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Buying multiple domain variations

If you’ve just found yourself a fine “.com” domain name to promote yourself or your company online, you’re probably wondering if it’s a smart move to expand your purchasing to include multiple domain variations.

Well, you’re not alone asking yourself this question.

Buying up “.net”, “.org”, “.biz”, “.info” and few relevant ccTLDs like “.ca”, “.us”, “.be” and “.co.uk” to accompany the initial “.com” selection makes perfect sense if you intend your business to attract visitors who might be tempted to try either one of those variations.

Furthermore, if you’re not confortable with the idea of having a perfect stranger suddenly building up a web destination on, let’s say, a “.net” variation of your “.com”, it’s imperative that you reserve both, from the very start because either battling the “other guy” in court or trying to buy his domain name could cost a fortune.

Paying a small $8-or-so fee per year to own the variations makes even more sense, in this light!

As a domain name expert and consultant for various companies, I manage portfolios which contain lots of domain name variations which are not only purchased as a precautionary measure but also to address specific market needs.

For instance, one of customers operates a foundation on the “.org” variation of his “.com” name and on the “.net”, he operates a closed-circuit network for his partners, which help build up loyalty to his brand without getting in the way of the “.com” visitors which are typically from the general public.

Furthermore, that particular customer also redirects his “.us”, “.co.uk” and so on suffixes to his “.com” web site, followed by a “/united-states/” or “/united-kingdom/” subdirectory which is designed to market his products to those customer bases. It works like a charm.

If that customer, which grew quite a lot over the last few years, had not reserved all those variations of its name in the major gTLDs and ccTLDs that matter (according to its own criterias), competitors would probably be cashing in on its marketing efforts, comfortably parked at those very addresses.

Of course, a given company can succeed with only one (1) domain name (it’s been done… a lot) but having a few variations to go along with a “.com” doesn’t cost that much more and provides, among other things, for more room to grow.

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Identify key concepts which can translate into valuable domain names

In case you thought the domain name land grab was (already) over, it’s time to shake out of your relative inertia and jump into any of the countless niches where valuable —and soon to be valuable— key concepts, that are easy to translate into domain names, are just waiting to be discovered.

The task of identifying key concepts that are “domainable”, however, is serious business. Newbies can have fun poking around for good domain name candidates but those who invest the most effort usually end up getting the most valuable ones.

Each domainer seems to have proprietary methods for catching, early on, those key concepts which, according to them, are promised to a bright (and popular) future.

Here are a few ideas to get you going…

  • Monitor the news for novel expressions, including those made up of slightly modified words;
  • Scan specific RSS feeds (which interest you), on a daily basis, for leading edge concepts that few people know about but which sounds like it could be interesting for lots of people (who will -eventually- learn about that specific lingo);
  • Become a statistics afficionado to mathematically identify where the action is happening (from a birds-eye view perspective) and translate that into domain names people will type;
  • Read more government documents which typically hold a wealth of information people will be looking for. Load up on those key concepts, including the acronyms to designate all sorts of things;
  • Listen to what people are saying and even more importantly, how they’re saying it. Languages evolve and very exciting domain name opportunities arise when a language shift is identified early on.

Fortunately, there exists tools to automate at least part of the general search for key concepts that can translate into valuable domain names but whatever a given domainer’s method, the more work is invested, the better the results will be.

Why search for key concepts, anyway?

For starters, all the obvious domain names have been snapped up so the niche, evolving and emerging niches appear to be the natural alternatives where less people tend to venture, hence the abundance of opportunities.

Newbie domainers might be tempted to buy “borderline domains” which closely resemble well-known brands but that’s just a ticket to get lawyer letters. It’s best to stick with the general concept of the public domain where creativity can run wild… without getting cease and desist letters!

At a low $8 a year for a “.com” domain name you feel has potential, it’s relatively easy to recoup your initial (annual) investment and even generate profits by setting up a blog, a wiki, a directory or an e-commerce destination people will appreciate.

Some domainers prefer to get help from DomainSponsor, DotzUp or Parked to monetize their domains but building your own web site is usually (much) better.

Don’t waste your time trying to register the (already registered) domain names everybody wants, become the creative domainer everybody will admire by looking for key concepts outside the beaten paths.

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Uninteresting affiliate programs

If you’re a web publisher, you’re already aware that several online services offer to match you with merchants who wish to commission you for every sale you generate, affiliate-style.

That’s a wonderful proposition since prospecting relevant merchants to advertise on your site can prove somewhat exhausting, especially if you have to keep you web destinations updated, in the meanwhile. So lots of web publishers have turned to Commission Junction (CJ), LinkShare, Performics, ClickBank, Advertising or even Google’s Affiliate Network to dip their toes into these revenue generating systems.

For a few, usually those who operate very niched web sites, the experience has been successful enough to continue using it but judging from the sheer volume of forum posts against these affiliate networks, the pay (if any) is just not worth the trouble.

It’s a well known fact that many affiliate networks have frustrating membership rules that go against the normal business flow of a web publisher like, for instance, the fact that every ad space is handled in a granular fashion instead of dynamic ad zones driven by keywords and other criterias.

Even if that adds a heavy advertising management load on the web publisher’s shoulders, it’s the money (or lack, thereof) that proverbially breaks the camel’s back. I won’t name the merchant but it exemplifies how it shows its level of appreciation for the web publisher’s work. That particular merchant sells monthly memberships ranging from $9,95 to $99,95 a month and the commission to the affiliated web publisher, in the event a sale occurs within 30 days, is a measly 15$… one shot! So there you have it, the merchant can make hundreds of dollars over the course of several months while the affiliate is left with very little to pay his (or her) rent with.

The merchant’s monthly memberships paying “one-time commissions” would probably be that much better if they actually got paid because over and above the fact that these amounts don’t equate the amount of work on the part of the web publisher to “convince” a new customer (to try the merchant’s services), it seems many web publishers never get paid… at all!

The roar in forum threads, for what it’s worth, clearly indicates there’s a very serious problem in the payment of owed commissions. Often times, the affiliate just vanishes without paying anything to anyone or it lacks peer reviews of its statistics engine and ends up not crediting the affiliated sale to the web publisher — and these situations are rampant.

Even industry leaders like Amazon has been reported to not even credit the book sales purchased by the affiliates themselves, using their properly setup affiliate links. Since so many web publishers have experienced this severe technical deficiency with Amazon (assuming it’s not outright bad faith), serious web publishers have completely exited the seemingly flawed program. In this example, Amazon gets paid 100% of the money of the referred sales and affiliates get nothing. And trying to talk with Amazon about it is nothing short of impossible so if web publishers want to know if they’re respected by the giant book selling outfit, well, they pretty much have their answer right there.

If you must absolutely find yourself a merchant to be an affiliate for (whatever the reason), look for fully independent ones, like SecureNetShop that handle everything in-house. By doing so, you cut the “network” intermediary and deal directly with the merchant which yields higher revenues while reducing the hassle.

The majority of web publishers are rapidly coming to the conclusion that the best way to monetize their advertising space is through either intelligently implemented pay-per-click programs, preferably Google’s AdSense or better yet, to sell the space directly to selected advertisers (more work but a much better pay).

The affiliate networks need to reinvent themselves, from a technological standpoint while arranging for the affiliate commissions to be more inline with the efforts needed to produce a flow of qualified customers or else, they risk being permanently labeled as uninteresting.

Tags: affiliates, affiliate networks, affiliated, revenues, money, ads, advertising, ppc, pay-per-click, cpa, cost-per-action, cpl, cost-per-lead, clicks, visitors, qualified customers, buyers, commissions, sales, pay, getting paid, ad codes

The Oracle and BEA middleware

Is Oracle the new middleware champion?Have you been following the Oracle and BEA saga, lately?

It seems many concerned customers are still unsure about what the recent acquisition of BEA by Oracle means to them but until the air is cleared out regarding this major transaction, perhaps a good way to make sense of it all is to take a look at the merged middleware offerings.

For good measure, we’ll also take a peak at service-oriented architecture and developer tools but the bulk of the offerings remain confortably nested in middleware so here’s a look at what you can expect.

Middleware

  • Application server
  • Identity Management
    • Oracle Entitlements Server - Externalizes and centralizes administration of enterprise entitlements, simplifies authorization policies and enforces security decisions;
  • Transaction Processing
    • Oracle Tuxedo - Platform for building large-scale distributed enterprise applications that enable businesses to reduce development and deployment, while preserving existing assets;
  • User Interaction
    • Oracle WebCenter - Open, comprehensive and standards-compliant user interaction product suite providing web integration and interface services for deploying a broad range of solutions;
    • Oracle WebCenter Interaction - Formerly called BEA AquaLogic User Interaction, it’s an integrated, comprehensive collection of components used to create enterprise portals, collaborative communities as well as composite and social applications;
    • Oracle WebCenter Services - Integrated set of products designed for creating dynamic user work environments that take advantage of SOA while enabling business users to bring complete context to their daily work tasks;
    • Oracle WebLogic Portal - Formerly BEA WebLogic Portal, it’s a portal framework for creating highly interactive composite applications in a SOA environment with an integrated set of design-time tools for Java developers.

Service-Oriented Architecture

  • Oracle SOA Suite - Suite of products that help build, deploy and manage deployments ranging from department-level to enterprise-wide systems.
  • Oracle Service Bus - Accelerates configuration and deployment while simplifying management of shared services across the SOA.
  • Oracle BPM - Modeling, implementation, execution and monitoring of end-to-end business processes.

Developer Tools

  • Oracle Workshop - Extends Eclipse and Web Tools Platform with tools for Java, Java EE, Object Relational Mapping, Spring and Web Applications.

Quite a line of products, to say the least!

As you can see, Oracle has been busy integrating the BEA products to provide a unified line. It will take some time to getting use to but over time, customers using these technologies will benefit from enhanced data management technologies.

To make sense of this extensive line of products, Oracle provides documentation, sample code, technical whitepapers, demos and viewlets, internet seminars as well as discussion forums directly relating to Oracle products, on its own web site so you can also review them, if necessary.

This world-class combination of data management products is a fine choice for the Fortune 500 but it could also help you mid-sized or smaller company, just the same.

Tags: oracle, oracle middleware, oracle fusion, oracle databases, oracle development, oracle tools, oracle products, oracle technology, oracle network, soa, developer tools, internet, web, weblogic, portal, web server, webcenter, oracle tuxedo, oracle jrockit, java development, bea, bea aqualogic, jvm, java virtual machine

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