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WARNING: DOES TWITTER ROB YOU?

(THIS ARTICLE IS IN RESPONSE TO AN ARTICLE WRITTEN BY JAMIE ZOCH OF DOTWEEKLY.COM)

First of all, I agree with Jamz article on Dotweekly.com.

So how does Twitter potentially rob you? Ask yourself how much your time is worth.  Is it $10 an hour, $25 an hour? $100 or more? At any level of your hourly worth, Twitter might rob you of your ability to get out a comprehensive, significant profile and any details of a project you are working on, product you’re selling or promoting, and news you are announcing. I would say the 140 character limit isn’t enough to properly inform your readers of what you’re trying to say.

After careful study over a month’s time, I canceled my Twitter account. I’d reached about 300 followers and I was following almost 200 others. All the people I connected to and allowed to connect to me were supposedly domainers.

Why did I cancel my Twitter account? I canceled because I know that most *”twits” who are “Following” more than 100 people/companies are just stroking you if they’re signing up to receive your tweets. If my “Followers” were following more than 100 other Twits, it didn’t take much analysis to conclude that these followers had little time to read my tweets. * (“Twits” are people who believe that 24 hour news networks are comprehensive sources for them to feel satisfied they know what’s going on in the world, and who think Twitter is the perfect way to “communicate without commitment”.

Big Question: Will your followers who also follow 100+ other Twits who post at least one tweet a day, be able to read your tweet? Some Twits post as many as 20 tweets a day!

Come on. Really? Multiple tweets a day? Even three tweets a day may just mean the Twit can’t get everything they want to say into one tweet. How many times have you discovered this on Twitter?

So either you’re a spammer, desperate, bored, or lonely, or all of the above, if you’re putting out that many tweets daily. The only other people who legitimately (notice that word) send out that many Tweets are the Public Relations Industry, who see Twitter as a godsend for their celebrity clients. Most tweets by celebs are sent out by their PR staff, unless the celeb is “publicity hungry” and loves to physically be in the spotlight as much as possible. Those of you who think an actual celebrity, or news/entertainment company wonk, are personally tweeting out their stuff several times a day, learn the world of Public Relations and marketing and the media game. (Most of those tweeters are called “Staffers” or “P/A’s”.  Remember that a “celeb” can be anyone well-known in their industry.)

Of course, a lot of celebs (in any industry) can quickly throw out a tweet if something interesting is happening, but if it’s a deluge of tweets coming from one source everyday, then depending on who is the tweeter, they fall into one or more of the categories of Twits I described above.

Additionally, I received so many tweets from people I legitimately subscribed to, that I couldn’t read them all. I read their blogs if their topic is relevant, so I can get more info elsewhere than on their tweet.

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COMPANIES FINALLY BUYING GENERICS FOR THEIR PRODSERVS?

Here’s some news I found while researching the ridiculous ruling in California awarding Chris Bosh 800 domains from an alleged “cybersquatter”, Luis Zavalda, thereby making Chris Bosh the NEW cybersquatter… if that makes sense to you, you’re a Glenn Beck fan.

I looked up the link in the articles listed in the NY TIMES and Wall Street Journal regarding the Chris Bosh debacle, where in their stories they listed a link to what a “CYBERSQUATTER” was.  Well, according to WiseGeek.com, a cybersquatter is what domainers think they are… and the majority of domainers avoid being put in this position by the domains they buy.

However, an interesting final statement on the link at WiseGeek.com was this:

“The era of the cybersquatter may be coming to an end, however. Companies and celebrities now have a better understanding of the importance of domain name registration. Acquiring the rights to their own names and product lines has become a much bigger priority, considering how much potential income could be lost if their preferred internet identities are already owned by a cybersquatter.”

I’ve talked to many domainers selling domains to end users, including Buy Domains and Snapname, and I’m sure all the other domain auction sales sites agree that many companies (end users) are starting to focus on buying their catalog descriptive product generic domains in order to control the “basics” of a brand they are promoting. We call it “BackBranding”, where promoting your brand along with the generic descriptive domain for what that brand represents is the most important online marketing move a company can make. If you request it, I will put up a list (other domain bloggers have done this too) of domain names and phrases that are generics, bought by large companies.

Listen up people. We are on the fence, with barbed wire at the top. People are trying to destroy us, just as the corporate world is beginning to understand the domain value process, and how important it is for them to own generic domains that do NOT represent TM infringements.

I hope the future for domainers follows the righteous path… (borrowed from “Pulp Fiction”)

COURTS CAN STEAL ALL YOUR DOMAINS AND CREATE CYBERSQUATTERS

Whoa.

Did I just read this article correctly? Can a court award a complainant 800 domains defining names and terms outside the complainant’s original filing? If I’m wrong, I just read this NY Times article where Toronto Raptors’ Chris Bosh was awarded his name as a domain name, PLUS 800 (eight hundred!) more domains that the respondent/defendant owned that have nothing to do with Bosh’s name.

What happened here, people? The plaintiff, Chris Bosh, files a lawsuit regarding a domain name they want: “Chrisbosh.com”.  After the case is heard,  the judge awards Bosh not only his name domain, but 800 more domains that the defendant, Luis Zavalda, owns representing other people’s names. I don’t get it.

What’s the difference if the Defendant owns 800 domains of other people in the news, etc, or if Chris Bosh now owns them?   How can a court, without due cause, pull 800 domains from someone’s account, that have nothing to do with the Plaintiff’s name, and give these supposedly “cybersquatted” domains to the plaintiff? Wouldn’t this now make the Plaintiff the so-called “cybersquatter”?

If someone sues you for a domain name they think is a TMer,  (let’s not even go into reverse hijacking), and if the person succeeds in winning the domain from you, is it right that the court awards you ALL other domains they think could be cybersquatted? (Please don’t make me write the incredibly stupid and wrong-headed descriptions of what many people think “cybersquatting” is.)

I’d like some feedback on this case, because I think it is the most important case against domainers ever held, besides the Kentucky ruling last year. Even the Wall Street Journal got in their digs, using the headline “SCORE: Raptor 1, Cybersquatter 0″. They should have had the headline read “SCORE: Raptor 800, Domainers 0″.

Domainers should be aware that three things are working against their domain investment:

1) Ignorance by the layman of what domain investing is, and their hatred of the fact you own a generic domain they wish they bought first.

2) The power of position, business strength, and recognition in swaying a court decision against you, even if your domain is purely generic.

3) The ability for those with deep legal funds to sue for domains owned by people who can’t afford to fight them

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HATE TO SEE THEM GO FOR SO CHEAP… DOMAIN BLOWOUT

Hi Gang,

I was getting ready to submit over 500 of my premium domains (not in my future trend list) to Sedo, and I received quite a few requests from some pro domainers to see the list first. I thought, “what the heck.”  So I’m dangling them out to the domain crowd before they have to go through ‘channels’ to get them…

There’s about 560 of the domains in an Excel sheet. You need to contact me direct to get the list sent to you. Act quick, because the offer ends on Wednesday 10/6/2009 at 5pm PST. Then the list is submitted and you’ll have to deal with the auction sites.

This is the first time I’ve submitted this many topnotch domains for review. Hope you like them.

Cheers to all!  (You’ll find out how to contact me if you really want to see the list).

DOES CADNA THINK YOU ARE CYBERSQUATTER?

Let me start this article by asking this:

WILL YOU BE LABELED A CYBERSQUATTER SOMEDAY SOON?

Maybe.

Does every business, online or off, have a dark side? Of course they do. You’ve checked your investments and stock returns in the last year, read the avalanche of news discussing the incredible crimes committed in the investment community, and our government’s “rock and a hard place” response by bailing out the most ingrained of those firms who screwed up. Did these companies dick us out of our money on purpose, or was it all just an “unfortunate misunderstanding”?

Billions of dollars lost. People who worked their whole lives and invested even conservatively for retirement, suddenly find themselves with either devastated investment portfolios or being actually penniless. Working families, saving money for retirement, their kids college funds, or just a better standard of living, have been robbed. It’s so complicated I’m not bothering to explain how it happened. Truth is, I don’t know, but I’m sure there are lots of people with millions in assets and in their bank accounts, who were directly involved with this disaster, could tell us. But they won’t.

That brings us to the Domain Community.

CADNA puts out a PR saying basically “DANGER, WILL ROBINSON! DANGER!”  (apologies to the “Lost in Space” robot). Suddenly, domain investing is the new financial bugaboo.

The PR article mentions 10 points of why ICANN is out of control, needs government regulation, etc etc.  They didn’t add: “Our sponsors are mainly large companies and we don’t talk about reverse domain hijacking.”

I can’t speak about ICANN. They’re good, they’re bad.

However, CADNA is not the source of advice in regulating domain ownership. I went to their site, again, and found this interesting interpretation on what they say a “Cybersquatter” is:

“Cybersquatting
“The act of registering domain names, especially those identical or confusingly similar to existing trademarks, with the intention of reselling them at an inflated price or otherwise profiting from them in bad faith.”

If you read this sentence very carefully, it’s actually calling anyone who buys a domain name with the specific intention of reselling it or building it out, a cybersquatter. They added a word and a phrase to subtly paints domain investors with a criminal brush. Check it out:

If we take their written description of “CYBERSQUATTING” and remove the interjections: Read the rest of this entry »

WHY A WEIRD DOMAIN NAME CAN BE VERY VALUABLE

I had a heart-stopping experience today when I came across some tech news about a Motorola cellphone called the CLIQ. This cellphone was “cutting edge” and connected to the Google Android… wow! Maybe.

A few years ago, I owned the domain name “CLIQ.com” and I sold it for a few dollars, I can’t even remember how much, but it was definitely nowhere near what that domain name is worth today. Just a quick google on it showed over 2.2 million results. I guarantee you that three years ago, those numbers didn’t exist.

Although I started analyzing the appraisal process on strange-sounding domain names that could be worth something as brands about a year ago, this domain name raised its pretty head today and showed me the “girlfriend” I dumped that turned out to be eye candy. (No worries folks, I married my dream girl, so I’m good here!)

So now, instead of paying a measly $7.50 a year to keep this nice pronounceable four letter domain, I sold it to someone maybe smarter than me for about three figures, if that.

The results? Currently, there is a website that promotes an internet development service on the domain. Based on the website design of this site, I’d be a little scared to venture further with this company in that area. However, the lucky dog owning this domain will probably get a phone call or email for buying this domain… or not. Taking into consideration that UDRP’s and WIPOs are willy-nilly hit and miss events filed so regularly it’s like filling out “win a free trip to Hawaii” surveys, maybe Motorola will mistakenly think they have automatic rights to this domain because they’re so… big. That will be a problem, but hopefully, Motorola will just do the honorable thing and offer the current owner of CLIQ.com a decent figure to buy it, straight up.  If not, I’ve already pointed out Motorola’s lack of a claim to this domain on this blog post.

The article, although not really friendly to the CLIQ phone, is here:

MORAL OF THE STORY:

If you have a short, pronounceable, and unusual domain name in a dot com, don’t sell it for less than high four or five figures. That’s usually the “buy” range for end users f0r a new “brand word,” if they really want it. Don’t be greedy and ask for six figures or more, they’ll just think of some other weird name, and maybe get the new domain OOTB.

I’d like to hear comments from other domainers who sold domains they wish they hadn’t… and the results of how those domain sales evolved with the new owners. Come on, bare your souls!

THE MOST DANGEROUS 8 SECONDS IN SPORTS

Hi Gang,

I’m going to step aside from domaining tips for a moment to correct what I think will be a hoodwink by Godaddy in their PR sponsorships set to “spend that sucker customer cash”. The new sponsorship claim by Godaddy affects me personally in the sport I’ve been actively involved in for decades. Check out the story and all the links for some mind-blowing pics and videos.

Here’s the issue: It looks like Bobby “Hustler” Parsons is spending the grand profits from his brilliant marketing of GoDaddy.com on sponsoring “bull riding”. However, he mistakenly bought into the Pro Bull Riders (PBR) association’s labeling of bull riding as the “Most Dangerous 8 Seconds in Sports”.

It could be something that comes down to perception and opinion, but after all the facts, photos, and videos are reviewed, bull riding is NOT the most dangerous 8 seconds of sports.

First Clue: Most bullriders don’t go 8 seconds riding the bull, and either way, they have the Second Clue…

Second Clue: Bull riders have a lot of clowns on their side helping them escape the danger. Sometimes they don’t, and they get hurt bad, but the absolute danger of dying isn’t there unless something freakish happens.

Third Clue: Their danger zone is no more than 15 – 30 seconds.

Please let me be clear, bullriding is dangerous. Bull riders get injured fairly regularly at rodeos all across the world. An estimated 50% of rodeo injuries are attributed to bull riding. An American tradition, bull riding and rodeos have been loved and followed for over 125 years.  Bull riders are tough, and a fairly respectable group of real men in the American West tradition. This article is not meant to diminish them or their sport. They are true sports heroes in every sense.

However, the “Most Dangerous 8 Seconds In Sports” is big wave surfing. Period.  No clowns, no jumping over safety railings, and little or no help when you wipeout. It doesn’t even have to be a “big wave”. It can be an eight foot wave at Pipeline, considered one of the most perfect but dangerous surf breaks in the world. It can be a wave breaking off the Central California coast at Mavericks… Great surfers died at these locations, (the most recent being Malik and Mark Foo, respectively) and many more all over the world have died surfing waves that sometimes aren’t huge.

Imagine attempting to free fall into a continuous vertical drop powered by the most intimidating natural force in the world, the ocean. You’re like a stone skipping across a lake. Let’s say it’s only a common 10 foot wave at any decent surf spot in the world.  You think you have yourself in control, but then your board goes one way and you go another. As you hit the surface, tons of water crashes down on your head, pushing your body deep into foamy water, slamming you like a rag doll into rocks or a reef, while you struggle for air. Yeah, jumping on the back of a bull at this point sounds like a drunken party game.

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