I don’t generally read Canadian news sites on a regular basis, but I just picked up a story on CTV.ca about Canadians who are buying up personal domain names.

One of the story’s points is that it might well be worth people living in Canada registering theirname.ca and using it as their own ”digital briefcase”.

I think you could apply a similar argument here in the UK, too. In an age where more and more people are using the web to find information about people, having your own domain can give you a home on the internet and help you keep your online identity under control.

A great example is when you’re applying for a job. These days, plenty of employers Google prospective employees. With your own domain and site you’ve more chance of ranking highly in the search results.

Even if all that’s there is an online version of your CV, it gives you more control over what people see when they search for your name.

Anyway, have a read of the article and see what you think. And if you do want to register your own name, you can use our domain name search to see if it’s still available.

(Thanks to DomainPulse.com for flagging up the story.)

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Happy New Year to everyone. I thought I’d start the year with a quick post about the site that is sure to continue to dominate the internet news in 2008… Facebook.

Facebook has recently launched a new advertising platform to allow advertisers to write and manage adverts directly through their Facebook account. Facebook has always shown one banner advert underneath the left hand navigation area, however, this is a different proposition. These are the small static ’social ads’ you may have seen in your account sometimes in the news feed.

More information can be found here http://www.facebook.com/ads/

1. Keep the ads targeted
Facebook allows you to be very specific about who will get to see your advert, providing the tools to target by categories such as:

• Gender
• Age
• Interests
• Geography
• Political views
• Education status

It is tempting to keep them all open and target all 7 million+ users, but it is important you take advantage of these tools, especially if you choose to be billed on a CPM basis (per thousand views).

If you allow your advert to been see by one and all I can guarantee you will be wasting money on clicks or ad impressions from people who aren’t relevant and will never convert.

2. Keep your expectations realistic
Remember, these are still just banner ads, and just because its Facebook doesn’t mean they will be any more effective. Research has shown banner blindness is becoming more pronounced and banner click through rates (CTR%) is at an all time low of 0.18% (Source: www.adtech.de)
Read the rest of this entry »

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