I was asked by a client if he thought getting a .co address was worthwhile. To be honest I hadnt heard of any new TLD that had been created (TLD means Top Level Domain, ie .com, .net plus country codes like .nz)

In fact it is actually the Columbian country code that has been opened up to be registered by anyone.

So what’s the big deal?

In the sales pitch, the people running this launch have this to say: (found as a sponsor post on Read Write Web)

The .co TLD will provide companies with a TLD that represents “company”,
which is a viable and possibly even superior alternative to .com. With
the .com domain inventory nearly exhausted, .co gives businesses the
opportunity to brand themselves online to the fullest extent possible.

LEt’s break that down into it’s parts:

1. .co to represent “company” a viable possibly superior alternative to .com – To be honest, I can’t see much to this, ok it is 1 character shorter and to some areas, like URL shorteners (apparently, Twitter is looking at t.co as an in house URL shortener) it is useful to achieve their requirements. But for the majority, overcoming the habit of the .com is going to be hard to break.
2. With
   the .com domain inventory nearly exhausted, .co gives businesses the
   opportunity to brand themselves online to the fullest extent possible. – Excuse me, the .com space is not nearly exhausted, this is just an excuse for lazy marketers. Agreed, most simple words are already taken, but it is no where near exhausted.
   It also raises the possibility of more domain name disputes as existing brands have to fight again to save their brands form being hijacked.

As I mentioned before, .co is actually the country code for Columbia. I can expect some technical issues with the search-ability of sites with .co as their TLD.

Google bases it’s local and pre-filtered searches based on the TLD and/or the location of the server that a site is hosted on. As an example for a New Zealand company it is important that either the site has a .co.nz domain or is located on a NZ based server. This gives Google an idea as to who to provide results to for this site.

When you have a .com address on a US based server, you need to use Google Webmaster Tools to tell Google that your market is in NZ, if that is the case, as it not necessarily easy to determine this just from your content.

How quickly will this issue be fixed once the .co TLD is released. Similarly, Google will need to be told that your intended market is not Columbia, given that is what .co domain really means.

I believe this is a marketing opportunity, pure and simple. I cannot see any real credible reasons for creating this confusion between the established .com and a new ambiguous player in .co

My advice to people is to ignore .co. If you need a global domain, go for .com. If it is taken, look for creative ways to claim a .com domain, as I expect it will take many years (if at all) for the .co TLD to mean anything to anyone outside Columbia.

Please comment if you have received any correspondence about this, how are your registrars selling it to you?

The internet has been hailed as a wonderful tool for everyone to be able to express themselves, whether that be for good or for bad.

There are plenty of bloggers out there who can write, just as there are plenty who can’t, but technologies ability to enable everyone with an internet connection to have their say has flooded the internet with voice and opinion.

Twitter and other social networks were lauded for enabling protesters to distribute footage and news of the Iranian elections and protests. Historically, these images would have been less likely to make it into the public eye.

While not as serious as protesters being killed during political demonstrations, the XT network has failings of it’s own.

Paul Reynolds hair has been widely acknowledged as the real winner amid the storm of publicity around the repeated failures of the XT network.

Who would have thought Trademe would have been the hub of one of the most intriguing protests of recent times.

Check out this auction of a Lemon (Sold as the XT Network)

Through the questions and answers section at the bottom of the auction, New Zealanders have been able to vent some frustrations at Telecom and their flagship mobile product.

Congratulations must go to the seller, for his efforts in replying to every question (well over 500) to encourage further conversation and comment about the networks failings.

If you have time, read them all (It will take a while), as it is a really funny read.

The auction closes later on today, but for a week (and who knows what will happen once the auction closes), XT was vilified, parodied and generally made fun of by ordinary New Zealanders having their chance to make their point.

Internet Explorer 6 is an old browser, in internet terms it is a dinosaur. Released in 2001, it has been the mainstay of peoples internet experience over the last 9 years.

The masses are often reluctant to change unless something pushes them along.

Firstly, Firefox gave users a good alternative browser to use (Better in my opinion)

Then came regular security issues, each time a further section of the browsing public moving to another browser. Most recently was the security hole that caused a breach in Google and over 30 other companies.

The key thing to note about this last issue was the speed and loudness of some governments urging people to look at other browsers to prevent further problems.

Some say that Firefox has overtaken Internet Explorer as the first choice in some countries.

However, there are still about 20% of the internet population using Internet Explorer 6.

I have now just read of Googles impending chang in in policy to cease support of IE6 from the 1st of March. This specifically deals with Google Docs and Sites, but shows a willingness to help push the remianing 20% into more modern browsers.

I support this as it has the following benefits:

1. Wider support for the new HTML5 (IE6 would not be able to offer this new technology)
2. Improved browser compatibilty with web standards
3. Speed

It would be great if those 20% could not use Google at all, that would really send a message!

If you want to know more you can visit IE6 No More, a site dedicated to helping it disappear as soon as possible

If you use IE6, why don’t you upgrade?

In my last corporate job we had Lotus Notes as our email / group-ware platform.

It was good for some things but was very poor at things that Outlook express did very well. It was really the group-ware and the integration with work-flow systems that really saved it’s bacon.

This was a few years ago now, I haven’t seen the latest versions, but the news that IBM are now pitching iNotes, their online email client, to people disgruntled with the GMail service.

One of the issues pointed out as why IBM are choosing now to make their move is due to outages of the Gmail service.

For those people paying for Gmail as a corporate service, they have more reason to complain (unlike those of us who use it as a free service)

But this quote from an article made me think…hang on a bit

Last month millions of business users could not access email for almost two hours.

Wow, an outage of 2 hours in a month, that’s about 2% of the working month, or in IT terms, an uptime of about 98%

With promised up-times quoted as over 99.5% for many online service this is obviously completely unacceptable! (Tongue firmly in cheek)

No one has mentioned whether this is a normal incident or a one off.

But come on, most computer networks have outages, I know that in that same corporate job, using IBM’s notyes platform we had some very lengthy outages, some even more than 2 hours!

So what did we do? We did something else and waited for the network people to sort it out, which they always did.

Far too much jerking of knees I think.

For something a little different, my current fave Muse have a new album coming out on the 14th of September, what is interesting from a internet / technology point of view is the changing face of promotion of music.

With all of the wailing from the record companies about piracy and copyright infringement, the ways they are promoting upcoming releases is interesting.

As a Muse fan, I have been waiting for the new album. I have scoured Youtube for any footage and there has been some on there, especially the song Uprising. However, as each one is uploaded it is quickly reported for copyright violation and taken down.

So the record companies are actively trying to minimise any exposure of their products before they are ready.

The fact there are so many desperates (Like me!) looking for this, means there is a big market for this kind of pre release information.

So, we are only a few days out, and I read an article on Stuff today that has a Flash player with a preview sample of the songs from the album.

I have embedded the player here, not sure how long the link will work, possibly till the release date.

What it does show is a willingness to embrace the internet as a marketing medium and using it’s power of connectedness to improve the spread of the message.

What do you think of the recording industry (and the movie industry) using the Web and Social Media to market their upcoming products?

There are plenty of domain name scams out there, ones that pretend they are your registrar, but fool you into transferring your domain to them, others that try to get you to register other extensions (See Chinese Domain Name Scams)

This one is a little difference, in that by using words like: Domain, Register, Renewal, Expire they try to look like a domain name renewal notice, but in fact they are selling “Website Search Engine Submission”

At USD $75 per year or a great deal at $295 for 10 years, it is preying on thos ebuisness owners that see the trigger words and reach for the credit card.

Don’t be fooled.

Here is the transcript received by one of my clients:

Attention: Important Notice

  DOMAIN SERVICE NOTICE
 
   Complete and return by fax to:
 1-646-385-7542

 47-47 36th Street #16452
 Long Island City, NY 11101
 United States of America
  ATT: CUSTOMER NAME
  ADMINISTRATIVE CONTACT
  COMPANY NAME
  COMPANY EMAIL
  Address Details Here
  WWW.COMPANYNAME.COM
  

  Domain Name: COMPANYNAME.COM
 Search Engine Submission
 
  Requested Reply
 August 18,2009
   
PART I: REVIEW SOLICITATION
Attn: CUSTOMER NAME
 As a courtesy to domain name holders, we are sending you this notification for your business Domain name search engine registration. This letter is to inform you that it’s time to send in your registration and save.
 
 Failure to complete your Domain name search engine registration by the expiration date may result in cancellation of this offer making it difficult for your customers to locate you on the web.
 
 Privatization allows the consumer a choice when registering. Search engine subscription includes domain name search engine submission. You are under no obligation to pay the amounts stated below unless you accept this offer. Do not discard, this notice is not an invoice it is a courtesy reminder to register your domain name search engine listing so your customers can locate you on the web.
 
 This Notice for: WWW.COMPANYNAME.COM will expire on August 18,2009 Act today!
  ————————————————————————————————————————–
 
    DETAIL OF SERVICE: ANNUAL WEBSITE SEARCH ENGINE SUBMISSION FOR DOMAIN NAME WWW.COMPANYNAME.COM

  Detail of Service:
 SEARCH SUBMISSIONS
 
  Reply by Date:
 8/18/2009
 
  For Domain Name:
  COMPANYNAME.COM
 
 *100% SATISFACTION IS GUARANTEED OR YOUR MONEY BACK
  
  Select Term Your Existing Domain Period Covered Price
   
   COMPANYNAME.COM
  [ ] 1 year 8/18/2009 – 8/18/2010 $75.00
  [ ] 2 year 8/18/2009 – 8/18/2011 $119.00
  [ ] 5 year 8/18/2009 – 8/18/2014 $199.00
  [ ] 10 year -Most Recommended- 8/18/2009 – 8/18/2019 $295.00
       
   Please ensure that your contact information is correct or make the necessary changes.
   
   
   Full Name: Customer Name Email: Customer@companyname.com
 
  Phone: _____________________
   Today’s Date: _____________________ Signature: _____________________
  

 Option 1:
  Payment by Credit Card
 PLEASE COMPLETE AND RETURN BY FAX: 1-646-385-7542
 
 
 Option 2:
  Payment by Check or Money Order
 Print and mail a copy of this order form along with a check or money order to the address listed below:
  
  Domain Services
  47-47 36th Street #16452
  Long Island City, NY 11101
  United States of America
  
  Please do not forget to include a copy of this order form along with your payment!
  
  ————————————————————————————————————————–
 
  By accepting this offer, you agree not to hold DN liable for any part. Note that THIS IS NOT A BILL. This is a solicitation. You are under no obligation to pay the amounts stated unless you accept this offer. The information in this letter contains confidential and/or legally privileged information from the notification processing department of the DN. This information is intended only for the use of the individual(s) named above. There is no pre-existing relationship between DN and the domain mentioned above. This notice is not in any part associated with a continuation of services for domain registration. Search engine submission is an optional service that you can use as a part of your website optimization and alone may not increase the traffic to your site. If you do not wish to receive further updates from DN send an email to wdsrv7861@operamail.com to unsubscribe. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that disclosure, copying, distribution or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents for this letter is strictly prohibited. * 100% satisfaction guaranteed, you may request a refund within 30 days.

There is plenty of clues in here to ring some alarm bells. Any kind of solicitation like this should be viewed sceptically. Some may be OK, but in my experience, they usually are not.

Let me know if you have received the same letter, or other similar ones.

The Movie Studios are hardening their stance on the new revision of the copyright law under discussion.

They are not happy with the most recent revision that includes a judicial review.

Tellingly, one of their complaints is the possibility of the process being bogged down in red tape, therefore making it difficult for them to deal with copyright infringers.

On the other side, the Creative Freedom Foundation are determined that there is “due process” and that the studios will not be able to run the process to the detriment of consumers.

This disagreement is only about the last part of the process, where a repeat infringer who has not been swayed from infringing by warnings, is refered to a copyright Tribunal with the possibility of internet account termination.

I still believe that the warnings are going to deal with most of the problems, as there will be plenty of people who will continue until they are threatened with a warning.

I also think that “due process” is necessary to protect consumers from heavy handed tactics by copyright holders.

It will be interesting to see how this progresses.

Will it be Binghoo or Yabing?

With the announcement that Microsoft and Yahoo collaborating on search for a 10 year license term, one of the key outcomes is that Yahoo search will now be powered by Bing, the new Microsoft “Decision Engine”

After Xtra ditched MSN and went to Yahoo, Microsoft is back in the fold.

Regulatory issues in the US could mean we won’t see “powered by Bing” at the bottom of our Yahoo results for a couple of years.

So what affect will this have on the search market in New Zealand?

Not much.

It is pretty hard to compete with a competitor has over 90% of the market. The only thing I could see is that they might actually make an effort to increase their share. With each owning less than 5% share, it was even more futile. So now they have a chance, albeit a very slim one.

Microsoft will have access to key Yahoo technologies to make Bing better (Can’t see how this is good for Yahoo in the long run, past the 10 year license) and in Steve Ballmer’s words, reported by Danny Sullivan from the press conference.

Burden on Microsoft to deliver the goods and enable Yahoo to be successful

I think the key issue here is that Microsoft and Yahoo have finally decided that they will only be able to compete with Google when they stop fighting amongst themselves and consolidate their effort against a common enemy. Again as reported by Danny Sullivan:

Carol Bartz, Yahoo CEO: it’s hard to be a long term leader with Microsoft and Google keep stealing your employees

So I expect it will be a drawn out process, no surprise launch like Bing a couple of months back, but it will be an uphill battle for both to finally prevail as the No 1 search engine here and internationally.

After reading an article about patch bans in Wanganui and the legal challenge to that ban by members of the Hells Angels, my eyes caught the contextual ads that were being served up.

Now I am not sure how these ads are served, they are not Adwords, or other obvious PPC ads. They seem to be generated by the INL ad bureau.

What caught my attention was that AD/DC was being advertised on a page mentioning Hells Angels. (I have also seen other ads relating to mens issues, Expedia, IRD, NZArmy, Sky TV and others)

Now, upon looking at the code of the page, the Javascript that runs the ads, states that the keywords that are triggering the ads are: (exact content, non capitalisation included)

• Hells Angels
• Wanganui
• gang patch law 

Now with Ad servers I have worked with, advertisers can choose the keywords they want their ads to be triggered by. It is also possible, that they are just on a site wide rotation.

However, it is interesting to see what keywords and what advertisers are appearing for this kind or article.

If the ads are keyword triggered (which makes sense from a targeting point of view, you don’t waste as much money), what was the keyword that worked?

Was the targeting deliberate or just accidental, if it is deliberate, are they aware of what articles their ads are appearing in?

This issue is common in generic news sites, especially when some keywords can be wildly different (Wanganui vs Hells Angels)

I posted about the imminent revised copyright law (Section 92a) being published.

I must say that the process put forward does seem to make sense and the threat of disconnection can only be issued for repeat offenders.

While some are still not happy with this being the ultimate punishment, it will mean that there will not be mass disconnections that some are predicting.

Here are the stages:

1. Complaint made to the ISP of the alleged infringer. ISP notifies the subscriber of the complaint
2. If further infringing occurs a cease and desist order would be sent to the ISP to pass on to the subscriber
3. If there is further infringing, the complainant could apply to the Copyright Tribunal to get the contact details of the subscriber.
   (This can then be used by the rights holder to communicate directly with the subscriber)
4. If this communication is not successful in preventing further infringing, the Copyright Tribunal would convene to hear the case and impose penalties that could include fines or disconnection.

That is a pretty involved process.

Most people who are unwittingly violating copyright, would cease at stage 1, especially if the exact nature of the infringement is spelt out.

For people to get to the latter stages of the process, I would suggest they are either a shared IP with no easily identified source, of someone who does not care about the consequences.

The way the law is used by the right holders will be key as to whether the approach is successful, will we see a mass of complaints about all and sundry sent so the rights holders can assert their influence on the market?

I still think education is important and a agreed set of guidelines are produced to clear up grey areas including Youtube and other sites that can mix legal and illegal items on the same site.

Submissions close at 5pm on Friday 7 August 2009 and may be sent to: copyrightact@med.govt.nz

The Section 92A Review Policy Proposal Document is available at: www.med.govt.nz/section92a