccTLD stands for country code top level domain. Examples of ccTLD’s used around the world are

.ca in Canada,
.com.au in Australia,
.co.uk in United Kingdom,
.de in Germany,
.pl in Poland,
.jp in Japan,
.in in India,
.ru in Russia

…

If you are to register a ccTLD domain then would it be better to register it with an English word name or the local language word?

For example:
If you were to register an indian (.in) domain name would you register toiletpaper.in or mujasrijsia.in if both were available? cheese.fr or fromage.fr in french? …. and so on

Here are the reasons why I believe english word domains are a better choice.

[1] English is the universal language, in which people all over the world communicate in. With an english word domain, you will have an opportunity to reach a wider audience, even if your service\product originates locally.

[2] Better Liquidity. Domain investors want english words, because that is what they understand. Right now Rick Latona is in buying mode and he wants english word .in domains, because he doesn’t understand the locally spoken languages. Some of the bigest ccTLD domain sales are english words.

Casino.de – $625,060
Deals.de – $102,182
News.se – $55,802
Domain.pl – $45,000
Roulette.it – $30,000
Online-Casino.nl – $31,654
Scooter.es – $24983
FitnessClub.de – $19,565
eBooking.fr – $13,650
onlineBingo.it – $11,700
Supporters.nl – $7,315

Check out DNJournal.com charts for more domain sales.

[3] English words are a less risky investment. While local languages are great, in the long term all local non-prominent languages are on their way to extinction, at least in the marketing world.

[4] Everybody is doing it already . Just look at some of the most popular websites, internet services, portals running under your favourite ccTLD.
A lot of them are using english words already, and there is a good reason
why they chose an english word domain. If they export products, or provide offshore services, its easier for their customers to find and remember them. If I was a U.S. importer of rice from India. A natural choice would be to go to rice.in, or software.in for inexpensive reliable software programming services.

[5] No local language translation. Some concepts are so new they don’t even have a local language words for it, or don’t translated well.

Can you think of any other reasons why you investing in an English word ccTLD domain would be a better choice?

When Theo acquired the domain name just over a year ago for only $2,000. He envisioned creating a web site about earth, communication, the environment – something global and related to nature. A lot of companies use domains that end in “360.org” and He did have several inquiries from such entities, claiming “not for profit” status and thus making rather symbolic and unsatisfactory offers, which he had to decline. Theo says he is in this business for profit and although charity has its place in his personal and professional life, He was not going to let go of this domain cheap.

By working with Sedo, he was able to negotiate the price with the buyer and they settled on the $25,500 number. The domain is still in Sedo’s hands so the buyer’s name isn’t in the whois database yet.

Recent Sales from SEDO include:

It’s in the car coming from the airport the prescription domains agent shows me his cure for cancer domain. It’s called ChemoSolv.com.  It’s supposed to dissolve a tumor, he says and opens his briefcase to take out a brown prescription bottle with dark capsules insides.

This is Jumping back to before i met the agent , the night he picked me up at the airport. It’s dark outside when my plane first lands in New York. Nothing’s too spectacular. It’s night, with the same moon as we have back home, and the prescription domain agent is just a regular man standing were I get off the plane, wearing glasses with is brown hair parted on one side.

We shake hands. A car drives up to the curb outside, and we get in the back. He pinches  the crease in each trouser leg to lift it as he steps into the car. How he looks is custom-tailored.

How he looks is is eternal and durable. Just meeting him there is that guilt I feel whenever I buy something impossible to recycle.

“This other cancer cure we have is called Oncologic.com,” he says and hands another brown bottle across to me sitting next to him in the backseat. This is a nice car, the way it’s black leather and padded all over inside. The ride is smoother than on the airplane.

It’s more dark capsules inside the second bottle, and pasted around the bottle is a pharmacy label the way you always see. The prescription domain agent takes out another bottle.”This is one of our cures for AIDS,” he says. “This is our most popular one.” He takes out bottle after bottle. “Here we have our leading cure for antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis. Here’s liver cirrhosis. Here’s Alzheimer’s. Multiple Neuritis. Multiple Myeloma. Multiple Sclerosis. The rhinovirus.com,” he says, shaking each one so the pills inside rattle, and handing them over to me.

ViralSept.com, it says on one bottle.

MaligNon.com, another bottle says.

CerebralSave.com.

Kohlercaine.com.

Nonsense words.

These are all same-sized brown plastic bottles with white child-guard caps and prescription domain labels from the same pharmacy. The prescription domain agent comes packaged in a medium-weight gray wool suit and is equipped with only his briefcase. He features two brown eyes behind glasses. A mouth. Clean fingernails. Nothing is remarkable about him except what he’s telling me.

“Just name a disease,” he says, “and we have a domain name and cure ready for it.”He lifts two more handfuls of brown bottles from his briefcase and shakes them. “I brought all these to prove a point.”

Every second, the car we’re in slides deeper and deeper through the dark into New York City. Around us, other cars keep pace. The moon keeps pace. I say how I’m surprised all these diseases still exist in the world. “It’s a shame,” the agent says, “how medical technology is still lagging behind the marketing and domaining side of things. I mean, we’ve had all the sales support in place for years, the coffee mug giveaways to physicians, the feel-good magazine ads, the total product launch, but it’s the same old violin in the background. R&D is still years behind. The lab monkeys are still dropping like flies.”

His two perfect rows of teeth look set in his mouth by a jeweler.

The pills for AIDS look just like the pills for cancer look just like the pills for diabetes. I ask, So these things really aren’t invented?

“Let’s not use that word, ‘invented,’” the agent says. “It makes everything sound so contrived.”

But they aren’t real?

“Of course they’re real,” he says and plucks the first two bottles out of my hands. “They’re copyrighted. We have an inventory of almost fifteen thousand copyrighted domain names for products that are still in development,” he says. ” And that includes you.”

He says, “That’s just my point.”

He’s developing a cure for cancer?

“We’re a total concept marketing slash public relations organization,” he says. “Our job is to create the concept. You patent a drug. You copyright the name and register the domain name.  As soon as someone else develops the product they come to us, sometimes by choice, sometimes not.”

I ask him, Why sometimes not?

“The way this works is we copyright every conceivable combination of words, Greek words, Latin, English, what-have-you. We get the domain and legal rights to every conceivable word a pharmaceutical company might use to name a new product. For diabetes alone, we have an inventory of one hundred forty names,” he says. He hands me stapled-together pages from out of his briefcase in his lap.

GlucoCure.com, I read.

InsulinEase.com.

PancreAid.com, Hemazine.com, Glucodan.com, Growdenase.com, I turn to the next page, and bottles slip out of my lap and roll along the car floor with the pills inside rattling.

“If the drug company that ever cures diabetes wants to use any combination of words even vaguely related to the condition, they’ll have to lease that right from us.”

So the pills I have here, I say, these are sugar pills. I twist one bottle open and shake a tablet, dark red and shining, into my palm. I lick it, and it’s candy-coated chocolate. Others are gelatin capsules with powdered sugar inside.

“Mock-ups,” he says. “Prototypes.”

He says, “My point is that every bit of your career with us is already in place, and we’ve been prophesying your arrival for more than fifteen years.

He says, “I’m telling you this so you can relax.”

And I put a pill, an orange Geriamazone.com, in my mouth.

“We’ve been tracking you,” he says. “As soon as the conversion numbers raised above one hundred, we started the campaign rolling. The whole media countdown over the last six months, that was our doing. It needed some fine-tuning. It wasn’t anything specific at first, all the copy is pretty much search-and-replace, fill-in-the-blank, universal-change stuff, but it’s all in the can. All we needed was a warm body and a name. That’s where you enter the picture.”

From another bottle, I shake out two dozen Inazan.com’s and hold them under my tongue until their black candy shells dissolve. Chocolate melts out.

The prescription domain agent takes out more sheets of printed paper and hands them to me.

Ford Merit, I read.

Mercury Rapture.

Dodge Vignette.

He says, “We have names copyrighted and domains registered for cars that haven’t been designed, software that’s never been written, miracle dream cures for epidemics still on the horizon, every product we can anticipate.”

My back teeth crunch a sweet overdose of blue Donnadons.

The domain agent eyes me sitting there and sighs. “Enough with the empty calories, already,” he says. “Our first big job is to modify you so you’ll fit the campaign.” He asks, “Is that your real hair color?”

I pour a million milligrams of Jodazones in my mouth.

“Not to mince words,” the domain agent says, “but you’re about thirty pounds heavier than we need you to be.”

The bogus pills I can understand. What I don’t understand is how he could begin planning a campaign around something before it happened. No way could he have a campaign planned before the arrival.

The agent takes off his glasses and folds them. He sets them inside his briefcase and takes back the printed lists of future miracle products, drugs and cars, and he puts the lists in his briefcase. He tug-of-wars the pill bottles out of my hands, all of them silent and empty.

“The truth is,” he says, “nothing new ever happens.”

He says, “We’ve seen it all.”

“Our whole campaign is based on the fact that you’re totally unique” he says. “If there’s another person like you alive in the world, you’re wasting my time. The entire campaign is down the tubes. If you’re not the only living unique copy in the world, you’re worthless to us.”

He opens his briefcase a crack and takes out a brown bottle. “Here,” he says, “take a couple Serenadons. These are the best anti-anxiety treatment ever invented.”

They just don’t exist yet.

“Just pretend,” he says, “for the placebo effect.” And he shakes two into my hand

Each week, Pool.com features .CA Coming Attractions spotlighting their favourite .CA domains found on that week’s TBR list! This personalized selection of hot domains, together with a few thoughts on the picks, will give you some food-for-thought when it comes to getting your hands on the versatility and potential of this exclusivelly-Canadian TLD.

Marie’s Personal Picks for January 7, 2008:

Aid.ca
“Millions of people around the world and many even in our own backyards are less fortunate than a lot of us and are suffering each day. But we all know that change starts with one person taking initiative, and impact is created when people band together towards a common goal. There are many excellent charities and relief organizations working hard in support of many causes here in Canada, and perhaps a website like Aid.ca could be the place on the web for Canadians to go to better understand where and how their charitable donation dollars are being made to work, and to educate new donors on where their first donations and volunteering skills can make an impact.”

Ratings.ca
“Sometimes a second opinion is just what’s needed. If it isn’t choosing between those two new restaurants just around the corner then it’s deciding on which ski hill to hit up on Saturday morning. How about a website that captures ratings based on categories? From movies to music or repair shops to insurance coverage, you can always find value in a comparison. Backorder Ratings.ca today!”

Meals.ca
“If your schedule is anything like mine, it’s tough to add variety to your meals week after week. I have often thought it would be very helpful to sign up to some sort of a website where I can input my favorite ingredients as well as any sort of allergies or dislikes I have into a database, and in return I receive unique and customized meal plans with ingredient lists for the week! Heck, I’d pay for that service. And perhaps it could also include meals for specific diets such as sugar-free, low-cholesterol and low-fat. Not to mention the inclusion of seasonal Canadian produce to the menu! Get those creative juices flowing with Meals.ca!”

Other extra-hot .CA’s on this week’s TBR list:

Amen.ca
Interviews.ca
Portfolios.ca
Reviews.ca
Content Writer.ca

Antique Shop.ca
Meet.ca
Jog.ca
Mum.ca
JPG.ca

Feet.ca
Meat.ca
Earn.ca
Essay.ca
Tests.ca

Prayer.ca
Organ.ca
Classical.ca
Hairstyle.ca
LunchBox.ca

Safeguard.ca
BibleStudy.ca
Supplement.ca
Aftermarket.ca
DentalOffice.ca
Antioxidant.ca
BeachWeddings.ca

Here is a Full List

Is MysteryDomainAuction.com a scam?

Sometimes when a controversial issue arises we need to take a stand, in order to do the right thing, for the greater good of the community, for those who may not see as clearly or have less experience than us and rely on our opinion. Staying neutral is not an option because it puts one in the camp of the guilty\ignorant for failing to reveal to your readers (who i assume you respect) the pitfalls and shortsightedness of certain schemes.

I have never been introduced to the concept of an all-pay auction before, so when i saw this “auction”, the first thought was that it was an interesting project, however $1,000,000 revenue with only $10K grand prize, and a chance of winning approaching zero faster than a lottery ticket set of alarm bells really quickly. A quick research into it revealed the dirty little secret of its inner workings.

The twist that tricks people in this case is the promise of value delivered from advertising of ones bids that link to your site.

How much advertising value are you really receiving from this form of untargetted advertising? Have you calculated your CPM for your $3 bid? if advertising is your goal, is the price of admission worth it?

For example If you advertise at dotSauce Magazine, a site that receives over 30,000 unique visitors a month, assuming conservatively only 2 visits per unique, that is 60,000 impressions (probably you’ll get more). So a highly visible monthly 125×125 button will cost you ~ 0.67 CPM,
so $3 would translate into 4478 impressions. Is the mystery auction going to bring you that many impressions, which one is a better deal?

Not only the mystery volume is not there to justify the cost impression wise, are those few clicks if you are lucky to receive them going to convert for a positive ROI? highly doubtful.

Even if ROI was positive, the whole concept leaves a bad taste in people’s mouth for good reasons, so it’s up to you to decide if you want to link up your site with that kind of flavour.

But what are others saying about this topic?

• Jamie Parks explains What it is and offers some advise.”What it is though is a shady advertising model that needs at least 50 days to really work; ideally 100 days to sucker as many people as possible out of a few bucks”"Times are only gonna get tougher people. Put your time, attention and money into the things that are most important. Like DEVELOPING your best domain names and driving targeted traffic to meaningful, relative, quality content.”"Focus on what is REAL. Don’t fall for every new scheme out there”
• The truth about Mystery Domain Auction
• Will it create a buzz? Read Elliot’s analysis

Related readings:

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/an-all-pay-auction/

http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/09/24/swoopo-entertainment-shopping-or-scam

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/12/profitable-unt

i.html

Examples of All-Pay Auctions:

. Swoopo.com
. KingoftheBill.com

• Jobs.ca
• cv.ca
• Interview.ca
• GMX.ca
• Income.ca
• Lesbian.ca
• Espresso.ca
• Diploma.ca

[4] Domain Convergence Conference in Niagara Falls takes place
[5] MyId.ca holds 3 .ca Domain Auctions
[6] Canada ranked 2nd as a World Brand
[7] CIRA Implements Privacy for .ca domain name holders

You probably wouldn’t notice any signs of financial crisis and depressed state of the economy, that hit us in 2008, if you looked at the domain sales charts of the TLDs (.com, .org,.net) and ccTLDs (.ca, .co.uk, .de …). This is also true for the Canadian .ca domain name extension, as it was a record breaking year for the reported .ca domain sales, yielding $1,242,482 in aftermarket sales, an increase of over 500% when compared to 2007 reported sales.

Top 100 .ca Domain Sales in 2008