By Cattechie, April 2012
0 Comments
I was reading a report of Paul, a San Francisco-based correspondent who wrote an in depth article on domain names and reselling domains business. First registering the domain and then reselling it, is a big business in cyber space. People register the domain with specific names and then put that on auction for resell. If anybody wants that domain with that specific name then he has to pay the said amount and register that on his or her name. The one who resells makes a profit out of it. You want to register a specific domain name but you find that the domain is already registered with other person's name then you have many options online to buy that domain.
Mann is one of the oldest members of the clubby world of domain speculators, and he's buying up names with random judgement. Once the domain is owned by someone and the period is expired, people buy it , but Mann purchased old as well as new names too which means Dot-com names that aren't registered, even though 100 million+ already are, he buys loads of them and then he sells them for few hundred bucks and sometimes much more than you could expect. This week, in a span that lasted less than 24 hours across Tuesday and Wednesday, Mann snapped up 14,962 domains, 1,822 starting Tuesday evening and the rest on Wednesday. 45 year old Mann is a man to whom no one would describe as modest; he is the one who wants to own the world. He lives in Delaware and is much passionate about his work. He is in this business from the late 1990s. He founded an ISP called 'Internet Interstate', but one day in 1998, much to his surprise, he got a $25,000 offer for a domain he owned, Menus.com. The following day he got a $50,000 offer. There is big money and fun in the domain business. Mann is in news because someone noticed him registering maximum sites in short span, but there are many such people here on cyber space who exactly work on same wavelength and are earning good perks. Mann went on to become one of the most aggressive domain speculators in a world that was and is still largely digital. In the early years, registering good domain names was not difficult and some people made fortune doing just that! But as time went on, it became far more difficult. The shrewdest (or craftiest) of the so-called 'domainers' went to great lengths to bag their URL prey. They wrote scripts to pound on the registrars, working in the dark of night to "catch" names the nanosecond they expired or dropped. The king of the "drop catchers" was a mysterious man named Yun Ye, who built a portfolio he sold to the now-public Marchex in 2005 for $164 million. Some would even sign a deal with small registrars so they could get direct connections to the names that were expiring in effect to buying their way to the front of the line. That's why I documented this piece as, "The man who owns the Internet." Helping to drive it all: Google and Yahoo, which supply the pay-per-click ads that fill so many undeveloped, or "parked," sites that people land on by typing URLs directly into a browsers' address bar.
Mann built up a business called BuyDomains in 2005. He sold to Boston-based Highland Capital for about $80 million. That business is now called 'NameMedia', and it seems to be going healthy, though in 2008 it pulled its planned IPO because of the economic meltdown. One thing that Mann sold to 'NameMedia' was a patent that he was awarded in 2003 for a system he developed to generate domain name recommendations and then register the domains.
In short, Mann came up with his own weapons. He sold his things to NameMedia, of which he still owns a 15 per cent stake. However, Mann was away from this domain for more than 4 years. He worked on his many other ventures, such as SEO.com and a nonprofit called Grassroots.org. But as soon as he could, he jumped back in. That was about two years ago and since then he has been buying an average of 300 names a day and selling them through his company, DomainMarket.com. He said that this business brings in about $400,000 a month. However he said, since last couple of months situation hasn't been favourable regarding his business because, he was concentrating on other business but still he managed to keep buying domains as his weekend shopping spree!
Using human brain and software equally, he starts with the tool which he has made 'in-house' which runs on an intelligent algorithm. This algorithm sifts through Google-friendly keywords, looks at traffic potential, filters out the trademark violators and then ranks and scores possible names. Further, Mann uses a filter, but he is the world's most efficient human filter for this sort of thing, of reading the huge list of domains at super speed and then, instructs his software to go to his first level reseller and keep buying the ones which he finalised.
Mann does not have his own reseller account but, uses upstream providers for buying domain names, just like GoDaddy which also deals in 'deals of domain' names. He registers his names through GoDaddy and several others. The cost of his two-day gamble is about $100,000. Also, these are not the super elite domain names like Sex.com which sold for a fortune whose part owner was also Mann for a while though. They are niche names like CeoHealthClub.com, ChineseFoodCatering.com, BaptistChurchCamp.com and DrugDevelopers.com, names that he's confident about and knows that he can sell for a decent profit. That's astonishing confidence in a market which is almost impossible to predict. However, the value of names collapsed with the economy a few years ago, and demand dried up for all but the best names! Plenty of new companies are glad to start their businesses with .CO or .ME names, or they would simply use 'different' spellings so as not to pay the crazy prices demanded by greedy domainers, which is why Flickr and Digg are spelled the way they are. He invests $100,000 and expects a return on it. But the question here is, if he bought up domain names of trademarks, it should be illegal. That it isn't illegal is an example of what is wrong with the country? Since when is your name, your business name, etc. a commodity to be traded? In most other forms of business, they are protected. Reselling domain names should be illegal? It is a paradox to conclude and the wise one said, if there is a paradox in something either it doesn't exist or it shouldn't.
Tags: Names : Domain : Business : Buying : People : Called : Domains : World : Years : Register : Namemedia : Illegal : Reselling : Registering : Million : Specific : Domain Names :
Mann is one of the oldest members of the clubby world of domain speculators, and he's buying up names with random judgement. Once the domain is owned by someone and the period is expired, people buy it , but Mann purchased old as well as new names too which means Dot-com names that aren't registered, even though 100 million+ already are, he buys loads of them and then he sells them for few hundred bucks and sometimes much more than you could expect. This week, in a span that lasted less than 24 hours across Tuesday and Wednesday, Mann snapped up 14,962 domains, 1,822 starting Tuesday evening and the rest on Wednesday. 45 year old Mann is a man to whom no one would describe as modest; he is the one who wants to own the world. He lives in Delaware and is much passionate about his work. He is in this business from the late 1990s. He founded an ISP called 'Internet Interstate', but one day in 1998, much to his surprise, he got a $25,000 offer for a domain he owned, Menus.com. The following day he got a $50,000 offer. There is big money and fun in the domain business. Mann is in news because someone noticed him registering maximum sites in short span, but there are many such people here on cyber space who exactly work on same wavelength and are earning good perks. Mann went on to become one of the most aggressive domain speculators in a world that was and is still largely digital. In the early years, registering good domain names was not difficult and some people made fortune doing just that! But as time went on, it became far more difficult. The shrewdest (or craftiest) of the so-called 'domainers' went to great lengths to bag their URL prey. They wrote scripts to pound on the registrars, working in the dark of night to "catch" names the nanosecond they expired or dropped. The king of the "drop catchers" was a mysterious man named Yun Ye, who built a portfolio he sold to the now-public Marchex in 2005 for $164 million. Some would even sign a deal with small registrars so they could get direct connections to the names that were expiring in effect to buying their way to the front of the line. That's why I documented this piece as, "The man who owns the Internet." Helping to drive it all: Google and Yahoo, which supply the pay-per-click ads that fill so many undeveloped, or "parked," sites that people land on by typing URLs directly into a browsers' address bar.
Mann built up a business called BuyDomains in 2005. He sold to Boston-based Highland Capital for about $80 million. That business is now called 'NameMedia', and it seems to be going healthy, though in 2008 it pulled its planned IPO because of the economic meltdown. One thing that Mann sold to 'NameMedia' was a patent that he was awarded in 2003 for a system he developed to generate domain name recommendations and then register the domains.
In short, Mann came up with his own weapons. He sold his things to NameMedia, of which he still owns a 15 per cent stake. However, Mann was away from this domain for more than 4 years. He worked on his many other ventures, such as SEO.com and a nonprofit called Grassroots.org. But as soon as he could, he jumped back in. That was about two years ago and since then he has been buying an average of 300 names a day and selling them through his company, DomainMarket.com. He said that this business brings in about $400,000 a month. However he said, since last couple of months situation hasn't been favourable regarding his business because, he was concentrating on other business but still he managed to keep buying domains as his weekend shopping spree!
Using human brain and software equally, he starts with the tool which he has made 'in-house' which runs on an intelligent algorithm. This algorithm sifts through Google-friendly keywords, looks at traffic potential, filters out the trademark violators and then ranks and scores possible names. Further, Mann uses a filter, but he is the world's most efficient human filter for this sort of thing, of reading the huge list of domains at super speed and then, instructs his software to go to his first level reseller and keep buying the ones which he finalised.
Mann does not have his own reseller account but, uses upstream providers for buying domain names, just like GoDaddy which also deals in 'deals of domain' names. He registers his names through GoDaddy and several others. The cost of his two-day gamble is about $100,000. Also, these are not the super elite domain names like Sex.com which sold for a fortune whose part owner was also Mann for a while though. They are niche names like CeoHealthClub.com, ChineseFoodCatering.com, BaptistChurchCamp.com and DrugDevelopers.com, names that he's confident about and knows that he can sell for a decent profit. That's astonishing confidence in a market which is almost impossible to predict. However, the value of names collapsed with the economy a few years ago, and demand dried up for all but the best names! Plenty of new companies are glad to start their businesses with .CO or .ME names, or they would simply use 'different' spellings so as not to pay the crazy prices demanded by greedy domainers, which is why Flickr and Digg are spelled the way they are. He invests $100,000 and expects a return on it. But the question here is, if he bought up domain names of trademarks, it should be illegal. That it isn't illegal is an example of what is wrong with the country? Since when is your name, your business name, etc. a commodity to be traded? In most other forms of business, they are protected. Reselling domain names should be illegal? It is a paradox to conclude and the wise one said, if there is a paradox in something either it doesn't exist or it shouldn't.
Tags: Names : Domain : Business : Buying : People : Called : Domains : World : Years : Register : Namemedia : Illegal : Reselling : Registering : Million : Specific : Domain Names :
By Hackers5 Bureau, April 2012
0 Comments
Wikipedia entries full of factual errors, says researcher
Sixty percent of Wikipedia articles about companies contain factual errors, according to a new research, which warned people not to rely on the website for accurate and balanced information.
"It does not surprise me that so many Wikipedia entries contain factual errors," said Marcia W. DiStaso, assistant professor of public relations at Penn State University, who conducted the research.
"A high amount of factual errors doesn't work for anyone, especially the public, which relies on Wikipedia for accurate, balanced information," says DiStaso.
DiStaso surveyed 1,284 professionals from Public Relations Society of America, the International Association of Business Communicators, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, the Institute for Public Relations and the National Investor Relations Institute to assess their working relationship with Wikipedia, the Public Relations Journal reports.
Results of the survey indicate a gap exists between public relations professionals and Wikipedia concerning the proper protocol for editing entries, according to a Penn statement.
When respondents attempted to engage editors through Wikipedia's "Talk" pages to request corrections of facts in entries, 40 percent said it took "days" to receive a response, 12 percent indicated "weeks," while 24 percent never received any type of response.
According to Wikipedia, its standard response time to requests for corrections is between two and five days.
Only 35 percent of respondents were able to engage with Wikipedia, either by using its "Talk" pages to converse with editors or through direct editing of a client's entry.
Respondents indicated this figure is low partly because some fear media backlash over making edits to clients' entries. Respondents also expressed a certain level of uncertainty regarding how to properly edit Wikipedia entries.
Of those who were familiar with the process of editing Wikipedia entries, 23 percent said making changes was "near impossible". Twenty-nine percent said their interactions with Wikipedia editors were "never productive".
"What is surprising, however, is that 25 percent of survey respondents indicated they are not familiar with the Wikipedia articles for their company or clients. At some point most, if not all, companies will determine they need to change something in their Wikipedia entries," said DiStaso.
Without clear, consistent rules from Wikipedia regarding how factual corrections can be made, this will be a very difficult learning process for public relations professionals.
Tags: Wikipedia : Entries : Percent : Relations : Public : Respondents : Factual : Errors : Distaso : Response : Indicated : Corrections : Editing : Professionals : According : Editors : Public Relations : Wikipedia Entries : Factual Errors :
Sixty percent of Wikipedia articles about companies contain factual errors, according to a new research, which warned people not to rely on the website for accurate and balanced information.
"It does not surprise me that so many Wikipedia entries contain factual errors," said Marcia W. DiStaso, assistant professor of public relations at Penn State University, who conducted the research.
"A high amount of factual errors doesn't work for anyone, especially the public, which relies on Wikipedia for accurate, balanced information," says DiStaso.
DiStaso surveyed 1,284 professionals from Public Relations Society of America, the International Association of Business Communicators, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, the Institute for Public Relations and the National Investor Relations Institute to assess their working relationship with Wikipedia, the Public Relations Journal reports.
Results of the survey indicate a gap exists between public relations professionals and Wikipedia concerning the proper protocol for editing entries, according to a Penn statement.
When respondents attempted to engage editors through Wikipedia's "Talk" pages to request corrections of facts in entries, 40 percent said it took "days" to receive a response, 12 percent indicated "weeks," while 24 percent never received any type of response.
According to Wikipedia, its standard response time to requests for corrections is between two and five days.
Only 35 percent of respondents were able to engage with Wikipedia, either by using its "Talk" pages to converse with editors or through direct editing of a client's entry.
Respondents indicated this figure is low partly because some fear media backlash over making edits to clients' entries. Respondents also expressed a certain level of uncertainty regarding how to properly edit Wikipedia entries.
Of those who were familiar with the process of editing Wikipedia entries, 23 percent said making changes was "near impossible". Twenty-nine percent said their interactions with Wikipedia editors were "never productive".
"What is surprising, however, is that 25 percent of survey respondents indicated they are not familiar with the Wikipedia articles for their company or clients. At some point most, if not all, companies will determine they need to change something in their Wikipedia entries," said DiStaso.
Without clear, consistent rules from Wikipedia regarding how factual corrections can be made, this will be a very difficult learning process for public relations professionals.
Tags: Wikipedia : Entries : Percent : Relations : Public : Respondents : Factual : Errors : Distaso : Response : Indicated : Corrections : Editing : Professionals : According : Editors : Public Relations : Wikipedia Entries : Factual Errors :
By Hackers5 Bureau, April 2012
0 Comments
Twitter has announced plans to put its patents in the control of the engineers and designers behind the innovations.
It said the move would mean it could only launch offensive intellectual property lawsuits with their permission.
It added that the action would still apply to staff who left the company.
Twitter suggested that other companies might want to implement a similar policy, but one lawyer said shareholders would resist the move.
"Typically, engineers and designers sign an agreement with their company that irrevocably gives that company any patents filed related to the employee's work," Twitter's vice-president of engineering Adam Messinger wrote in a blog.
"The company then has control over the patents and can use them however they want, which may include selling them to others.
"With the IPA (Innovator's Patent Agreement) employees can be assured that their patents will only be used as a shield rather than as a weapon."
Legal clashes
The IPA states that Twitter reserves the right to use the patents, without permission, for "defensive purposes".
It adds the caveat that it can also make use of the properties if the target has been involved in an intellectual property lawsuit against the service, its users or affiliates over the previous decade.
The announcement comes in the midst of a legal battle between Facebook and Yahoo.
On 12 March Yahoo sued the social network claiming it had infringed 10 of its patents saying "Facebook's entire social network model" was based on its technologies.
Three weeks later Mark Zuckerberg's firm counter-sued claiming the web portal violated its patents covering photo tagging, advertising and online recommendation.
'Wailing alarm'
A subsequent report by the financial analysis firm M-Cam highlighted the scope for further litigation noting that more than 30,000 patents have been filed relating to the key aspects of social networking, e-commerce and data management.
"Over $83bn [£52bn] is being spent each year against patent trolls alone, and that number does not even count the amount spent when corporations battle each other," it said.
"At what point does the fact that 30,000 patents describing the same technology sound less like an abstract farce and more like a wailing alarm?"
However, at a time when Google, Microsoft and Intel - among others - are paying huge sums to buy others' intellectual property rights, one UK-based lawyer suggested that Twitter would find it hard to find support for its scheme amongst the biggest patent holders.
"People are going to have difficulty getting value out of a patent portfolio that they might want to transfer if there are restrictions about how those patents can be subsequently be used," said Andrew Alton, from Urquhart-Dykes & Lord.
"For example it would be hard for a big commercial company to operate if it were tied down by the personal feelings of an employee from the former patent holder."
Another patent lawyer, who asked not to be named as his company represents one of the major owners of social network patents, also expressed concern.
"It would drive a coach and horses through all norms of corporate decision making and responsibility, and could lead to decision paralysis if there are hold-out inventors," he said.
"Shareholders won't like it, and if these rights are contractually enforceable then it would significantly deter those wanting to buy or licence the underlying patents or business."
Tags: Patents : Patent : Company : Twitter : Social : Network : Intellectual : Others : Lawyer : Property : Social Network : Intellectual Property :
It said the move would mean it could only launch offensive intellectual property lawsuits with their permission.
It added that the action would still apply to staff who left the company.
Twitter suggested that other companies might want to implement a similar policy, but one lawyer said shareholders would resist the move.
"Typically, engineers and designers sign an agreement with their company that irrevocably gives that company any patents filed related to the employee's work," Twitter's vice-president of engineering Adam Messinger wrote in a blog.
"The company then has control over the patents and can use them however they want, which may include selling them to others.
"With the IPA (Innovator's Patent Agreement) employees can be assured that their patents will only be used as a shield rather than as a weapon."
Legal clashes
The IPA states that Twitter reserves the right to use the patents, without permission, for "defensive purposes".
It adds the caveat that it can also make use of the properties if the target has been involved in an intellectual property lawsuit against the service, its users or affiliates over the previous decade.
The announcement comes in the midst of a legal battle between Facebook and Yahoo.
On 12 March Yahoo sued the social network claiming it had infringed 10 of its patents saying "Facebook's entire social network model" was based on its technologies.
Three weeks later Mark Zuckerberg's firm counter-sued claiming the web portal violated its patents covering photo tagging, advertising and online recommendation.
'Wailing alarm'
A subsequent report by the financial analysis firm M-Cam highlighted the scope for further litigation noting that more than 30,000 patents have been filed relating to the key aspects of social networking, e-commerce and data management.
"Over $83bn [£52bn] is being spent each year against patent trolls alone, and that number does not even count the amount spent when corporations battle each other," it said.
"At what point does the fact that 30,000 patents describing the same technology sound less like an abstract farce and more like a wailing alarm?"
However, at a time when Google, Microsoft and Intel - among others - are paying huge sums to buy others' intellectual property rights, one UK-based lawyer suggested that Twitter would find it hard to find support for its scheme amongst the biggest patent holders.
"People are going to have difficulty getting value out of a patent portfolio that they might want to transfer if there are restrictions about how those patents can be subsequently be used," said Andrew Alton, from Urquhart-Dykes & Lord.
"For example it would be hard for a big commercial company to operate if it were tied down by the personal feelings of an employee from the former patent holder."
Another patent lawyer, who asked not to be named as his company represents one of the major owners of social network patents, also expressed concern.
"It would drive a coach and horses through all norms of corporate decision making and responsibility, and could lead to decision paralysis if there are hold-out inventors," he said.
"Shareholders won't like it, and if these rights are contractually enforceable then it would significantly deter those wanting to buy or licence the underlying patents or business."
Tags: Patents : Patent : Company : Twitter : Social : Network : Intellectual : Others : Lawyer : Property : Social Network : Intellectual Property :
