When news of Michael Jackson’s death broke last week, it sent shockwaves around the world. Celebrities don’t come much bigger and that meant from London to Lima, New York to New Delhi, everyone was talking about it.

Canny domainers (those people who buy and sell domain names at a profit) don’t usually miss a trick. And even while the news wires were red hot with the latest developments, it turns out many of them had spotted an opportunity and were busy buying up all sorts of Jacko-related domain names.

Check these out:

• michaeljacksonisdead.co.uk and jacksontribute.com were registered on 25 June. That’s the day Jackson died - presumably while the rest of us were asking our friends whether the story was an elaborate hoax.
• jackolives.co.uk was also registered on 25 June, perhaps by a domainer convinced the story was untrue. This one’s my favourite actually, because initially I misread it as Jack Olives. Read the rest of this entry »
  

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Microsoft hasn’t had the best of luck with its search engine really. As far as we can tell, since 2005 its Google competitor has been called MSN Search, Windows Live Search and - most recently - Live Search.

It’s a bit unfair to suggest that the only thing that changed in that time was the name. Microsoft’s developers have been working hard to out-Google Google. But when you’re trying to establish your brand as a serious competitor to the search giant, such naming confusion can’t be anything other than a hindrance.

Now it’s called Bing

Everything changed yet again a few days ago, as Microsoft ditched the Live Search name and unveiled Bing to the world. Yes, Bing.

At first glance it doesn’t look too different to Google. The simple home page has a nice photo that changes daily and there’s an obvious search box and a few other options. So far, so good. Read the rest of this entry »

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Love them or hate them, talent shows can provide massive exposure for their hopeful contestants. Sure, 15 minutes of fame can quickly descend into abject humiliation, and the majority of wannabes just pass through the public psyche without even stirring so much as a cup of tea. But for every wave of deluded divas and misguided maestros we, the lucky public, inadvertently discover a hidden gem.

While watching TV talent shows most viewers simply zone out in a haze of light entertainment. However, some web-savvy entrepreneurial types take the views of ol’ high-trousers and his cronies very seriously indeed. What if one of the contestants really makes it big? The vast majority of talent show entrants are complete amateurs, whose shrill voices won’t have previously troubled anyone other than their budgerigar. This does mean, however, that should a contestant receive the Cinderella treatment – and become an overnight success – you can bet your lunch that they won’t have registered their domain name in preparation.

Enter the Cybersquatters! Cybersquatters prey upon rising stars that haven’t as yet realised their glowing potential. No sooner has the budding starlet endured the hoary glare of Mr Cowell’s toothy grin, and their unregistered domain names will have become the property of opportunist buyers. So when the time to launch a promotional website arrives, the latest singing sensation will have to buy their domain names at the seller’s price.

The latest victim of this predatory practise is Scottish singer Susan Boyle. The unlikely star with an amazing voice clearly didn’t anticipate her rapid ascent into the showbiz elite. Unfortunately, her lack of foresight, endearingly earnest as it may be, has resulted Ms Boyle losing out on a whole host of potential web addresses, including www.susanboyle.co.uk. Ironically, the domain name www.susanboyle.com isn’t owned by a cybersquatter, instead artist Susan K. Boyle must be delighted with the sudden rush of traffic that her site is no doubt experiencing.

The lesson here is simple. If you think that you have even the faintest glimmer of talent, or a profitable idea, make sure you register your potential domain names – before the cybersquatters clean you out! 123-reg offers a huge variety of domain names at some of the cheapest prices on the web.

Buy some domain names now

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Most of us mere mortals don’t have access to a sun bed at work. But given the alarmingly high rate of skin cancer cases in the UK, this is probably a good thing. In reality those of us seeking the artificial sun God are really living in the dark, ‘blister-fully’ ignorant of the harm that excessive sun bed use can cause.

In a bold effort to raise public awareness Nottingham based skin cancer charity SKcin has set up a new website. Computertan.com doesn’t rely on the usual finger-wagging-nanny route to enlightenment. Instead the site cleverly dupes the bronze brigade into believing that a sun-kissed exterior is only a mouse click away.

People are fooled into the belief that they can freely sun themselves 9 to 5, while sat in front of their PC. Computertan.com boasts software which can produce ultraviolet rays right out of your computer screen. However, when the gullible individual eagerly clicks download they are met with a stark warning about the perils of UV radiation.

At first sun bed bars appear glowing on the screen. So-far-so-good thinks the virtual beach dweller. But then suddenly the abrupt message “Don’t be fooled UV rays can kill” springs out. This is then followed by graphic illustrations of skin cancer to truly drive the shock home. Perhaps this process sounds overtly harsh, but we have to remember that skin cancer is the most common form of disease in young people today.

With one million hits in two months, Computertan.com has certainly spread SKcin’s message. So if you have an inventive or novel idea, don’t keep it to yourself. Setting up a website has never been cheaper or easier with 123-reg.

SKcin
Computertan

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You will have seen the term affiliate marketing being bandied around on the web, and you have probably worked out that it has something to do with making money. But what exactly does an affiliate have to do to make that money?

Affiliates essentially act as middle-men in the world of ecommerce. They earn commission from companies in return for recommending new customers to those companies. Anyone with a website can become an affiliate. Most web sites have a certain amount of ‘white space’ on their pages, and affiliates simply populate this unused space with advertising banners.

Of course some high traffic sites will charge advertisers for the privilege of posting banners on their pages. Although you don’t have to operate in the big league to be a successful affiliate. Even the most low-key sites get at least some visitors. If those visitors happen to be in the market for the product(s) that you’re advertising -  you’re in business!

Read the rest of this entry »

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We might be in the midst of a deep financial crisis, but clearly there are still a few companies out there with deep pockets.

The evidence? At the end of last week, Toys R Us triumphed in a furious bidding war for toys.com, eventually agreeing to pay an enormous $5.1m for the domain name.

(I don’t actually have much evidence that it was a furious bidding war, but given the amount of cash involved, I like to picture the final two bidders involved in a tense standoff, waiting to see who cracks first.)

Is it worth it?

Clearly, toys.com is a prime domain name for Toys R Us to own. It fits perfectly with their brand, and I’m sure they’ll receive a ton of visitors, both from people typing it straight into their browser, and from search engines. Read the rest of this entry »

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Some readers of this blog will already be Linux aficionados, but for many people Linux is still technology they only have passing familiarity with.  This week The Register asks whether 2009 will be a good year for Linux.

My initial reaction was that expressed in many of the article’s comments: a yawning lack of interest at yet another year being tipped as Linux’s coming of age, something which somebody in the tech media seems to have predicted every January for the past decade — with as boring regularity as the mainstream press run December articles on how online Christmas shopping is really taking off.

But for once there is actually an interesting point behind the question.  Linux is well known for being free software — sometimes labelled software libre, to emphasize that “free” is about freedom rather than being free of charge.  However, regardless of your political views on the open source movement, such software generally is free in the price sense as well, and that’s what becomes more relevant in the credit crunch. Read the rest of this entry »

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Last week I posted the first half of our 2008 review, pointing out some of the best posts and stories we had on the blog in the first six months of this year. And now, here’s what happened in the second half of 2008.

July

Angelina Jolie gave birth to twins and registered domains containing their names and in non-celebrity news, we looked at how easy it is to trade internationally online and wrote a guide to help you make it happen.

Then one of the year’s biggest stories broke, with news that hundreds of new domain extensions could be created. You seemed to be really interested in the story, and left lots of comments. We also asked a PayPal Director how to build a winning online shop, and covered another development in the narnia.mobi domain dispute.

August

Right at the start of the month I invited ridicule again by getting in front of the camera and recording a quick video about producing great sales copy. And the campaign to get a domain extension for Wales got a boost when it received £20,000 of funding from the Welsh assembly. Read the rest of this entry »

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The end of 2008 is coming up fast. So in common with virtually every other newspaper, magazine, website and blog out there, here’s our own take on the year. We’ve included some of the biggest stories and best posts we’ve produced over the last 12 months.

The Long Tail and an expensive domain

In January, we learnt more about the history of domain names (it’s more interesting than it sounds) and interviewed a chap from Microsoft about the end of the keyboard and robotic vacuum cleaners.

We also spoke to Chris Anderson, whose Long Tail theory has recently been challenged, and really stuck our necks out with the prediction that social networks like Facebook would get bigger in 2008.

February saw us nail another good interview, this time with Richard Moross, founder of Moo.com. They’ve been one of Britain’s biggest dotcom success stories, and it was good to hear how they’ve done it.

This was also the month when cruises.co.uk sold for £560,000 - that’s the most money ever paid for a .uk domain name. We considered spending a slightly more affordable $30 on a cool poster instead. Read the rest of this entry »

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We mentioned last week that Nominet has released its second annual domain name industry report (PDF, 1MB).

These things usually contain a lot of fairly interesting domain name-related data. Fairly interesting, that is, if you work in the industry every day, like we do.

If you have a more casual interest in domain names then much of what’s in there possibly isn’t very relevant to you.

So instead of just summarising the headline findings and linking through to the report, here are a few bits of information and practical advice you might actually find useful:

• Don’t let your valuable domain names expire
  According to the report, the number of cancelled domain names that then get re-registered is dropping. However, of domains that are cancelled, nearly 5% are snapped up within 10 seconds of their expiry. And over 10% are re-registered within a month.

  That means that if you let a valuable domain name expire, there’s around a 1-in-20 chance that someone else will register it within 10 seconds. Now that might not sound too risky, but if the domain name is one you’ve built a business on then it is actually quite a gamble. Read the rest of this entry »

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