Google Wants Your TV Names

There is a burgeoning hybrid opportunity for Google and TV domain names. The possibilities for names that Google can use, or that customers of home televisions with Google search capacity can see, opens up a new range for end users for websites, portals, and TV calendar listings. Names with “TV”,3D, set, “watch”, screen, home, channel, and other tech keywords are in demand.

Video plays a new role in ever more congruent SEO to domain name partnerships and value building online. Sites with “best of’ lists and video links will be fun home entertainment, family fun instead of programmed network shows stuffed with commercials. Websites composed of programmed TV viewing that families or niche watchers want can win the SEO wars. Nostalgia TV and cable viewing from video uploads and film segments has already made Hulu.com and Guba.com popular sites.

How does this change the business model for site development? Movie content makes search engine optimization the new driving force for website development. Articles and links to other TV based sites can also bring up the searchability quotient for these names and the sites behind them. Fansites becomes destination viewing with the new Google home TV site model. Your email list can start the home viewing wave and help get the word out.

This gives the SEO campaign for any TV name new legs. Given that entertainment is already a huge market for domainers and name auctions, and even deleting names and drop list auctions, domain developers should have at least one television name in the launch works with Google home-TV potential. Do fans want to blog or chat the shows while they watch? You bet they do. This is social TV networking.

Site managers and webmasters can formulate affiliate strategy to reach the home consumer. As home television and computer driven apps converge, a website with video and Google SEO matrices plugged in, wins. Because home viewers can surf your YouTube channel and maybe move on to your site if the spirit moves them. The webmaster without YouTube sinks in the SERP.

Chrome TV-searched visits to your site could be the elusive end user your sites has been waiting for. Google-owned YouTube connected sites will have a little more depth in the Google SEO than random video sites. All those domainers holding TV names and HDTV names and 3D names, as well as the Dot-TV extension of any relevant television or big screen tech name, there is a new focus for your end users and resale customer buyers.

OnlineCollegeDegrees.com Sells Big for $22K

Get your wallets out, domainers are buying. The indications are good for developing education market and niche domain names again. The SEDO hot nom de jour was Online CollegeDegrees.com, sold for $22,800. This long but focal domain name will be successful capturing a huge and active traffic segment of both online services and education click and SEO eyeballs.

Also from the SEDO list, SwissTV.ch also headed the top European list of continental domains abroad. A domain movieshowtimes.com rang in $16K in change, and  visitnyc.com sold for just over $10K. Domain names such as modernspa.com sold for $5,5K and RussianTube.com vended at $5000. Sportsads.com sold for $3,000.

1st (Annual) Epik Seattle Starts

An old/new name in the world of domain names (Epik) is starting with some tasty speakers lined up.  Editor of Domainnamewire.com Andrew Allemann, followed by Luke Webster (DevRich), Chad Fisher of Pyramid SEO, as well as Chris Pirillo of Lockergnome (Gnomedex). Colin Pape of Shopcity.com and David Fairley of Website Properties will also shed light on the future of developing domains.

Jay Lohman of DomainDevelopmentFirm.com also contributes to the speaker’s wisdom, and John Lawler as Senior VP of product management at Epik reigns in the audience with feature product news. Rob Monster of Epik displays his Dutch-American common sense which many Internet companies pay good money for.

Hint to domainers: if you don’t know who these companies are or what they do, get Googling. Development IS the future of domaining. Godaddy.com knows that, which is why they are the Gold sponsor of the Epik event. Moniker.com will be holding an auction and serves as thePlatinum sponsor. Silver sponsors of the 1st annual Epik conference of domainers are ….WebsiteProperties, Lockergnome, Estibot.com, and more.

Glancing at the site, Epik does offer a free site analysis and evaluation. Hard to believe many domainers won’t act on that, especially as it could attract some feature bidders if the url shows “Epik” potential. A webcast of a Powerlunch with Rob Monster can be enjoyed by clicking here.

Wow 888.mx sold for $10,000

Today, I saw the domain sale of 888.mx for $10,000 and it makes me think of the .mx domains’ future. The domain is sold via the Sedo domain marketplace and I haven’t seen .mx domain sales in xx,xxx until now. The domain extension, .MX is open to anyone to register just a few months ago and it is a domain extension for a populated country, Mexico. Is it an end user domain sale? Possibly. There are possible end users including 888.com betting company and I am sure there are more companies with “888″ keyword.

When it was open for registeration, I was not so keen to get .mx domains and as a result I only have Tourism.mx . I think my domain, Tourism.mx will have some demand for the end users in the tourism industry.

Domain Market Update

The recent six figure domain sales have given rise to the hopes of many a aftermarket domainer in these troubled economic times. Whereas some domainers may see a shrinking buyer’s market, other experts disagree. Noted domain bloggers have been consistently commenting on the healthy resale market and auction robustness catching the domainer headlines of late.

The legitimate monetary revenues derived from domaining have not shrunk so much as sharply diversified into more competitive markets. Domain development and domain resale via auction sales seem as healthy as they were in pre-recession late 2008. Furthermore, shifts in the domain marketplace, such as the closing of Bido and the auction privileges extended by certain registrars to some auction sites, symbolize not the expiration but the maturation of the domain market.

Domain sales across all TLD’s can still be savored, but the bonanza market of the initial land grab is past over with. Career domainers with specialized long game interests and savvy marketing skills can promote their chosen domain sale with an optimum chance of ultimate domain profit from resale. Choosing development options, hosting accounts, parking page and template versiosn as well as direct domain marketing to possible buyers brings the steady domain money home.

Google Courted by Would-Be Speedy Cities

The final phase of Google Fiber Town is approaching. As the March 26 deadline for applications for the key enhancement of the high speed fiber installation has past, the process has advanced another block, and interested parties are watching closely.

Google has become the courted object of many town’s desire. All across America, the cities identified as potential guinea pig test cities for the primary launch of a high speed network through an entire geomap have been vying for favor. The advantage for residents and businesses, home businesses and internet service related vendors for products and consumer spending to maximize value and opportunity is a test case the world will b watching.

How does this affect domain names? The geological place names and related domains for the selected town or city that gets the high speed internet fiver trial will instantly become huge attractions enabled to reach global traffic by the nature of the physical location alone.  Startup enterprises in the selected region will have enhanced telephony capacity for any type of Internet venture or online presence.

Google, a $23 billion enterprise, has announced it plans to provide an undetermined number of communities of between 50,000 and 500,000 people with ultra-high-speed broadband network s  The implementation is considered an experiment in next generation applications. The focus cities will become test beds for high speed fiber enabled communities, measuring growth when potential is infinite due to the residents using fiber-optic cable.

FitnessTrainer.com bidding war ended up at over $20,000

I was among the bidders for the domain FitnessTrainer.com but I had to stop bidding on the domain after it went over $3,000 because I had made up my mind not to go above $3,000 for this domain name.

The bidding war for this domain, FitnessTrainer.com was at the Extended Domain Auction and the domain auction ended on 4th February 2010. There was the bidding war between two bidders above $14,000 and the domain auction ended up at $20,888.

FitnessTrainer.com is really a nice domain with good google keyword search volume but I think the final bid was a kind of end user price rather than reseller’s one.

Swype.com sold for $25,000 Did Swype Inc acquire it?

Recently Swype.com was sold for $25,000 at the Sedo domain market place and it was quite a good domain sale for a non-dictionary word domain.

When I checked the whois info of Swype.com , the admin and tech details include an email with @swypeinc.com and most likely it was acquired by Swype Inc which is based in Seattle, US.

When I checked trademark database, Swype is still trademarked and it is live.

Any way, it was a good domain sale for a non-dictionary word .com domain.

imingle.com sold for $30,000

imingle.com sold for $30,000 recently and it was sold at the Sedo domain marketplace.

I think it is very good domain sale and it shows there is demands for domains with “i” and keywords.

May be the domain was bought by a dating agency or other end user.

Any way, imingle.com for $30,000 was very good domain sale.

Other interesting “i” + keyword .com domain sales are:

iReport.com sold for $750,000

iSearch.com sold for $300,000

iGen.com sold for $100,000

Google Blanks PR

In a head scratching Tweet heard rounn the domain world, Google has decided to elide the page rank feature from its webmaster menu. To everyday line animals slogging in the blog mines, this is cutting off the mother lode. Is there still gold in them thar domains?

The PageRank tool being dropped for the webmaster toolbox inside domainer Google accounts stunned a number of industry watchers. The strange diachrony between the focused pursuit of Page Rank to add value to a domain or website and the Google position is evident.

Said one industry observer, Susan Moskwa from the Google Webmaster Central team explained it was removed because Google keeps telling webmasters “that they shouldn’t focus on PageRank so much.”

Many domain buyers and resellers maintain Page Rank by Google or Alexa or any other search engine or “bot ” to be gospel during valuation. It’s hard to know if Google intends to abandon its hegemony on page rank for real, as well as in its stated comments and actions to  putative clients and webmasters.

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