Seven Mile

http://news.com.com/Door+open+to+high-tech+IPOs+that+meet+thresholds/2100-1014_3-6194105.html?tag=nefd.top

Also from Josh ..  The IPO window relating to technology begins to re-open.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6252716.stm

Josh sent this link..  story grazes on the future ..  It wasn’t till the last sentence touching on the hardest to steer ship of human behavior that I realized domain names are going to be with us for a long long time to come.

Per my post on the lopsided New York Times story about Marchex and domain names:

"Quite right frank – this is simply shoddy and dishonest journalism and something that no self-respecting media outlet should tolerate – especially one that has had a reputation for accuracy like the NY Times. Letting reporters color news pieces with their own biases used to be a no no. But today newspaper editors and reporters are being laid off left and right as their branch of media continues to wither and die on the vine. I guess it is not surprising that those very scared people continually lash out at the force that is on the way to putting them out of business – but whatever the excuse – it is still simply bad journalism and in the end that will come back to bite them in the [caboose]."

I can only hope Ron. If anyone deserves a good bite in the posterior it’s the author of that piece.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070629.wgtcellindustry29/BNStory/PersonalTech/home

Josh sends link.

Quote: "the iPhone goes against the “walled garden” doctrine of major U.S. carriers, in particular Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. They have zealously defined interaction with the customer as their prerogative, to the exclusion of handset makers and software providers like Microsoft Corp. It’s true of most European carriers too."

You gotta love disruptive technologies like this..  unless you’re Verizon, Sprint Nextel and European carriers of course. Power to the apple. 

Vern, Geosign’s Craig Hamilton and Sedo’s Mark Klein (a Pete Neumann look-alike) practicing the 7mile gang symbol. In an embarrasing twist, I own wanksta.com Vern

Verns says:  "And you only paid $40 for that name at Snap in 2004".

Thanks Nelson

Josh warms up the flux-capacitor, takes the delorean to 88MPH and sends another gem.. This one from archive.org (the iphone.com webpage from 1998)  Funny what some folks protested against in 1998.

http://web.archive.org:80/web/19991012035305/http://iphone.com/

Rest of the iphone.com page updates here: http://web.archive.org:80/web/*/http://iphone.com

Josh writes:

I’m starting to think that the iPhone is going to chage everything and re-double the power of the free internet. Every now and then when the walls look like they’re closing in, something like this comes along and shakes things up in favor of small website owners, developers and domainers. Thank-you Steve Jobs…

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070629005405&newsLang=en

Wow,  Congratulations Lawrence.  Big award! Vern takes on the role of statistician tonight and points out a former recipient is Marchex’s Russ Horrowitz. E&Y loves domainers.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/more-than-just-squatting-on-domain-names/

Some days you just want to throw up your hands and sigh..

Quote: "One of the less reputable sectors of the Internet economy that has been growing rapidly is domain name parking. Entrepreneurs register names that are either misspellings of common domains, like amazo.com or generic titles like www.chicagodoctors.com. They fill these sites with ads from Google or Yahoo, getting paid for every click. This game has morphed into what is know as Google arbitrage, filling the page also with just enough content that it will actually be found by search engines, and in turn attract users who simply see ads and click again to get somewhere useful."

This paragraph is the worst piece of reporting I have ever read in the New York Times. It’s factually incorrect, confuses vernacular and just basically misinforms. Louise Story, the author is a lost, lost woman. And she writes for the New York Times..  they pay her.. just amazing.

Domain Parking is not a problem.. The cybersquatting dynamic she aludes to is a problem but then she equates it with owning a generic name like ChicagoDoctors.com  which any right minded person can see is patently generic..  i would pay $15,000 for chicagodoctors.com..  your grandmother could register that name and "park it" and she’d be $15,000 richer while doing absolutely nothing wrong..  but this piece intimates that it would somehow be "less reputable"

That opening paragraph goes on to confuse Google arbitrage (an entirely different animal) with parking..  and closes by misleading readers into believing that the goal of operators in this space is to somehow "get found in the Google search engine".  Lost lost lost Louise .. you are lost.

The goal is to go AROUND the search engine and get traffic from organic type-in vists to the generic keyword weight domain names. This author just can’t get her head around that..  All in spite of the fact that somebody probably gave her an interview for the piece.

The rest of the story goes on to explain how Marchex is changing the world, by doing the exact same thing as the folks parking the names (but with some openlist content).

Don’t get me wrong, the Marchex story is fine and accurate..  but the lead-in is profoundly flawed..  and it’s in "the times"..

Rid-diculous.

Not sure to what I owe this good fortune Sahar,  but thanks!!

1. http://greatestamericanlawyer.typepad.com/greatest_american_lawyer/2007/05/the_star_in_the.html – This attonrey points out that you can’t go back in time to get the name you want.  If you want a generic, your trademark isn’t unassailable and doesn’t predate the name-holder,  then open your wallet.

2. http://benbarren.blogspot.com/2007/06/hakia-decade-old-exotic-popularity.html – Web 2.0 tech blogger poinbts out ""The very first criteria for credibility is the domain and how well that domain is controlled""

3. http://blog.hakia.com/?p=117 – More of the same tenor here: ""Case-1: Domain name
Let’s take the query “madonna”. Obviously the most credible site is Madonna’s official Web site, madonna.com. Thanks to the fiercely competed market for Web names, only Madonna can afford this name. Thus, the very first criteria for credibility is the domain and how well that domain is controlled. For example, domains like .mil, .gov are totally controlled for official announcements, thus it is very unlikely to see junk content.""

Back up the truck for generic names if you can buy cheap enough.