Content Not In “Demand”?

For those domainers and webmasters out there trying to compile web sites out of standard and premium content, the bar has been lowered (ahem) by certain members of the online industry who mimic the very worst journalism standards while trying to ram news “junk” and near-spam content down the throats of innocent online surfers looking for answers. Demand Media is one of those huge corporations that independent writers look at and wonder what they did wrong working so hard to write decent material. A recent mainstream journalism article examined how this looks form the Wall Street view looking at an IPO offer.

Bragging about page views is the measurement and bragging rights currency of any domainer, but many a webmaster has scratched their head trying to figure out how to make money out of dirge content. The Fortune article unpacks just how irritating cr*p content can be and why legitimate webmasters throw in the towel chasing an insane business model. The convergence between what traffic stats show and what people actually want to read and make use of online in the end may actually prove the winner in the end. Demand lost a stunning $22 million in 2009 and $6 million in part of 2010. They may be making money, but that feeling of a bubble about to burst as the bean counters pore over the spreadsheets is the gist of this piece.

DomainGang.com Hacked?

Well, unless you enjoy flat Times New Roman displays of the DomainGang site cgi-bin, the game is afoot over at the DomainGang.com website. First there was the cgi-bin file, then the blank white screen. The Twitter page for the blog site has comments allegedly by the admin regaridng the domain password getting stolen. Has our favorite snarky Domaining site been hacked? Is nothing sacred?

Paypal Suspends Personal Accts India

PayPal, an eBay company, has suspended personal payments to and from India and transfers to local banks in the country. Domainers using Indian talent to produce SEO or content products may be stalled making payments or getting paid for services. PayPal is used in India by many to receive payment for services such as software development and freelance writing.

Customers can still make commercial payments to India, but merchants cannot withdraw funds in rupees at local Indian banks, it added. This will convolute many existing partnerships and vendor arrangements with domainers and their clients. But Paypal cites the difficulty resolving payment issues and identity problems with an Indian originating vendor or client.

The India Paypal personal banking services online and between Indian merchant branches function online in a critical capacity for international commerce. Paypal operations for personal accounts using Paypal have been suspended while the company works with its “business partners and other stakeholders to address questions they have about the service.” 

PayPal said it is trying to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and that it was sorry for the inconvenience that it may cause its customers in India and around the world. A number of bloggers and Web sites have reported that the company has reversed and returned payments to senders.

PayPal executives in the region were not available for comment on specific reasons why the service was discontinued. Allegations of international identity theft and questionable transactions will cause Paypal to review banking traffic between Indian members and clients, as well as other global banking transaction originators.

The move by PayPal may be linked to new Indian government rules aimed at preventing money laundering, according to an analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity. Last November, the Indian government introduced rules requiring financial institutions and other intermediaries to verify the identity of clients carrying out international money transfers.

PayPal’s user agreement says it does not guarantee any user’s identity because verifying identity of an indian individual is virtually impossible with current Paypal resources.  PayPal does reserve the right to validate customers’ identities, including asking for documents.

PayPal is used in India by many to receive payment for services such as software development and freelance writing. But the exchange of international services in Russia and China may depend on these issues.