Internet, Finance & Economics

I was just watching Quest Means Business on CNN and within a few minutes the Dow Jones 30 index dropped by more than 900 (8%) points within a matter of minutes (Dow Jones recovered thereafter). Obviously the main catalyst here was panic and speculation by investors and traders who seemed nerved by the Greek government’s austerity measures bill passed by the parliament today. Although market data from companies around the world looks positive, markets are still nervous about Greece financial and economic troubles. Sailing in the same bought of debt but not as bad as Greece are other EU countries like Portugal and Spain. Meanwhile the Dow Jones has recovered temporarily although the markets still remain nervous and we are likely to see further drops in the coming weeks.

I came across a very interesting article on the Economist issue of May 1st 2010 which discusses the current state of developing and monetizing digital online content. The author of the article makes it clear that newspaper articles are expensive to produce but difficult to monetize when the are made public because it costs nothing to read online. As if that is not enough, online published articles do not command very attractive advertising rates. Most newspapers have responded to this problem by charging their online content. However, in my opinion online subscriptions do not suffice to guarantee a survival of any newspaper today. While some newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal are charging for access to their premium online content, this has not picked up yet. I think subscriptions present a plausible but difficult strategy for newspapers. Newspapers are caught up in a tight battle with content farms. What are content farms? Content farms are companies that produce thousands of articles per day and are making a big impact on the web. Examples of content farms include Demand Media, Answers.com etc. As a strong believer of economies of scale I have to applaud to Demand Media, which in my opinion has revolutionized the way web content is created. Borrowing the words of the Economist, “Demand Media’s approach is a combination of science and art”. Demand Media uses a clever software which works out what internet users are interested and how much advertising revenue are given topic can pull. These results are send to an group of more than 7000 freelancers who meet a minimum criteria of college degree (who controls that the degrees produced are real?), experience and specialty. Freelancers make around 25$ per article while Demand Media earns as little as 5$ per article. You might be already thinking that Demand Media could be making a loss with this business model which is not true. This is where economies of scale kicks in… Demand Media owns more than 72 websites (eg. eHow.com, Travels.com etc) on which these articles are published. With social media marketing and sufficient search engine indexing the company seems to be running a decent business model which is purely supported by advertising. Just think about- Demand Media churned 150,000 articles in March 2010 which translates into about 5000 articles per day! Wow - quality aside, tell me which newspaper can achieve such a feat! We should not ignore the supporting infrastructure and algorithms which is used to predict which kind of articles appeal most to users. I should also note that this business model is a slap in the face on user generated content which is mediocre on a certain level with a few exceptions like Video content as on Youtube. Demand Media’s business model seems to be working now and the company is scheduled to go public later this year. Of course this business model calls for all sorts of risks such as market and stand alone. Market risk due to its over dependence on search engines like Google which could change their algorithms and drop a site’s page rank. Stand alone risk because the business model seeks a single vertical - internet. Let us not forget that Demand Media has a diversified portfolio of businesses such as domain registrars. The bottom line is that their business model is too dependent on the internet!

Click to Play!Marcus and his father planning fishing on weekend. Marcus also invited girlfriend to spend weekend together. Naughty boy Marcus want to kiss her first time. But he must be very careful. If his father see them to kiss each other then he will be very angry. Please help Marcus.

YVD.COM is a private games portal run by a group of online games fanatics. Our motivation is to make our online game portal targeted to all segments including Family, Pupils and Students. Our goal is to make your visit to YVD.COM games a promising experience. YVD.COM flash games is your number one source of free online games. YVD new games content is added on every single day. We are striving on our part to add not only new games every day but also to make your gaming experience with our fun games. We are setting the bar high for internet games and online games websites. With our strategy games, you will test your ability to work under time pressure in a challenging environment. The online shooting games and helicopter games will serve to improve your play online games experience. Last but not least our dressup games will make a worthwhile experience for all girls visiting our website.

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Viacom sued Google and its online video subsidiary YouTube for $1 billion Tuesday, the first big lawsuit against the online video site and its parent for copyright infringement.Experts predict more lawsuits to come.

Wow, could this be the beginning of the end for Youtube.com? Other media firms, notably CBS, say they see promotional value in having snippets of their programs posted on YouTube, Viacom has led the charge against YouTube since it feels entitled to advertising revenues tied to viewing of its programming. YouTube typically serves more than 100 million video streams a day.

Are these the signs of a deal turned sour between Google and Viacom? Well, only time will tell.

Meanwhile the Share price of Google finished the day down by 1% following the announcement!

The mainstream media is beginning to take notice of the RegisterFly disaster. BusinessWeek reports that Kevin Medina has regained control of the company after he had been fired by his former partners several weeks ago:

In a legal decision that stunned even the lawyers for the victor, a U.S. District Court judge on Mar. 8 handed over the embattled Web registrar Registerfly.com to the executive who was running it when it began to founder. Judge Peter Sheridan ruled in favor of defendant Kevin Medina, who had been chief executive of the parent company, Unifiednames, before he was fired by two other board members on Feb. 12.

Medina’s partners, including John Naruszewicz, who temporarily took over as RegisterFly CEO, had accused him of embezzling company funds and of being the primary cause of all of the registrar’s problems.

Here are some questions to ask a potential broker:
1. What are some domains you recently brokered? (They may not be able to disclose this.)
2. What are your fees? Do I have to pay anything if you are unsuccessful selling my domain?
3. What are a few examples of companies or individuals you will approach about my domain?
4. Have you ever sold domains to these companies?
5. Have you ever sold domains in the same industry as mine?
6. Do you require an exclusive contract? In other words, if I sell my domain through a different venue while you are brokering it do I still have to pay you? (Don’t be alarmed if the answer is ‘yes’. It’s reasonable for a broker to require an exclusive sales agreement.)
7. What is the duration of our contract? (This is especially important for an exclusive contract).
8. What will you do to promote my domain? (You’re not looking for someone who will just post it for sale on various forums. You don’t need a broker to do that!)

I cannot recommend a particular domain broker, but you can find a number of them on DNForum. DNForum has a section for requesting a domain broker.

I know it has been a long time since I blogged but i am back to get those tid bits rolling again. I have taken a short break from business.

Today I would like to share with you a few tips about how to find domain names with ovt. This is a method that I have used in the past to search for popular searches and register domains based on those keywords. To start with you will need to make use of the Google Zeitgeist Archive. Take a critical look at the words depending on the country that you would like to focus on. Say I have a keen interest on the German market, then I would go the German keywords then identify a word. Next I would go to the overture tool (there are plenty of them available on the internet for free e.g. eovt.com, ovtd.com). Put an extension at the end of the keyword then enter it onto the search box and click search. Don’t forget to select a country flag depending again on your country search. You will get search results for the select keyword with overture score. If the search results have a value then today might be your day. Next go your favourite registrar (my favourite is Moniker) then see whether that domain name has been registered. When you search for availability of the name don’t limit yourself to only one extension. Even if your preferred extension is already taken, check for the availability of other domains using same keyword. But to avoid redundancy in your investment you may recheck for the ovt for these additional domains. Last but not least there are several options for you: you may park your domains awaiting development. Sit down and watch the daily revenue. Good luck with your domain search.