I usually renew my domains on the last day. Especially my .jps Anyone with .jps expiring this month please start to renew now. It literally took me 10 minutes for each domain to renew. There are connection errors so the longer you wait there’s a possibility that there could be more errors. I don’t want any of you guys to loose domains you’d like to keep. So renew now.
Breaking News Yahoo Japan to outsource Search to Google
July 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment
I have to admit I thought this was a media joke. After struggling using Yahoo’s technology for year’s Yahoo Japan made the announcement to switch search over to Google.
http://pr.yahoo.co.jp/release/2010/0727a.html
I’ll try to write an update later on what this means to you. Possibly with more advertisers on Google’s system using adsense will make you way more money than before. Parking revenue in Japan will also increase. Way to go Wixi. There still are questions like will it be one platform for advertisers or not. So many things are unclear. I’m sure to have to be the one writing what this means to the Japanese market for our agencies.
My view on .Co
July 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment
.Co has just opened registration for the general public. While writing this blog & sometimes looking at domaining blogs now I realize I one strange thing.
As with IDNs I believe an extension or a domain type can be popular with usage. I do not think that 100,000 new domains going straight to parking makes a domain extension successful. I’ve read that the company went all out to promote this extension. I think otherwise.
In my previous post I wrote wouldn’t it be wonderful if a domain extension was created & was marketed to people to use them? Like .canon being tied to an online service.
Wouldn’t it make sense if the .Co team actually wanted the domains to be used they would market it to people who really develop sites, or do web marketing. If you turn off the domaining part of your brain & look at marketing blogs, agency blogs I don’t see a single blurb or dollar spent on advertising. I do see they mainly covered every site domainers go to. This gives the impression that they massively promoted the extension.
Only going to domainers looks like it will make .Co another dot Mobi to be. Time will tell but I don’t see this as any major extension “yet”. There are services that I really love, some I dislike but I don’t want to influence anyone to invest in anything I believe they will eventually loose money on.
I would have been convinced if they even had ads on SitePoint.com, SERoundtable.com, or even digitalpoint.
Even with IDNs I personally don’t think my time online is as valuable as the time I spend going out with people working in Ad Agencies to talk about domain marketing.
.Canon why are people against it?
July 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment
I read a post on Domain Name Wire about .Canon
I truly don’t know what can be wrong with a company making innovative uses for domains.
.travel, .mobi, .whatever they basically didn’t have the strong costumer base of users. For me it’s so good to see some team in Japan realizing we don’t need to use current technology like everyone, let’s tie the canon brand to their owned branded domain. They have millions of customers worldwide & this could easily be a good way of offering photo/video hosting plans.
Yes they can do it with the corporate site technically but, it’s the Global Corporate site. You can’t have user generated content taking over a Global Corporate site. This plan is just like Apple’s .mac if the option was available I’m sure the initial iTools would have really been YourName.Mac think about it.
Japan leads in having mobile business structures, & was one of the first ccTLDs to want & see the use of IDNs (unfortunately they didn’t realize Microsoft would take 6 years to update it’s browser). Anyway this is a new innovative way of using domains that’s cost efficient.
This was my original thoughts on the matter.
http://www.idntalk.com/domain-names/gmo-canon-going-forward-with-canon.html
Is .co going to be IDN Compatible?
July 21, 2010 By 1 Comment
I was looking through the .co registry to see what my clients have registered for their brands & noticed their is an IDN converter. To feed by curiosity it did not convert anything Japanese. Please, Please, Please let one of you folk develop a highly well defined site with the term for Anime in Japanese & market it to Japanese. I’ll even give you updated Overture stats for the term.
Oh & my clients did get their brand names. With this I realize new extensions just cost brands more per year. Let’s maximize .net, .org, even .us before thinking we NEED a new extension.
Where dost thou traffic come from Part 2
July 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Where dost thou traffic come from Part 2
In part 1 of knowing where your traffic comes from I stated that I have one domain that was getting tons of direct traffic with no clicks at all.
http://www.idntalk.com/domain-names/where-dost-thou-idn-traffic-come-from.html
That domain was parked & all the traffic was suddenly coming since end of February. Currently domains is something that is peaking the interest of tech writers. Some good, most bad because people who don’t own companies believe that everything can be accessed by search. I run search campaigns all day long & know for a fact that if Japanese people accessed sites directly a companies SEM cost would actually go down.
Anyhoot (I know it’s not a word) I discovered that a blogger used my domain as an IDN example in his post & that brought about many people accessing the domain.
So adding to knowing where your traffic comes from
Somebody wrote an article & used your domain as an example.
Now I believe I can pinpoint exactly where my traffic is coming from on my top 20 Japanese domains with traffic.
On another note I see one of my dot coms has gotten up to about 70 uniques a day.
Unbelievable but I count at least 5 sites, yes 5 (maybe more but I stopped looking) sites that named their site after my domain.
One of them named their site closely related to mine & is often referred to as my domain name by people who link to it.
The other 4 sites use my name exactly. Even though the url is completely different.
It’s mind boggling.
IDN.coms cost more than IDN.jps now
July 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment
After renewing a few names I started to realize that currently romaji (ASCII) .com & IDN .com domains are actually more expensive now than IDN.jp on the three biggest domain services sites. I don’t think this is going to immediately start a mass increase in domain registrations but it’s something to think about for future. .coms cost about 950 yen average ($10) while IDN .jps cost about 640 yen (about $7). If Verisign keeps this up the ccTLDs that lower their prices will be in a very good position to overtake registrations in their countries.
I think about domain marketing for the market I buy in. If dot coms get to $13 a year & .jps are only $7 then guess what the young people will register in Japan? While some people are wondering why IDN registrations are going down… Well lets just say Japanese do have a domaining industry it’s just a little bit different than one would expect.
If Olney is so much into development why doesn’t he have more sites?
July 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment
I came into GroupM being taught quite a lot of new techniques for marketing. My skill level in online marketing on the global level has really improved & even though it’s been less than a year & a half I’ve already been offered jobs at other digital agencies but the knowledge I get from being at a WPP company is great. One of the first things I remember was the concept of unbiased marketing, & seeing lots of paperwork I had to read & sign before joining & afterwards.
Unbiased marketing is where you do campaign planning without being biased. I fully embraced this concept. Also lots of lines in contracts that state I can’t do business that conflicts with the agency I work for, or compete with clients.
Now we get to the meat & bones of this post.
If Olney is so much into development why doesn’t he have more sites?
At one point I had a lot of sites. I had to take a few down because of conflict with a client. Nothing I need to even consult anyone on. It was too close to my personal clients business. After that I have plenty of domains that directly compete with my companies clients. So for me, development is taking longer. I actually use my personal data to enhance strategies for clients. Yes IDN Domain based strategies. I can’t explain everything so fully but I can’t develop everything I want to the extent I want because of work related conflicts.
Then we get to the next part where most domain investors would say: Why not sell the domains to your clients?
That’s where we look at not competing with the agency, & not being biased. Companies are in IDN testing phase. They need this time to evaluate IDN Domain value. “You get it or You don’t” that phrase is easy to say but the reality is advertising globally took a hit last year, & companies want to realize the strengths & weaknesses of new technology. They are in the testing phase on stuff they can register themselves. Me pushing my portfolio would be biased even if it fit within their business.
So yes I do develop a lot of test sites, you’ll see them throughout my portfolio but sometimes it’s a bit harder to pick what to develop when you work for an Ad Agency. You have to follow guidelines. Also you really need to know the strengths of your portfolio & the associated market. Over the last years I have tons of new discoveries with IDNs & the Japanese market. This only came from development.
This post is just to clear the air. Stay New School guys (& lady folk)
Olney – Interview at IDNBlog.com
July 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment
I was asked to do a Q&A at IDNBlog.com. I think Aaron has been doing a really good job with keeping fresh news on there. I’m glad that the blog has interviewed people like Hatta san, & Steve from Wixi, & Ed from NameDrive. You can see my interview here.
http://idnblog.com/2010/07/08/qa-olney-founder-idnforums/
Hopefully some people who read it will put a bit more effort in development.
My post on Frager Factor Blog
July 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment
After I posted my 100th posts on IDNTalk.com & thought things couldn’t get better. I noticed that Owen Frager picked up one of my posts.
http://fragerfactor.blogspot.com/2010/07/best-posts-ive-read-on-domain-blog-how.html
I really have been meaning to write about the same thing & thought that the words Owen said were just point on. The economy is bad I don’t want people going by stats that aren’t relevant.
Thanks..