SitePal does the talking

Go to your favorite “offline” store and listen to the finest salespeople. They all talk their way into selling whatever the boss has to offer. Face-to-face selling pitches work and it’s been that way, well… forever!

Nowadays, with countless potential customers storming the web for all sorts of products and services, opportunity knocks for any savvy marketer who feels the power of talk can apply to their online business model, namely through the use of a SitePal talking avatar.

Differentiation from other web sites really matters.

Whoever can get the right message through to the visitors is likely to ring up way more e-sales. Having a talking character doing all the right talking for you, 24/7 without taking breaks, could appeal to potential customers looking for a more personal e-shopping experience.

Oddcast, the New York-based company behing the SitePal talking characters, covers many specific business needs, such as (1) viral marketing, (2) e-learning, (3) rich media ads, (4) mobile avatars, (5) telephony, (6) blogging & social networking, (7) small businesses and (8) web-2-broadcast.

The characters can talk in many popular languages and you can extensively customize yours to match your web site’s looks. These virtual creatures talk in a way people will recognize as being somewhat automated but it’s surprisingly close to real human speech, especially for shorter sentences.

Like any salesperson on your payroll, this animated persuader doesn’t work for free. Fortunately, Oddcast has managed to devise price plans that appear to be affordable for any serious e-business.

Tags: sitepal, avatars, talking characters, virtual people, online sales, e-business

SugarCRM helps your customers

If you’re looking to make your customers happy by always calling them at the right moment, by planning ahead of their needs and by accompanying them in their projects, then using the SugarCRM Suite should make perfect sense to you.

Either hosted by Sugar or downloadable as an Open Source PHP / MySQL script, many experts consider that this Cupertino-based company is offering the next generation of CRM, today. For anybody managing customers, that’s enough to write home about.

In a nutshell, SugarCRM is rethinking how technology can help companies manage customer relationships.

More specifically, Sugar delivers a feature-rich set of business processes that enhance marketing effectiveness, drive sales performance, improve customer satisfaction and provide executive insight into business performance. This already sounds good but two new much anticipated modules are available and they’re bound to further help manage your customers.

First, the Knowledgebase helps customer support and engineering teams better manage and share structured and unstructured information. Knowledgebase allows users to create frequently asked questions (FAQs), manage files and search (and rate) content – all in one easy-to-use interface.

SugarCRM Knowledgebase

Secondly, the Customer Self-Service Portal allows companies to provide self-service capabilities to customers and prospects for key marketing, sales and support activities. Customers can log cases, upload relevant information and track cases to resolution without ever having to pick up a phone.

SugarCRM Self-Service Portal

The SugarCRM Suite delights customers of all sizes across a broad range of industries. If you’re already one of them, now would be a good time to take a good look at how these new offerings can integrate with your business objectives, customerwise.

Tags: sugarcrm, crm, customer relationships, customer management, knowledgebase, self-service portal

Revenue Pilot’s new features

According to Salomon Smith Barney, the Internet search and related services has been estimated to be around $2.6 billion back in 2004 with an annual growth rate of over 20% through 2008.

We’re almost halfway through 2007 and according to U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray��s Senior Analyst, Safa Rashtchy, the paid search market has already reached nearly $7 billion in worldwide revenues, growing at a compounded annual rate of 35 percent.

As you can see, as more online advertisers are turning to performance-based online advertising solutions to fulfill their cyber-marketing objectives, pay-per-click search is quickly growing as -the- marketing solution of choice.

Revenue Pilot, based in Brooklyn, NY has earned itself a solid reputation over time, namely because of their respectable array of serious advertisers and on-time payouts to the publishers.

To make their pay-per-click ads even more convenient to display, for the publishers, Revenue Pilot has recently added new linking methods, such as:

JavaScript Array
TextFeed
Dynamic Popouts
Popouts
Dynamic Layer Ads
Floating Ads
Interstitials
Error Pages

Getting the codes to technically display Revenue Pilot’s ads through these methods (and others) is really easy but if you’re looking to seamlessly blend RP’s ads in your pages, the most efficient way to do it is through the “XML feeds” since they allow for virtually limitless visual customization.

Some keywords appear to be more lucrative than others. For instance, the “casino“-related paid search results seem to deliver the highest payout, for the publisher. Other competitive keywords inlude “mortgages“, “credit“, “finance“, “gaming“, “insurance“, “security” and “travel“.

In fact, if you deal in any industry where those keywords are applicable, it might be a good thing to sign-up for your very own publisher account where you get a healthy 60% from every “valid” click.

From my experience, dealing with the Business Development people at RP has been a very positive experience and for anyone with the need to monetize their good ideas, it may just be what the “doctor” ordered ; )

Tags: revenue pilot, pay-per-click, online advertising, tech, web

Turcotte’s CIRA answer to ICANN

Bernard Turcotte - President - CIRA Those who know Bernard Turcotte, President and CEO of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), can fully appreciate his undeniable wit, intelligence and integrity.

The ICANN, on the other hand, isn’t so reliable.

Accountability, transparency and a general inability to properly conduct consultations continue to be documented weak spots, among others.

It so happens that the ICANN invited the CIRA to answer its Request for Public Comments regading the ICANN’s performance. That was on May 8th, 2007. Three days later, Turcotte answered that… he wasn’t going to answer!

Turcotte hits all the nails on the head, in his carefully crafted answer to the ICANN. On every account, Turcotte is right on the money. The ICANN needs to clean up their act before bothering every domain name authority into providing them with valuable feedback they’re likely to entirely disregard.

Here’s part of Turcotte’s letter to the ICANN:

“In the past we have raised concerns over the transparency and accountability of governance at ICANN including how it conducts its public consultations. More recently, we have been encouraged by the steps ICANN has undertaken to increase transparency, and have stated this opinion publicly at the ICANN Lisbon meeting.

Although improvements have been made, ICANN��s recent Request for Public Comments represents a clear step backwards in ICANN��s journey towards becoming a truly transparent and accountable organization.

That’s exactly how many Canadian domain name owners feel about the way the ICANN is currently handling its business. Furthermore, Turcotte adds:

“Due to the poor design and implementation of this Request for Public Comments we, as most serious stakeholders should, see few – if any – advantages to contributing to this effort which cannot produce any usable results while potentially further alienating constituents.”

Everybody wants the ICANN to improve but the way things are going nowadays, it’s better for the CIRA and other country-level domain name authorities to focus on helping the ICANN get back on track than sending out recommendations that aren’t likely to be properly handled.

The domain name business, worldwide, needs more professional administrators like Bernard Turcotte to bring back absolute accountability and transparency to the way domain name matters are dealt with.

Tags: domain names, cira, icann, bernard turcotte, accountability, public comments

WhyPark adds value

You’ve already seen the semi-generic domain name landing pages showing a relatively standard mix of category links leading to a second page featuring the related pay-per-click links.

Guess what? Some web visitors are getting smarter and they close the page when they see these pages. Why? Because they fail to see any value in them. Of course, to be fair, there is value because the sponsored links usually lead to excellent content but for your average visitor, that may not cut it.

Aware of this “value hunting” trend gaining ground, a company called WhyPark is going one step further by adding relevant -and valuable- content articles to keep the landing visitor interested. Having a “lander” feature standard Google AdSense ads alongside interesting articles can help build some level of “brand loyalty”, something which “traditional” landing pages hardly can.

The revenue model for WhyPark is different because they charge about 100$ to store up to 100 domain names and then leave 100% of the advertising revenue to the publisher. Furthermore, every new publisher referred (and signed-up) lands a sizeable commission in the domain owner’s pockets. This alone should quickly cover the initial registration fee!

Domain name owners enjoy a high level of control over the keywords, advertising codes, the meta description and even the statistics tracker code which means a publisher could choose to use Google Analytics to follow the visitor trend for a given domain.

Newbies will be happy to hear there is no HTML, FTP or programming knowledge required to use WhyPark‘s service. Furthermore, there’s nothing to download or install. The fresh articles, related to your domains, are supplied at no extra charge.

Their newest feature might also be their most popular. It’s now possible for publishers to create their own custom layout using simple placeholders to give each of their landing pages a unique look. Alternatively, publishers are still free to use the pre-built stock templates.

Tags: whypark, landing pages, domain parking, domain names, web

How much to ask for your names

The Right Domain Name Price Many domain name owners, especially those that have been around for the last decade or so, regularly receive offers for their best names, wether they’re advertised for sale or not.

In most cases, a short message comes in the domain owner’s e-mailbox asking if the domain is for sale and if so, how much is asked for it. The first answer is usually along the lines of “No, this domain isn’t for sale but just out of curiosity, how much are you willing to offer to get it?” and the prospective buyer usually plays it safe but asking for the domain owner to actually name a price.

This kind of situation is somewhat frustrating because if the right price came to be offered, many domain owners could decide to sell even their best names but since negotiations are so tough, using e-mail messages, more often than not, nothing happens and whatever was discussed is quickly forgotten.

Experienced domain name owners know very well that serious buyers usually identify themselves clearly and this is mainly to make sure they won’t be sued, after they purchase a domain, for misrepresenting themselves. Imagine if your competitor anonymously came in and offered you money for one of your valuable domain names and you let it go only to find out, later on, that you’ve been conned. This would be enough to sue your competitor for misrepresentation so the serious buyers, even if they happen to be your competitor, will be smart enough to identify themselves.

In the event you’re comfortable with the other party you’re negotiating with, it’s probably smarter to discuss money matters over the phone, unless you’re really uncomfortable doing things this way. The obvious “double advantage” is that you can quickly decipher all the non-verbal information that’s nowhere to be found in e-mail messages -and- you can openly negotiate at the speed of speech. Numbers can fly a lot faster, this way. Of course, before agreeing to anything, you always say that you’ll think it over and call back to confirm.

Now, let’s think about that “perfect selling price” for your valuable domain name. You could rent it or install an ad for the potential buyer on it but in most cases, it’s a buyer and seller context so we’ll explore this common scenario.

Asking a million dollars for a domain name can be fine, in certain cases, if you consider the following:

The value of the domain name renewals, since it was purchased – if it’s 10$ per year times 10 years, well, that’s 100$ right there;
The domain-related value of whatever was made available through the domain name – for instance, if you operated a 500k$ a year toy store, you may value your name at a percentage of that amount, maybe even 100%;
The vanity value of the domain name – keep in mind that anything that’s bound to be considered popular is a candidate for a vanity value premium, which can add up pretty quickly;
The technical value of the domain name – if it’s short, generic (found in the dictionary), commonly used, widely known or easy to type, your domain name can be considered technically superior to other and may therefore carry a higher price tag;
The multiples potential uses for the domain name – it’s amazing how some domains can be used in relation to a variety of themes so if it’s the case for your domain, you need to factor that into the price;
The online popularity of the domain name – refers to all the places that link to the domain name and that have, through their own system, ranked it favorably. This needs to be considered in the selling price.

Over and above that, you can add as much “profit money” as you want, when selling your name and frankly, as long as the buyer is ready to pay, you can freely upgrade your pricing to fit his lofty means.

Once the conditions satisfy both parties comes the payment part. Escrow services usually work well for large amounts of money but they can be quite costly. If the buyer seems respectable, you can always go with a direct bank deposit followed by a transfer of your domain name as soon as the money has been secured. You can throw in a friendly lawyer’s letter explaining this, for good measure. Smaller transactions can be orchestrated through a payment processor like PayPal.

Serious buyers usually ask to be kept in the loop if you’re not interested in selling quickly. It’s always nice to know one of your names holds that much value for them.

Last but not least, respect your gut feeling. If you feel selling a given name, even for a hefty price, might turn out to be a bad idea, especially if it’s expected to rise in value in the coming years, perhaps you should play it safe and listen more closely to your inner-voice. Inversely, if you feel good about a deal, go for it!

Tags: domain names, selling domains, domain prices, price for domain names, web

List of generic TLDs

Do you have a dot com There’s a lot of business happening in the .com namespace and it’s only natural since this particular domain name suffix is the most popular, on Earth.

The .com domain name suffix is one in a short list of generic top-level domains which are intended for particular classes of organizations. These gTLDs are three (3) or more letters long and are named to identify the type of organizations they represent.

The IANA confirms that the following gTLDs currently exist:

.aero – for the air transport industry;
.biz – for business use;
.cat – for Catalan language and culture;
.com – for commercial organizations but unrestricted;
.coop – for cooperatives;
.edu – for post-secondary educational establishments;
.gov – for governments and their agencies in the United States;
.info – for informational sites but unrestricted;
.int – for international organizations established by treaty;
.jobs – for employment-related sites;
.mil – for the US military;
.mobi – for sites catering to mobile devices;
.museum – for museums;
.name – for families and individuals;
.net – originally for network infrastructures but now unrestricted;
.org – originally for organizations not clearly falling within the other gTLDs but now unrestricted;
.pro – for certain professions;
.tel – for services involving connections between the telephone network and the Internet (added March 2nd, 2007);
.travel – for travel agents, airlines, hoteliers, tourism bureaus, etc.

The .arpa suffix is sometimes considered to be a gTLD, it depends on who you ask.

The following gTLDs are in the process of being approved and may be added to the root nameservers in the near future:

.asia – for the Asian community;
.post – for postal services;
.geo – for geographically related sites.

As you can see, .com is just one of the domain names, albeit a dominant one, that you can promote your organization with. Major companies nowadays own almost every “dot” for their names because so many people tend to naturally type them in.

Experts argue that adding too many domain name suffixes in this coveted gTLD list will dilute the tremendous power of .com and balkanize organizations switching to .museum, for instance.

To this day, however, most organizations that own and operate a lesser known gTLD domain name usually have their own .com, mainly as a precautionary meaure because that’s what visitors tend to use the most.

Tags: gtld, generic domains, domain names, web, .com, dot com

Quick content pages generator

Anyone familiar with web publishing knows generating income is essential to the viability of the whole operation. Since charging visitors isn’t exactly popular, most publishers choose the wildly popular Google AdSense program.

Placing the Google AdSense banners where they can easily be seen, by your visitors, will help improve the efficiency of these revenue generating zones. If you already own lots of interesting content, perhaps you forgot to chop it up in smaller parts so that a visitor can see, for instance, eight (8) smaller chunks of content instead of one (1) very long text block.

Smart segmentation of the content ensures that the AdSense zones are consistently closer to where the visitor is reading -and- some people actually find it more convenient to flip through pages (using “previous” and “next”) instead of scrolling down for miles on end.

If you’re looking to achieve such a transformation, in the presentation of your content, perhaps you should buy your copy of the Quick Page Generator which does this very well.

Venturing netrepreneurs can also use this template-savvy page generator to create more comprehensive presentations for data available in the public domain, thus multiplying their Google AdSense publishing (and revenue) potential.

Tags: quick page generator, page generation, templates, web pages

Easily translate your web content

If you already operate a web site displaying English content, maybe it’s time to consider translating it to expand your potential readership.

Translation of your English content to other popular languages like Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Spanish, German, French, Russian and several more, makes your collection of wise words a lot more accessible to visitors who may understand English -but- will usually prefer their own native language.

You’re free to translate every single one of your pages manually but that could prove to be unbearably time consuming. Instead, you can use largely automated solutions like the Wesbsites Translator. Currently translating from English to twelve (12) popular languages, this PHP-based script takes the sweat out of internationalizing your textual content.

Such an awesome translation script can help muster even more Google AdSense revenue from advertisers in other languages which were, until you translated your content, not interested in being featured in your “English-only” web pages.

Your visitors will surely appreciate the convenience of reading your content in their own language and even if it’s not a high-level professionally executed human translation, it’s still very, very good. Talking about value, this is probably the lowest price ever for such a useful automated translation script.

Those who travel a lot already know that English is a fine language to master, on the road, although in a world where the internet knows no boundaries, perhaps it’s time that your web content became available to many more potential readers, thanks to the Websites Translator.

Tags: websites translator, translation, languages, english, php script, web

Formula 1 domain names

F1 Domain Names Do you like fast cars?

Hundreds of millions of F1 fans, from around the world, gather yearly to root for their favorite racing team and this year happens to be the 58th FIA Formula One World Championship.

This major event began on the 18th of March and will end on the 21st of October, 2007 after seventeen Grands Prix.

If you’re planning to publish your very own coverage of this racing event, perhaps you should attempt to secure a highly relevant domain name. To help you score the best available names, here’s a list of the ones you can register right now:

If you like the races, the teams or just the heated racing party atmosphere, you too can launch a blog to cover the events, in your own unique way.

Everybody with a little knowledge of how things work online can own a blog. It’s a wonderful way to explore a given theme (in this case, F1 racing), make new friends and even cash in a little advertising money.

Just keep in mind that owning a relevant F1 racing domain name will help you establish a stronger and more convincing brand that your visitors will surely want to bookmark and share with their friends.

Tags: f1, formula one, grand prix, fia, racing, domain names

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